NOTN- Residents living near the Governor’s Mansion are calling on city officials to address their safety concerns surrounding an “armed encampment” following an incident earlier this month where a young black bear was shot and later euthanized by the Department of Fish and Game due to its fatal injuries.

According to a post on the Juneau Community Collective, concerned residents living above Capital Avenue have sent a letter to the City and Borough of Juneau and nearby property owners saying the July 9 incident has prompted renewed concerns about conditions at the encampment.

The post described the site as an “armed encampment” and said residents are seeking a long-term solution to what they say are ongoing public safety issues and “outrages’ in the neighborhood.

Residents are asking others who have witnessed incidents associated with the encampment to come forward.

Below is the full letter written by Peter Metcalfe with the exclusion of addresses and personal information for resident’s privacy.

To the officials and offices named above:

The encampment on Capital Avenue, a longtime obnoxious nuisance, has become a threat to public safety.

Earlier this month, a person living in that camp shot a young black bear that was up a tree at the edge of the encampment. The animal was grievously wounded, and a Fish and Game officer had to track it down to put the young bear out of its misery. 

The shots that wounded the bear were fired upward, likely toward the Fosbee, a 30-unit apartment building directly above the site. The apartment building is in our densely populated Governor’s Mansion neighborhood. 

We live directly across from the Fosbee Apartments. We ask that the squatter camp on Capital Ave. be removed before someone is seriously hurt.

According to the CBJ Parcel Viewer, this encampment is on city land and shares boundaries with property owned by AEL&P, the Central Council, and a privately owned parcel (701 Capital Ave). All these properties are adversely affected by the encampment and its widely scattered piles of garbage, which are irresistible to bears.

This did not come out of nowhere. For years, the camp has created conditions no neighborhood should have to endure: clouds of toxic smoke, garbage piles measured by the truckload, and human and household waste left directly on the ground. Discarded hypodermic needles litter the area around the camp and have been dragged with other refuse by bears into the surrounding neighborhood, presenting hazards to people, pets, and wildlife. 

When one of us stopped by to ask two of the occupants about the toxic smoke, their twitchy behavior was consistent with heavy methamphetamine or similar stimulant use.

Frequently, in the pre-dawn hours, residents are woken by disturbances from the site, where drugs are used openly and what appear to be drug sales occur. Now that we know the people in this camp are armed and willing to fire weapons with no regard for who is nearby, we have reason to fear for our safety.

Since the encampment is on city-owned property, CBJ clearly has the authority and responsibility to act, and its ownership removes any question of deferring to another party. The city’s own guidance calls for intervention once an encampment repeatedly harms the surrounding community, with trash accumulation and open drug use named as the triggers. This camp crossed that line years ago and has now escalated to gunfire toward occupied homes. Recent court decisions have also made clear that CBJ may enforce limits on camping on public land, so this is well within its authority.

Clearing the camp by itself will not fix this. The city has collaborated with AEL&P to remove encampments like this that have crossed the line, and with the Central Council to clean up this site. 

We are now asking the city, through the Division of Lands & Resources and the Police Department, to clear the Capital Avenue camp, clean up the site, and then secure the area against re-encampment so that this stops being a recurring hazard, and to coordinate any support services the occupants may need as part of that process. 

Photographs documenting current conditions at the site are attached to this letter.

We would appreciate a written response identifying who is handling this matter and what will be done. Thank you for your attention to a serious hazard in the heart of our community.

Respectfully,

Sandra and Peter Metcalfe, and on behalf of the following residents of the Governor’s Mansion neighborhood.