The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly met Tuesday night to pass a resolution that would encourage Alaska’s representatives and the governor to fully fund the state’s budget for abandoned vehicle removal within the Kenai Peninsula Borough.
Resolution 2021-015 specifically addresses junk and abandoned vehicles left along borough rights of way, citing the ongoing struggle with junk and abandoned vehicles being left within rights-of-way rather than being brought to the borough-owned landfill or one of several other locations that accepts vehicles free of charge. The Assembly states that the abundance of junk and abandoned vehicles across the Kenai Peninsula created a public nuisance, impeded road maintenance and cause significant road hazards, especially during the winter.
Borough Assembly Vice President Brent Johnson, “The state of Alaska has funds for cleaning up the vehicles that get abandoned along state highways. There’s some numerous funds and that those funds have run out. The Borough has been put in a tough position because people, residents of the borough, they call assembly members, they call the roads department and they say ‘we’ve got these junk vehicles along the right-of-way, we’d like them cleaned up’. We asked the state, the state’s out of money. What this resolution does is it asks the State to fund that to take care of it. It’s their responsibility.”
The Assembly says that abandoned vehicles attract vandalism, are used for drug drops, accumulate trash and debris, and sometimes become shelters for drug users and/or homeless individuals. They also state that they contain hazardous substances such as fuel, coolant and other fluids that leak onto the right-of-way and into the water table, polluting the surrounding environment causing risk to health and safety of people and animals.
One of the co-sponsors, Assemblyman Tyson Cox, explains the reason behind the resolution, “It came forward because we had some public interest in looking into at what we could do on the public roadways that were maintained by the state with abandoned vehicles. I started making some calls. I first called our road department and he informed me that the state does have a budget for this but it has no money in it. Then I proceeded to call some other folks, someone in DOT, they gave me the same information that yes they do have a budget for it but it has zero dollars. Then I proceeded to call and got a hold of our Senate President, Mr. Micciche, and I suggested that we might do this and he thought it was a great idea and that it would be something to put forward at this time because it is pretty timely with budget starting.”
A copy of the resolution was sent to all Kenai Peninsula City Councils for the cities located along the state highways, Sen. Peter Micciche, Sen. Gary Stevens, Rep. Ben Carpenter, Rep. Sarah Vance, Rep. Ron Gilham, Rep. Louise Stutes and Gov. Mike Dunleavy.