—Daily Freeman-Journal photo by Adri Sietstra Webster City resident Kim Kauffman voices her concerns to the City Council of Webster City Monday night at the Town Hall meeting. Kauffman expressed problems she has encountered concerning a neighboring nuisance property for an extended period of time. Many other Webster City residents chimed in at Monday’s meeting with their own concerns and frustrations about nuisance properties in town.

Webster City residents expressed concerns and frustrations with local nuisance properties Monday night during a Town Hall meeting at the Webster City Middle School commons.

The City Council of Webster City started off the discussion by opening up the floor to give residents an opportunity to speak their minds.

Bob Erickson pointed out a number of residences in Webster City with pickups, garbage and other unsightly items that are visible from his work commute alone.

“I think we need to get some teeth in something that’s going to really make people start being glad they live in Webster City,” Erickson said.

Concerned citizen Carol Lanctot expressed her disdain for a neighboring property with garbage, a disheveled building and a fridge on the lawn.

Todd Chambers questioned how other cities and towns in Iowa dealt with the nuisance property issues and why there is such a distinct difference between many towns and Webster City.

“If you go to Des Moines or Grimes or Norwalk or any bigger town, there’s nothing like it. You come back to Webster City and it’s like night and day,” said Chambers. “What do they have going on that we don’t? If there is something, maybe it’s something we should look at.”

Webster City City Councilmen Brian Miller and Logan Welch addressed his question.

“I’ve personally talked to a bunch of other city councilmen I’ve met in the surrounding area, Mason City, a bunch of different towns,” said Miller. “We’re not alone. They’re all dealing with this. They are all struggling to enforce it.”

“Sometimes bigger towns, they also have a little bit more manpower for this issue,” Welch said. “I’m not saying we can’t, and that might be an idea that comes out of tonight.”

“It’s a ghetto,” said Webster City resident Mike Pruismann. “I walk up and down the streets for exercise and you just look between houses and there’s dilapidated buildings falling down and just piles and piles of garbage … It’s terrible. Just terrible.”

Pruismann, along with multiple other residents, expressed their frustration for buildings throughout Webster City that have been in disrepair and against city ordinance for anywhere from three months to 25 years.

Webster City City Manager Daniel Ortiz-Hernandez addressed the legalities that the council could work regarding sending out notices and enforcing different ordinances.

“The process, and they are somewhat different between unsafe building notices and property nuisances, a lot of it goes back to what state statute says,” Ortiz-Hernandez said. “It starts off with notifying the property owner of the conditions. The state statute doesn’t spell out a particular amount of time, it says a reasonable time. That reasonable time period varies from city to city.”

According to Ortiz-Hernandez, the Webster City city code says a reasonable time.

“Depending on what the conditions are that could be 24 hours, a week…Once that time elapses, then the city can go out and seek enforcement until we get that property cleaned up,” said Ortiz-Hernandez.

Ortiz-Hernandez also explained that when nuisance property matters are taken to court, it can take months to go through the full court process.

“In some instances, we take the property owner to court and it’s several months before we can on the court docket and then it’s several months before we get an actual judgement from the judge to abate that property,” Ortiz-Hernandez said. “The judge has leeway on how much time they want to give the property owner to remedy the conditions.”

Kim Kauffman brought concerns to the council about a property neighboring hers that continually refused to shovel, mow and was an eyesore in the neighborhood.

“I document everything. Every time I talk to Karla Wetzler or any of you I document it. I ask for copies,” said Kauffman. “You guys send out a letter that’s just a bark. That’s it and then nothing follows through with it.”

Kevin Ades, Grid Iron Grill founder, and Burke Risetter, Grid Iron Grill owner, expressed frustrations with how the disrepair looks next to their business.

“Until we put a plan into action, the words are useless. As tax payers here concerned … we deserve to get Webster City back,” said Risetter.

“It’s not going to get any better,” said Ades. “It’s going to worse if we don’t step up and start doing something about it now.”

“We’ve been talking about this for weeks trying to figure out how we can get more action faster,” said Mayor John Hawkins.

Many individuals at the meeting expressed an interest in banding together to make some of the properties look better. Members of the council explained that they have reached out to many of the nuisance property owners in the past to offer assistance. Many of the main repeat property nuisance owners have denied assistance or refused to tackle the problem at hand.

“This is a two-prong issue,” said Welch. “I think community outreach and building pride in our community and volunteers reaching out and helping people is a great idea and I think it definitely needs to be done,” said Welch. “But for those that don’t want to accept that, that’s when we go to work.”

“We have to go to work and reevaluate our ordinances and how to equally and fairly enforce them,” Welch added.

“I think you’ll find from the council, we’re committed to wanting to do something. I’d say going as far as we possibly can, to the letter of the law,” said Councilman Matt McKinney.

The council will be further discussing the nuisance property matter at their work session Wednesday evening at the council chambers at 6 p.m.