Riverside council considers nuisances

    The Riverside City Council continued its struggles with its nuisance laws at its meeting Tuesday night. Riverside resident Carolyn Hudson spoke about a nuisance that the city recently abated on her property. She said she would have gladly done it herself if she had received more information from the city.

    ?All I received was a note saying I needed to trim my bushes,? said Hudson.

    Hudson said she assumed the letter referred to the bushes by her sidewalk. She said she trimmed those bushes, and thought the problem was solved. She was surprised to learn that city employees later showed up to clear the bushes. The city charged Hudson $475 for the work.

    ?Nobody talked to me,? said Hudson. ?I know I?m not that hard to get ahold of. Lord knows that I?m usually here at the council meetings, and I would have gladly taken care of it if I knew it had to be done. If you had told me what I needed to do, you would have saved the poor city guys a lot of work, and myself a lot of money.?

    After the meeting, Hudson said she is not angry at the council or anyone else at the city. She said the problem was rooted in a failure to communicate.

    Later in the evening, the council took up the issue of nuisance abatement. Councilman Rodney Waldschmidt remarked that he was comfortable telling someone to remove trash from their property but that he was uneasy ordering them to make expensive repairs to their homes.

    ?I wouldn?t like it if someone came up to me and said, ?You paint that house right now,? or ?You fix that roof right now,?? said Waldschmidt.

    Riverside City Attorney Leslie Lamping approached the microphone to say, ?Some of these terms such as an ?unsafe building? are defined in the Iowa Code. Does it refer specifically to a roof, a porch, or a stairway? No, it doesn?t. But the city does have the right to declare it a nuisance and to require the person to correct it.?

    ?My first thought would be, as soon as you make a house payment, you can tell me what to do,? said Waldschmidt.

    Lamping said the council expects residents to follow the laws, just as it expects them to pay their water bills.  

    Waldschmidt replied, ?Owing the city money is different from having the city come in and tell you to fix your roof.? 

    Lamping said the council should keep in mind the city is more likely to attract newcomers if it is an inviting place to live. 

For more, see our Oct. 21 print edition.