After much public outcry, the Bethel City Council is preparing to act on an ordinance that would clarify Bethel’s off-road vehicle laws and restore the authority of police to issue - or not issue - citations for driving on city roads.
Community members lined up to voice grievances and speak in favor of quickly finding a solution to the current ATV situation. Former Association of Village Council Presidents head Myron Naneng was among them.
“If you haven’t lived in a village, or you have not lived out here in rural Alaska, you really don’t understand that our people rely on these modes of transportation to gather some of their foods," Naneng said.
Naneng has made few public appearances since leaving AVCP, but this issue was enough to prompt him to join the outcry over a crackdown on ATVs initiated through a City Council directive to deal with what Naneng admitted had become a problem.
“Sometimes at night I can’t stand the noise of the snowmachines during the winter time, or four-wheelers during the summertime that make a lot of noise," Naneng said.
Bethel’s Public Safety and Transportation Commission drafted the law, which will be due for action at the next meeting.
This was the first meeting for the two newest council members, Norman Ayagalria, and Fred Watson. Watson was already making it clear at his first meeting that he supports ATV use.
“I’m not just looking at Bethel. I’m looking at five or six surrounding villages that are coming to Bethel," said Watson.
Watson disagreed with regulation of ATVs at almost every turn, including helmet rules for minors, in stark contrast to departed council members Zach Fansler and Mary Weiss.
Still, a move later in the meeting to kill the earlier enforcement request was shot down in a 3-4 vote. Council member Leif Albertson says the directive to increase police enforcement was a reasonable one.
“We were in a situation where the best information we had was that citations weren’t being issued, and many of us have heard complaints, and what we asked for in that action memorandum was increased enforcement," said Albertson.
According to city documents, Bethel Police Department has given three citations in 2016 to ATV and snowmachine users. One for failure to stop at a stop sign, another for driving without a valid license, and the third for not having insurance. At the last meeting, Police Chief Andre Achee remembered it as more than that:
“I’ve pulled over at least a dozen in the last quarter, and cited at least four of them," Achee said.
At the time, Achee told the council that their order would leave him no choice but to order his officers to ticket; they still voted yes.
“I will direct my officers is basically [to] take away the discretion aspect because it is unlawful to drive any off road vehicle on the roadway," Achee said.
However, Bethel’s attorney disagrees with this interpretation of the law, saying that neither Bethel’s municipal code nor Alaska law stop ATVs from driving on city roads. The state law applies only to state highways.
Mayor Rick Robb says that the introduction of the Public Safety and Transportation Commission's ordinance seeks to define what is, at the moment, a very gray area.
Correction: In an earlier version of this story we referred to Myron Naneng as former vice president of AVCP, when he was actually the former president. This change has been made.