Riverside council debates case against Schnoebelens

RIVERSIDE ? The Riverside City Council held a public hearing at Schnoebelen Inc. Monday evening. The business?s owner, Ralph Schnoebelen, who is also a councilor, took the rest of the council and members of the public on a tour of his business, which is a farm implement dealership.

The City of Riverside took Schnoebelen and his wife Jan to court in May over alleged nuisance violations at their business. At that time, Magistrate Judge Daniel Kitchen ruled that the Schnoebelens would have to pay a civil penalty of $100 and that they had until Aug. 15 to clean up the pallets, barrels and scrap iron on their property.

Schnoebelen said at the public hearing that he had sold 100 tons of recyclable material from his lot this summer. He said that each load of scrap metal is about 20 tons and that he plans to remove two more loads worth of recyclable metal from his property before Thanksgiving.

The councilors convened at city hall after the public hearing to begin the council meeting. Mayor Brian McDole said that he thought the Schnoebelens? property looked great.

Councilor Todd Yahnke said, ?I can tell you guys have done a lot of work on this.?

?We?ve been working hard at it,? Ralph said. ?We never would have gotten it done without the people who helped. We?ve probably done more than what was required, but we wanted to do it right.?

Councilor Kevin Kiene addressed Ralph.

?You said earlier tonight that you were going to move some of the equipment and get rid of the rest of this scrap, and it is scrap,? Kiene said. ?Can you give us a date when that is going to be done??

?No, I?m not going to give you a date,? Ralph said. ?I don?t know. It takes a long time.?

?That was supposed to be done by Aug. 15, Ralph,? Kiene said.

?Everything on the list was done by then,? Ralph said.

?There is still scrap down there,? Kiene said.

?If you look in the dictionary, scrap is cut-up pieces of metal,? Ralph said.  

?You shouldn?t even be arguing this because you have a conflict of interest, Ralph,? Kiene said.  

?No, I don?t,? Ralph said.

Kiene made a motion to continue the case of the City of Riverside v. Ralph and Jan Schnoebelen.

?I consider this a case of harassment,? Ralph said. ?And just like Jim [Strabala] said, there are other places in town that are a lot worse than ours ever was, and they weren?t addressed.?

Earlier in the meeting, Riverside resident Jim Strabala said certain properties in town, such as a building on South Boise Street, were in much worse condition than the lot of Schnoebelen Inc.

Kiene?s motion died for lack of a second. Councilor Rodney Waldschmidt said the city?s action was not a punishment for Schnoebelen Inc.

?I would call it an assurance,? Waldschmidt said. ?The city needed the court?s assurance this was going to get started. Maybe we need more assurance it?s going to continue.?

?I?ve been there for 52 years,? Ralph began. ?This is tearing up my wife and tearing our family up. We know it?s a case of harassment to our group.?

Councilor Todd Yahnke said the city had gone after other nuisance violators and that what the city was doing was not harassment.

?You were a member of a group that received letters, were you not?? Yahnke asked Ralph. ?Were you the only one who received a letter??

?No,? Ralph said.

?So, how is it harassment?? Yahnke asked.

?The council went and helped some people clean up their property,? Ralph said. ?Did anyone offer to come help me? No, but a lot of people in the community did because they thought it was wrong. I talked to you, Brian, and we had an agreement about what we should do at the property. I said I would work on it, and I did it. I was going to make a gentlemen?s agreement, but when I receive a certified letter from the sheriff?s office, it upsets me. I think I?m a fairly good citizen of the community. I try to abide by your rules.?

Jan Schnoebelen asked McDole if she could speak, which he allowed her to do.

?Ralph has gotten up at 5 o?clock and worked till dark, night after night after night,? Jan said. ?What do you want from us? Oh my gosh, this is terrible. I just don?t know what you want from us.?

McDole said he thought the property looked good and that the reason the city proceeded with nuisance abatement was because the property had gotten out of hand.

Ralph said, ?We do have to take time to make some money, too. This cost us a bunch of money this summer.?

?You were cleaning up years and years of stuff, too,? McDole said.

Lisa Schnoebelen, Ralph and Jan?s daughter-in-law, said, ?That?s not fair to have to do it on nights and weekends.?

?I work nights and weekends, too, and it?s not fair either,? McDole said. ?Life is not fair.?

Riverside resident Jim Schneider said, ?Did Kevin Kiene get a notice when he had a window boarded up and a junk vehicle behind it on the main street??

?I don?t think he got a letter but he took care of it,? McDole said.

?But it took 10 months,? Schneider said. ?It took Kevin 10 months to fix a minor problem.?

Councilor Christine Kirkwood said that the city does not send letters to businesses or residences because it doesn?t like the way they look, but rather only to those properties in violation of city code.