Councilor wants action on Mills building

   The Mills Seed Building on North Iowa Avenue was a topic of discussion at Wednesday night?s Washington City Council meeting. Councilor Mike Roth said he is disappointed in the progress the owner, Jeremy Patterson, has made in rehabilitating the building.

    At a council meeting two months ago, Roth asked city staff to inspect the Mills building to see if it was a dangerous building and a fire hazard. City staff members Dave Bruns, Keith Henkel and Rob McDonald inspected the building in mid-August and reported their findings to the council. They reported that the Mills building had a number of structural deficiencies such as rotten wooden beams, voids in the foundation where the floor joists are not supported and missing mortar from the brick walls.

    The staff report indicated they would do a follow-up inspection of the building after Aug. 25 with the owner present. Building and zoning official Steve Donnolly said that inspection has not taken place and that he has not spoken with Patterson since he became the building and zoning official in mid-August.

    Roth said he wants to know what deficiencies remain with the building.

    ?The only thing I?ve seen is that the building has been boarded up, backfilled, and it has had the foundation sealed up, too,? said Roth. ?I?m concerned that nothing is going to get done with this building. I mentioned several times that we should have required a performance bond before this whole project took place, but apparently that was not an important enough requirement. It disappoints me greatly that we haven?t seen the owner of this building in town for months.

     ?Quite frankly, I?m tired of answering questions the public is posing to me through phone calls at home, asking what we?re going to do about this building,? continued Roth. ?I?m really frustrated right now, and I?m disappointed that we?ve been taken advantage of by Mr. Patterson. He?s walked away from this. I?ll recommend to the building and zoning official that we start levying fines against this property.?

Fo rthe full story, see the Oct. 7 edition of The Washington Evening Journal