Riverside councilor required to do property clean-up

    The Riverside City Council met Tuesday to discuss a property that is allegedly in violation of nuisance, junk and junk vehicle ordinances. The property is at 450 E. Fourth St. and is owned by Ralph Schnoebelen, who is a member of the council. The property is zoned as commercial and includes Schnoebelen?s business and the warehouse northwest of it. 

    The council began the evening by holding an outdoor public hearing on the alleged nuisance on Schnoebelen?s property. After hearing from a number of residents, the councilors walked around the property and took photographs of those things believed to be a nuisance. The councilors then convened at city hall to decide how to proceed, with the exception of Schnoebelen, who was absent from the meeting.

    The council passed a series of motions that require Schnoebelen to abate specific nuisances on his property, such as covering the tires left outdoors that do not have a rim, labeling the oil tanks, securing the LP gas tanks, stacking the wheel weights and removing the batteries, barrels, palettes, and scrap iron from public view. Most of the nuisances must be abated by Monday, Aug. 2, although Schnoebelen has until Sept. 15 to build an adequate containment structure for the oil tanks.  

    A couple dozen residents gathered for the public hearing on Schnoebelen?s property. A few residents didn?t understand why the property had just recently come under scrutiny. Resident Don Latta asked Mayor Brian McDole which ordinance Schnoebelen was in violation of. McDole said that the warehouse on the property, which was formerly a house, is in violation of a dangerous house ordinance.   

    ?How did it become a dangerous place all of a sudden?? asked Latta.

    ?I believe it?s probably been a dangerous place but nobody has enforced the ordinances in this town,? said McDole.

    ?That?s because I don?t think anyone got too excited over it,? replied Latta. ?It?s been a machinery place for years. Ralph has put his whole life into this, and now you got the city council down here trying to tear it all to pieces.?

    ?He?s not the only one in town who has violations of these ordinances,? said McDole. ?He is the only one who has requested a hearing.?

    Councilor Todd Yahnke said previous councils sent a notice to ordinance violators but did not subsequently enforce the ordinance on those who failed to comply. 

    ?We didn?t follow through with the letters in the last couple of years, so the people who got letters never did anything about it,? said Yahnke.

    Schnoebelen was present for the public hearing, and told the other councilors that he was amenable to fixing whatever problems they saw with the property.

    ?As I told Brian at the meeting, tell me what we need to do and we?ll do it,? said Schnoebelen. ?We always clean it up every summer, but it was raining all the time so we couldn?t get equipment on the lot without tearing it up. When the weather doesn?t cooperate, it?s pretty tough to do much cleaning up. Last fall was terrible. It rained all fall.?

    McDole retorted, ?There are other businesses in town and they keep up with it. Since 2001, when you gave the city a five-year plan to tear the house down, it sat there, and nothing?s happened to the outside to make it presentable.?

For the full story, see our July 14 print edition.