Borough may hire tow company to collect languishing vehicles

The police department is putting together a plan to hire a tow truck company from Petersburg to come over in the spring and haul to the borough's impound yard vehicles that have been abandoned for too long in port and harbor parking lots, and elsewhere throughout town.

The vehicles are piled up in parking lots at Heritage Harbor, Shoemaker Bay and in the right of way on Zimovia Highway, making it difficult for snowplows to do their work.

Others are leaning against derelict boats next to a bed-and-breakfast, or right next to Irene Ingle Public Library, presenting an eyesore for people who live here and visitors.

Police Chief Tom Radke said it's a matter of civic pride as well as safety, pointing out a clunker left in the grass off a gravel road that goes down to Petroglyph Beach.

Kids could get injured, or worse, playing on and in abandoned vehicles. "I don't want to see anyone get hurt over things that could have been prevented," Radke said.

He understands it's an uncomfortable topic. Some folks are living paycheck-to-paycheck, and setting the money aside to haul off a junker just may be low on their priority list.

"When we enforce the rules, we get complaints like, 'Oh, that was my cousin's (vehicle),'" Radke said. But the problem is getting out of control and the complaints about vehicles are piling up, he said.

The chief said things cost more in rural Alaska, and the people who kept their old vehicles and boats laying around probably had good intentions. It's a small town, and confrontation affects relationships, he said. Neighbors don't want to tell neighbors to clean up their property.

Borough Manager Jeff Good said they're trying to get a tow company over from Petersburg to spend a day or two in Wrangell for a spring cleanup. Public works cleared out the impound lot in the fall, so there will be somewhere to put the vehicles. The borough needs to find out when a tow truck company will be available, and how much it will cost.

And while the cleanup may be in the spring, they won't spring this on people.

"We'll make sure we give plenty of notice to the parties involved," Good said. "If we know who the owner is, we'll try to work with them to take care of the vehicles. At some point we have to take care of them."

Public Works Director Tom Wetor said his department has in the past pitched in because there is no tow truck option on the island.

"It's a hard business to maintain, primarily because of the insurance," Wetor said. "People here have tried. Insurance for a tow truck company costs a fortune. It's astronomical. If you're not consistently running it, it's not enough of a need to have someone here all the time."

And then there is the simmering tension of being the person in town who towed your cousin's rig.

"It would probably be better to get someone from out of town," Wetor said.

Radke said Wrangell lacks an enforcement officer whose sole purpose is to drive around and enforce municipal code. "It's unpopular, it's not comfortable to tell people they have junk in their yard."

He said the police department shouldn't have to get to the point of strict, draconian measures, but a lot of cities have done so, because people let things fall by the wayside without consequences. And that's not what he envisions for Wrangell, or what getting a tow truck is about. "It's just about cleaning things up," he said.

If an owner can't be found, the vehicles will likely remain impounded until another sweep of the impound lot to make more space available, because the city and borough "would have to pay to have it shipped for scrap," Borough Clerk Kim Lane said. "We do not collect revenue for that."

The borough has never sold an impounded vehicle, she said.