NUISANCE

Council discusses what to do about nuisances.

The most common definition of the word “nuisance” is “…that which causes offense, annoyance, trouble or injury, either public or private.” In the city of Salmon, nuisance starts with noxious weeds and saunters on through junk cars.

There are local laws against being or creating a nuisance however; enforcement is the tricky part when it comes to private property or entering private property and that was the focus of a discussion at the March 17 meeting of the Salmon City Council.

City Attorney Fred Snook has been studying the compliance problems caused by uncaring local residents and he reported his findings as an informational update. He said some of the terminology in current laws needs to be reworded. Saying the city will ‘abate’ the problem if the property owner doesn’t, implies the city will take the clean-up steps necessary and he doesn’t think the city has the manpower or the time to do that. As written, if a property owner is ordered by a city officer to abate the problem and refuses the problem can go to a hearing where the case is heard by that same officer. Snook said it makes no sense to put the officer in charge of the hearing and is an example of inefficient code language which needs to be cleaned up.

There is also the abatement issue of; if the property owner does not remove the nuisance the city can do the abatement, keep track of the expenses and charge the owner but the odds of getting reimbursed are slim. Snook said the city needs to find an alternative way to avoid the abatement process.

He said there are some communities such, as Fruitland, Idaho, where a full-time abatement officer is employed for between $60 or $70 thousand a year. Salmon doesn’t have that kind of money in the budget.

Snook said that rather than go through the abatement process the city could consider sending x-number of notices until reaching the point a Misdemeanor is served which would mean a Magistrate Court appearance. He said hopefully that would encourage people to voluntarily comply with the nuisance ordinance.

If all of that fails and the situation goes to an abatement process the city will have to come up with an abatement budget along with an understanding that if the city did a nuisance abatement on a private property there could be liability issues. Councilor Robin Phillips commented that other cities place a lien on the property in the amount of the clean-up.

City Administrator Emery Penner said the object is to restructure what is already in the code so that property owner compliance, to satisfy the safety issue or the fire hazard, can be achieved without having to go to an abatement process. He said the nuisance focus should be based on the degree of safety issues or health hazards

Snook said the discussion was only to inform the council as to what changes are being considered and the city staff will continue to work on the Nuisance Ordinance.

During the council’s Roundtable Discussion Councilor Russ Chinski congratulated Salmon Hockey for its great season, with everything that’s going on, and said it’s wonderful to have that outdoor rink and the hockey games. Councilor Jim Bockelman alerted the council to a brochure from the Department of Environmental Quality that shows the air in Salmon is better than it was last year at this time plus a temperature chart comparing this year to last year. Mayor Leo Marshall and Penner were recently given a tour of the new gymnasium structure by former city Public Works Superintendent Harry Shanafelt. Marshall recommended that the rest of the council do the same. He said it is amazing and the current goal is…Open by Graduation.