The Haines Borough Assembly last week took a mid-meeting field trip to a west side trailer park in an attempt to settle a dispute between borough staff and the park owners. In the process, they stumbled into some larger issues – including problems with solid waste management.
Eagles Nest owners Shane and Janis Horton appealed a May 6 order by borough staff to clean up “excessive trash” surrounding two trailers on the property, near 1 Mile Haines Highway. Staff ordered removal of the trash no later than May 16.
Photographs taken by staff on July 9 showed “no effort had been made to correct the violation despite the (Horton’s) specific request for more time in order to correct the violation,” borough manager David Sosa said. Consequently, Sosa recommended the assembly uphold the original enforcement order and fine the Hortons, though an amount hadn’t been specified.
At last week’s assembly meeting, Shane Horton argued “nearly all of the garbage” had been removed from the property, and the situation had been “largely resolved” since staff took the photos on Friday. Sosa suggested traveling out to the trailer park so assembly members could look for themselves, and the group agreed.
On returning, assembly member Ron Jackson agreed with Sosa that there had been “no significant change” to the public nuisance issue of the trash and garbage surrounding the property, and assembly member Diana Lapham agreed that the situation posed a bear attraction nuisance.
Despite the apparent support for upholding the manager’s decision, assembly member Mike Case moved to postpone the decision until the July 28 assembly meeting, “just so that we get two weeks to do something and see what can be done.”
“Having had renter litter problems myself (in Anchorage) in the past, I tend to have a little more compassion for (the Hortons’) problem,” Case said in an interview after the meeting.
The assembly voted 4-1 to postpone the issue, with Jackson opposed.
The matter touched on larger issues, including the cost of waste disposal, the plight of low-income residents, and whether property owners like the Hortons should be held liable for the actions of a tenant.
Janis Horton was confused as to why she and her husband were being held responsible. “Maybe (the tenants) would take a more positive approach if they had a legal court summons regarding the matter. Forcing me to clean up the mess created by someone else only enforces the notion that they not clean up their own mess because someone else will do it. If this notion were to catch on with all the trailer park tenants, imagine what would happen,” Horton said.
Shane Horton agreed, saying the borough wasn’t going to get at the real problem by fining the landowner.
“If you issue a citation for littering or for garbage piling up to the person who is actually piling up the garbage, you might be able to get somewhere on it. By issuing it to me, all I can do is say, ‘Well, I’m going to charge you to clean up this mess that you’ve made, and add that to the thousands of dollars you already owe me in backed rent and city sewer and water (bills) that I’ve already had to pay.’ And they don’t care.”
Assembly member Dave Berry said he understood the situation the Hortons are in, as far as it being very difficult to evict and getting stuck with the financial repercussions of a delinquent tenant.
“The Hortons’ hands are tied. I have been through the eviction process. It’s pretty close to impossible. I feel for the people who live there, because they are low income and I have dealt with low-income people for the last 25 years and I know some of the problems they go through. But at the same time, that’s not an excuse. We have to somehow let the tenants know, ‘Hey, play right.’ I don’t think it should all fall on the Hortons’ shoulders.”
The question of waste management costs also arose. “Garbage is really expensive around here,” Shane Horton said. “I spend a lot of money hauling other peoples’ garbage away. And I see truckloads of garbage go up the highway almost daily. They go up and just come back empty. And that stuff is going to come back to get us some time.”
During the field trip, some assembly members also peered into the woods near the trailer park, where garbage and discarded items, including an old sink and a car hood, were scattered.
At the end of the meeting, former assembly member Debra Schnabel asked the assembly to revisit the issue of universal garbage service. “It came to mind again tonight when we were looking at that issue. It’s something that I hope we bring back to talk about,” Schnabel said.
In September 2014, Schnabel drafted a solid waste management ordinance for consideration by the borough’s Commerce Committee. The draft ordinance has since dropped off the radar.