Anchorage

Police suggest drastic step for Anchorage home neighbors call magnet for crime

The wedge of land where Strawberry Road and Northwood Street meet is a diverse, middle-class enclave, the kind of neighborhood "where people mow their lawns on Saturday mornings and wave to each other," as one Anchorage police officer puts it.

For decades, Stan Fenner's rambling, corner-lot split-level fit right into the neighborhood.

"He was a very good neighbor for a long time," said Frank McQueary, who lives a few houses down on Ascot Street, in a home noted for its Christmas decorations.

But after a steep decline over the past three years, the big brown house on West 79th Avenue is now a magnet for crime and drug calls, neighbors and police say.

Anchorage police say they have visited the home more than 51 times so far this year. The reasons ranged from suspected drug use to serving criminal warrants to welfare checks and noise violations.

Last year, the house led the city's private homes in police visits deemed "excessive," under an ordinance that allows fines when officers are repeatedly called to the same location.

It had 16 qualifying calls, on top of the eight normally allotted to any private residence. For the excessive calls, the owner was fined roughly $8,000.

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The Anchorage Police Department has asked the city to deploy a drastic, rarely-used tool known as criminal abatement if things don't change. The city would go through a judicial process to seize the property from its owner.

The technique is used only in "exceptional circumstances," said Gary Gilliam, head of the Anchorage Police Department's Community Action Policing team. He couldn't think of the last time it was used against a private homeowner.

"You don't want the government to suddenly come in and take somebody's property, like right now. There has to be due process. This is huge: You're taking a man's home from him."

Fenner, a former municipal snowplow driver who retired after an on-the-job injury, denies his neighbors' claims. He says they have launched a campaign to harass him with "nonsense" calls to the police.

"I'm not trying to damage the neighborhood," he said.

The situation is extreme, but it is not unique, Gilliam said.

Homes that attract a disproportionate level of police attention can be found in almost every part of the city. The difference is that usually problem houses are rentals, and when the owners of those properties are threatened with fines, they evict the tenants.

In this case, the home is paid off and owned by Stan Fenner himself.

"The Fenner residence is a little different because the person who is part of the problem is the owner," Gilliam said.

'Insanely frustrating'

Neighbors say the decline started in earnest three years ago.

More than a dozen cars are regularly parked on and around the property, with people coming and going around the clock, said John Schulz, a contractor, home inspector and backyard beekeeper who lives next door.

Schulz says Fenner's electricity has been shut off, which Fenner acknowledges but said is due to a maintenance worker accidentally cutting a connection.

In colder weather, the occupants burned garbage in the fireplace, prompting neighbor Ryan Licht to call the Anchorage Fire Department.

Neighbors say suspected drug activity at the house has bled to the little park and playground at the end of the street, so much so that parents won't let their kids walk through on the way to school anymore.

"One of the signs of deterioration is when people aren't out on the street anymore," said McQueary.

Licht, a graphic designer and stay-at-home dad who lives two doors down, now habitually writes down the license plate number of any person who parks on the street. Gasoline has been siphoned from his car too many times, and he said he's seen a man get out of vehicles and stuff a rifle down his pants before walking up to the house.

"I knew it was serious one day when a bunch of police cars showed up (at the house) in unmarked cars and men with helmets carrying AR-15 rifles got out," he said.

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Schulz has installed eight cameras pointing toward his neighbor's house. He says he has not spoken to Fenner in seven years and claims he's had tens of thousands of dollars of equipment stolen from his property. He's been filing code enforcement complaints for years to no avail, he said.

"My wife will not go in the yard anymore," he said. "The impact is astounding."

At a recent meeting of the Anchorage Assembly's Public Safety Committee, five families from the neighborhood showed up to talk about the house.

"We all had pretty much the same story to tell," said Licht. "Mine was that I can't sell my house."

Licht listed his 2,000-square-foot home a month ago for $319,000 in what he thought was a hot real estate market. It hasn't sold. His wife and belongings are now at their new home in Montana. Last weekend he held an open house no one attended. He believes the proximity to the house on the corner is hurting him.

"It's insanely frustrating," he said.

'I'm ready to leave'

Stan Fenner says he is misunderstood.

On a recent afternoon, he was working on one of the dozen vehicles on or around his property, a handsome man with a weathered face, wearing a Harley Davidson vest with a small gold salmon pin affixed to it. Polite and willing to talk, he flatly denied his neighbors' claims.

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His house is not a drug house, he said. Nor is he a heroin addict or dealer, as some neighbors have suggested.

Fenner admits that police come by frequently. His wife is in an assisted-living home and he needs to take in renters to pay the taxes, he said. For a time, some unsavory people were staying there.

"I didn't know what they were doing," he said.

If he is guilty of anything, it's a habit of helping down-on-their-luck people, he said. It turned out some of the people were using fake names and had arrest warrants out for them, he said. Right now, he says, "just a maintenance guy and his girlfriend" are living inside.

"Maybe I need to start checking IDs," he said.

Fenner has lived in the home for 35 years and owns it outright, though records show he owes thousands in back taxes to the city. He said he wasn't aware of the fines police say they have levied against him.

He says his neighbors have organized a campaign of police responses against him for infractions like a car parked facing the wrong direction.

"If police were not knocking on doors and telling them to call in these nonsense kinds of issues," maybe they'd have time to deal with more serious crimes elsewhere, Fenner said.

He said he doesn't understand why his neighbors haven't approached him directly with their complaints.

Maybe it is time to leave the house on his own terms, he said. It has a solarium and hot tub and is over 4,000 square feet, he said. In case anyone wants to buy it.

"If these people would like me out I'd move to some property I have in Big Lake," he said. "Make me an offer. I'm ready to leave, if that's what my neighbors' wishes are."

Michelle Theriault Boots

Michelle Theriault Boots is a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. She focuses on in-depth stories about the intersection of public policy and Alaskans' lives. Before joining the ADN in 2012, she worked at daily newspapers up and down the West Coast and earned a master's degree from the University of Oregon.

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