This article was originally published on dermotcole.com, and is republished here with permission.
City police officers said that Kinross, not the borough, insisted that protesters of the Kinross trucking plan be removed from the parking lot of the Carlson Center, which is public property.
“Kinross Cares” in this case means that Kinross cared to get the protesters out of the way. The police listened and followed the company’s instructions.
I think that the protesters were there legally, since it was public property and they were not creating a disturbance. I also think that the 95-foot truck was not there legally. The vehicle is not allowed on city streets. So it was moved to the Carlson Center in violation of regulations.
Veteran attorney Mike Walleri explained the latter issue to the Fairbanks City Council Monday.
There are claims that the Kinross trailers did not have current license plates and should have been written up by the city police. I don’t know if that is true.
If so, city police missed the target.
On Saturday, Officer Lane Bonham kept repeating that the Carlson Center is private property, which it is not. He said the parking lot is owned by the Carlson Center, which it is not.
It’s not clear to me why Kinross had the authority to direct city police officers to order people to vacate the premises or else face arrest for trespassing.
Bonham said that Kinross had rented the Carlson Center for “Youth Safety Day” and that the company had summoned city police to remove the protesters. He said that the protesters had to move to a sidewalk in front of the building, which he said was a better spot for a protest anyway.
He was right on that.
Bonham and his supervisor would not give a name of the Kinross employee who objected to the protest. Bonham said the demonstrators did not need that information.
He was wrong on that.
He repeatedly claimed he could arrest them because Kinross rented the building for Youth Safety Day and Kinross had the right to say who could be in the parking lot.
“They have the right to refuse anyone to be on their property,” said Bonham.
A second officer, Bonham’s supervisor, said that Kinross, as the renter, was essentially the landlord, which is not true.
“They don’t want you guys here on their property,” he said about Kinross. That was true.
The Youth Safety event that day was not just sponsored by Kinross, but by the borough and Volunteers in Policing, so the claim that Kinross was the “landlord” was false.
The officers handled themselves pretty well and were not rude, though they were seriously misinformed about the ownership of the property and who is allowed to be in a public parking lot. I think they did what they thought they were supposed to do.
The protesters handled themselves well and moved to the sidewalk, but not without making it clear that they disagreed with the edict.
Kinross mishandled this situation, as did the borough and the city police.
Kinross officials should have accepted the peaceful protest and allowed it to continue. Instead, the company acted like a bully.
It was only after the original encounter and warning of criminal trespass charges that the officers said the borough agreed that the protesters had to leave.
I believe that had Kinross officials asked that the two people lying near the tires move away from the truck, that would have been enough. There was no threat to the Kinross truck and officials of the trucking company were there all the time.
There was no shouting until the police arrived. After that there were some raised voices, but it was nothing that hasn’t been heard many times over the years at borough assembly meetings. On the Frank Turney scale, it would have barely registered.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Gov. Mike Dunleavy, executives of Kinross and Contango gathered with golden shovels for a ceremony marking the opening of the mine in Tetlin.
Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.
Dermot Cole has worked as a newspaper reporter, columnist and author in Alaska for more than 40 years. Support his work here.
