By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
Before Code Enforcement Supervisor Art Keffer could present his list of abatements before the Great Bend City Council Monday night, he was thrown a number of questions about the procedure on how his department handles property violations.
Councilmember Alan Moeder led the conversation, questioning how
some properties get written up for overgrown vegetation or trash and refuse
violations and other lots do not. Moeder specifically referenced the property
at 1515 Tyler Street and its absence on the abatement list.
"You can't even see the front porch on the Tyler Street property," said Moeder. "The two-car driveway is covered half with weeds and trees. The city needs to cut trees in the easement again because the neighbors' vehicles are brushing the trees when they drive in the alley. I don't understand this abatement thing. These need to get straightened out or thrown out the window."
While the code enforcement does patrol parts of the city when time allows, a
good portion of ordinance violations are received from citizen complaints.
"If I was neighbor over there, and they're complaining to me all the time...it's affecting their property value," said Moeder. "I wouldn't buy a house next to that the way it looks. You guys go by 1515 Tyler, it's embarrassing."
Last
November, Logan Burns was approved to become Great Bend Assistant City
Administrator and oversee the code enforcement department. Burns served as
Interim City Administrator since December when Kendal Francis announced his
resignation. Now that Brandon Anderson has started his role as City
Administrator in July, councilmember Jolene Biggs was hopeful Burns will
oversee improvements to the city’s abatement process.
"He (Burns) oversees that, and I think there has been discussion of looking at that program and bringing something back," said Biggs.
Keffer noted between April 17 and May 15, the code
enforcement department wrote up 197 properties. By the end of May, 175 of those
cases were taken care of or closed.