May 17, 2005
Tuesday

On May 16 I made my rounds to see what had been deposited on the Ketchikan road system over the last two weeks as the truck was in the shop getting fixed and I hadn't been able to get out much.  Revilla Road looked pretty good, there was some new trash along the road and some more shotgun shells at mile 4.2 that had been cleaned up only a month before.
 
I then drove out North and didn't find anything really new, again some minor stuff so I headed back to Ketchikan feeling pretty good about the lack of new litter.  Then I turned down Whipple Spur, an area that had been cleaned out two years ago with the help of the people at the Carriage Works.  There was a junked Jeep with all the windows broken out, no license plates and loaded with other junk and auto body parts, a real nice mess.  It was hard not to keep from getting numerous small cuts from all the broken glass littering the vehicle.

I took pictures and came back to the office and was wondering how to find out who owned the Jeep.  I stopped at an auto garage on the way home and talked with a friend who is a mechanic and he told me of where to look for some of the information I needed as it was missing from the obvious places.  This morning I went back with some tools I borrowed from the North Tongass Fire Department and went to work on the Jeep.  I found the information I needed and took it to the Troopers office where I got the name of the registered owner.
 
In the afternoon I contacted the registered owner and found he had sold the vehicle about six months before but didn't take care of the registration paperwork.  We then contacted the new owner who stated that the vehicle was ready to be gotten rid of but that he wanted to "rally" it before he junked it.  Sunday he and his friends drove the Jeep in the Whipple Creek area until steam was coming out of the radiator and they had their fun.  They then parked it on Whipple Spur and proceeded to break all the glass in the vehicle and trash it.  He stated that he had intended to get the paperwork and take it to the mill before they left it at the Spur Road  Ya, sure thing Buddy, that's why you had to take the plates off it!
 
I found it interesting that they could drive the Jeep to Whipple Spur to abandon it but they could not get it to the mill site to recycle it for free.  The rest of the story is that I left a Borough citation with him to take care of in the next week.  The Jeep should be out of there within a week, after he gets the voucher he should have gotten in the first place!
 
As I was leaving he stated that he didn't expect to see me for at least a week!  I still don't think he understands the financial liability he has subjected himself to when he left the Jeep in that condition.  Maybe he and his friends never will!

Jerry Cegelske
Code enforcement
Ketchikan Gateway Borough
E-mail: jerry.cegelske@borough.ketchikan.ak.us
228-6621
Ketchikan, AK - USA

 

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