KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
Kayla Desroches/KMXT
Jackson Mobile Home Park residents have been asking the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly for help since learning about the park’s upcoming closure, but it’s becoming clear that the assembly’s options are limited at this late date. That’s according to Bill Roberts, who filled in for the borough manager at the assembly’s work session Thursday night.
Roberts said he checked in with the new owner of Jackson Mobile Home Park for an update on the disposition of some of the structures there.
“He said he had destroyed one unit as of Tuesday, this was. I checked with the building department. Only one permit was issued to move a mobile home from Jackson’s to an existing space in Rasmussen’s,” Roberts said. “The other thing that Kirk Rasmussen immediately got on it to get a conditional use permit to expand his park 29 spaces, but I don’t see anything happening up there.”
Roberts also explained that the borough’s lawyer has looked over several ordinances that are too late to be enacted. For instance, a statute that mandates mobile home park owners need to give more than 270 days eviction notice in the case of a land use change and one allowing a municipality to create a fund to cushion the blow for the evicted residents.
Roberts furthermore described applications for several multi-year grants which require too much preparation to submit in time before the deadline.
“One was a block grant through DCRA. Unfortunately that grant closes December 4. It’s a competitive grant. It’s for low and moderate income families,” he said. “And it could’ve been possible maybe to make it work for establishing a mobile home park, but you’d have to have the land already designated for the mobile home park, which means we’d have to do some kind of a land disposal.”
Roberts said it’s unlikely they could construct a plan that would meet those requirements in time, and, he added, it’s also likely too late to seek federal help.
“It’s a short notice for even a local government to do things, as many meetings as it takes to get the line of action laid out. The biggest problem is, if we’re gonna help, we have to have a place to move the homes, and there is no place to move the homes,” he said. “That’s what I see as the biggest problem.”
During assembly member comments, Rebecca Skinner expressed her concern that the borough is able to complete a grant for fisheries issues, but not for matters like a mobile home park closure.
“I also agree with some of Mel’s (Assemblyman Stephens) comments that I don’t think it is the borough’s responsibility to fix these issues and honestly, I didn’t think we have the resources to fix it,” she said. “But if there’s grants that only municipalities can apply for and we had notice of it well over two months ago, I am concerned that we, or staff, didn’t bring this to our attention earlier and it makes me wonder, could something have been done?”
Roberts said he would get further updates and gather more data from the new owners of the Jackson Mobile Home Park property.
