Mid-Hillside Community Council Minutes April 2001

Mid-Hillside and Hillside East Community Councils

Meeting Minutes

Meeting November 15, 2001

Forthcoming!

The following is a related article from the Anchorage Daily News

Outlaw riders rile residents
SNOWMOBILES: Riding in town illegal, but folks say they're everywhere.
By Peter Porco Anchorage Daily News
(Published: December 23, 2001)

Eric Menck recently installed the third fence in as many years trying to block a favored route that outlaw snowmachiners follow past his house in South Anchorage. The riders, he said, ripped out the previous fences and "No trespassing" signs.

Menck, 39, lives in a basement apartment on Campbell Creek, where the stream takes a short meander from Campbell Lake to the ocean. On the Cook Inlet shore is the inviting expanse of the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge.

There are signs proclaiming "No off-road vehicles or snowmachines." The snowmachines pass beneath the signs practically every day, Menck said.

City law forbids riding anywhere in town. But in nearly every corner of the city, Anchorage residents report snowmachiners buzzing down the streets, through back yards, along utility rights of way, in parks and gravel pits.

Police get numerous calls about the riders whenever the snow starts falling, they say. Now and then, they'll even catch someone. Under the current policy of leaving each case to the officer's discretion, punishment generally amounts to a warning.

"The folks who lived here before me called and called (police) but could get nowhere," Menck said.

"Most of us don't bother calling the police because they're not going to do anything," said Ben Arians, a high school ski coach who saw two snowmachiners riding on the groomed ski trails of Kincaid Park on the evening of Dec. 12.

"I've told guys in the Hillside area that we need to show a little less leniency," said Sgt. Mark Thelen, head of a police snowmobile unit that usually spends its snow riding time on search-and-rescue missions.

Thelen, other local officials and a member of a statewide snowmobile club attended a Hillside meeting last month to hear residents' concerns that a rider might one day crash into someone. Such collisions have killed two Mat-Su pedestrians in recent years.

"It's a tremendous public safety issue," said Jeff Clarke, vice president of the Mid-Hillside Community Council, which sponsored the meeting. "It's going to be some innocent person, a person walking or a child sledding."

In the heart of Kincaid on the evening of Nov. 29, skier Mark Worcester heard the whine of a snowmachine as he neared a blind intersection.

He stopped short, and was glad he did, because the man passed by at about 20 mph, Worcester said. Sharing the ski-only trails that night were dozens of children in the Junior Nordic Ski Program.

"People just aren't expecting it, to see it in the city parks," Worcester said. "It was just shocking."

Menck said he saw a mother and child almost fall into the creek last spring when they jumped to miss a snowmachine. Then at the beginning of this month, two teenage girls put a snowmachine right into the creek 200 yards outside Menck's window. They jumped off just before it crashed through the ice.

Paramedics and police found the girls "crying but unhurt," the Fire Department said. But they were never cited, nor was a report written up.

That's because they were reported to have had the permission of the owner of the property where the snowmachine went over the bank, police Sgt. Walt Gilmour said.

"The owner of the property was standing right there and we had those discussions determining lawfulness of what they were doing, and the owner had no problem with it," Gilmour said.

A citation for illegal riding carries a $100 fine and mandatory impoundment of the vehicle. But police seldom issue citations.

"I know we give lots of warnings and don't give citations and don't impound the machine," Sgt. Thelen said.

First-time offenders who do not flee when approached and who are apparently unaware of the law will usually be treated lightly.

"If we follow the tracks to their home, if we have someone to contact, we'll go explain the laws to them," Thelen said. "We'll give them the benefit of the doubt."

On Nov. 30, two boys thought to be about 13 or 14 were reported riding a single snowmachine on the shoulder of Kincaid Park Road and were later confronted by police. But they were not cited, officer Dawn Herod said, because it was unclear anyone had actually seen the boys on the move.

The boys told Herod what earlier they had told Steve Schmitt, the Anchorage skier who had reported them to the police. One of the youths said his mother had dropped them off to ride there.

Busting outlaw riders is not a high priority in any case, police admitted. And what patrol officer is going to catch a machine that can zip off road at 40 mph and faster?

"We get calls all the time, but we're driving two-wheel-drive cars," said officer Dave Rochford. "There's no way we can chase a snowmobiler. They'll get on a trail and they're gone."

Menck, Clarke and other people acknowledge that Anchorage police probably already have all the crime they can handle. But city residents should still put pressure on them, Clarke said.

"The squeaky wheel will get the grease from an APD perspective," he said.

Clarke favors a broad educational effort targeting "adolescent white males between the ages of 17 and 21," who do about 90 percent of the outlaw riding, he said. If residents feel safe doing so, they should confront such riders and tell them it's illegal, he said.

Specific areas of Chugach State Park are open to riding.

Jerry Lewanski, Chugach chief ranger and one of the people at the Hillside meeting, believes a crackdown is the only way to deal with outlaws.

"Over the years we've put a lot of pressure on people who ride illegally in the park," Lewanski said. "We'll follow tracks back to the residence, issue some pretty hefty ($200) fines, impound, whatever it takes."

The park rangers issue 20 to 100 citations a year, depending on the amount of snow, he said. So far this year the park has issued a dozen.

"We don't tolerate it at all (because it gives) ammunition to the anti-snowmobile people," Lewanski said. "So we have a decent truce in the park between different factions."

Reporter Peter Porco can be reached at and at 907 257-4582.