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PUBLIC HEARING
DANGEROUS BUILDING
Monday January 12, 2009
PRESENT:
Present at this meeting were Councilors Al Adams, Peggy Gray, Jeff Skeeters, Traci Martinez, and Mayor Karen Clark. Public in attendance were Homer Gray, Ben Anderson, Basil Jones, Rick Ladbury, Loren Greer, Tina Clark, and City Attorney Jim McGehee.

CALL TO ORDER:
Mayor Clark called this meeting to order at 7:07PM.

The purpose of the meeting was to hear testimony for 145 Second Street a dangerous building in the city of Idanha.
  1. Property owner for 145 Second Street, Jeff Skeeters, present at the meeting to give testimony.

  2. Mayor Clark: "Any person s wishing to make comment need to be recognized, state your name for the record, and keep comments no more than two minutes. Call of order for the dangerous building hearing, I need testimony in favor of declaring as a dangerous building, the documents entered into record is the Marion County Building Inspection report.

    Any other comments?"

    Councilor Jeff Skeeters: "I have a comment. Jeff Skeeters, city of Idanha. I have a conflict here right now as the property owner and I will withdraw from the Council." (removed from meeting area and stood with the audience)

    Jeff Skeeters: "I am releasing the property back to the original property owner, I've also paid the permit fees that were due today to reinstate this, which I was told would dismiss this, but I feel that there is some prejudice here involved with this situation. There are adjacent properties to this one that are also dangerous and without viewing those other properties, I feel that this is totally prejudice."

    Councilor Traci Martinez: "As the Building Commissioner it was my job to go down there and look at that. And at the time I had five or six complaints on that, so I went and looked. And it did look like it was not safe at the time. And yes there is another house on Second Street that does not look safe. I just had not got any reports on that and I will put one in if I need to. Because I went down there and looked today and it's unsafe as well. It looks better all boarded up, there's no way for a little child to get in, that's all I was concerned about."

    Ben Anderson: "The day that the Building Inspector went down and red tagged that building, also red tagged the one on the corner. So it has been red tagged by the Council. So they know, there're aware of that fact."

    City Recorder Wenonah Blanchette: (red tagged) "For no permit."

    Jeff Skeeters: "I feel that it's prejudice against me personally. There is prejudice involved, you don't drive by the other two, there are two properties, one on Main Street and one on the corner of main and second. You don't drive by those two blind sighted and turn down second and go after one property. I'm just saying there are other problems."

    Attorney Jim McGehee: "Now you have a complaint that there's two other buildings down there that have the same problem. The council could request to have Marion County building to take a look at those two buildings and see if they fit the definition of a dangerous building and if they do you can move forward with the situation now that you have a formal complaint filed. There are two of them, Jeff?"

    Jeff Skeeters: "The one on the corner is up on stilts the other one I'm speaking of is next door which is not a dangerous building but it is a problem. If you're going to pursue one thing here in the city of Idanha and not pursue all the same type of things, that's prejudice."

    Attorney Jim McGehee: "So now that the complaints been made in front of open council, that's my recommendation on this."

    Jeff Skeeters: 115 Second Street (dangerous building) 185 Main Street (violation of City Ordinance No. 68)

    Mayor Clark: Does Marion County Building Department need to come back up and re inspect the abatement?"

    Recorder Wenonah Blanchette: "What happened with this property, and it seems odd, but that there was foundation work done without a permit, Marion County Building came up and said that a permit needed to be filed with the City. The permit was filed but never paid which locked the permit resulting in an invalid permit. Meaning that according to City Ordinance defining dangerous buildings, no permits were filed to address the open foundation resulting in a dangerous building report from Marion County after the Council discussed and requested to have them inspect it. Payment for the permit would have eliminated the dangerous building report because it was being worked on."

  3. Mayor Clark: "Is there any more testimony either for or against?"

    None heard
ADJORNMENT: Hearing adjourned at 7:19PM


__________________________________________
Mayor Karen Clark



Attest:
__________________________________________
City Recorder Wenonah Blanchette


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