Borough Staff Explains Fate of the Junk Car Lottery

An abandoned truck in Kodiak. Photo courtesy of the Kodiak Island Borough

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

The Kodiak Island Borough Assembly conducted a lengthy discussion on the issue of junk cars last week at its work session.

Community Development director Sara Mason said the borough used to hold a lottery to remove people’s abandoned cars from their properties.

She said the borough hasn’t offered that lottery for the last two years.

“As the budget discussions for the FY17 budget were happening, the direction that my predecessor got and that his manager got was to just not spend money anytime we didn’t need to spend money, so the lottery didn’t happen that year because they were told to save as much money as they could that was coming out of the general fund.”

Mason said she’s gotten a lot of calls about the program.

Assemblyman Matt Van Deale asked what it would take to bring the lottery back, and Mason said they could designate some part of the junk vehicle program funds to it.

“There’s a chance that if people know that the spring lottery is going to happen, maybe we wouldn’t find quite as many random vehicles throughout the year abandoned on borough roadways. Or state roadways for that matter.”

Assembly members brainstormed some solutions to the cars left along state roads, which the borough doesn’t have jurisdiction over. Assemblyman Kyle Crow suggested the assembly write to the state, and Assemblyman Larry LeDoux added that often the state does respond to complaints from the public.

The next time the assembly will convene will be for a regular meeting Thursday. That’ll begin at 6:30 p.m. in the assembly chambers and will be aired live here on KMXT.

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