By Angie Gumm
The Haysville Times
The City held a workshop on the last Saturday of February to get input from Haysville citizens and business owners about the city’s handling of code violations.
“We used to handle things on a complaint basis, and now we’re doing things on a proactive basis,” said Mayor Bruce Armstrong.
Nothing has changed recently about Haysville’s code, but the increasing number of nuisance abatements that have appeared before the council in the last year reflects the change in enforcement.
Now that people are being cited for things which they believed were acceptable in the past, the city said they wanted to hear from the public about the codes.
Jack Harris, operator of The Overflow Mini-Storage since 1985, was told that he couldn’t have inoperable vehicles at his facility. “I go along here for years, running this business seemingly OK,” said Harris. “All of a sudden I’m illegal. I’ve been renting this for 21 years. I’ve been a bad guy for 21 years…I’m not selling dope or booze to minors. I’m selling outside storage.”
Harris said when the City asked him to make his parking lot all-weathered, he complied by dumping 27 tons of rock on the land. He asked why they made him pay for that if he wasn’t supposed to be operating the storage facility as he was.
Resident Vern Lippoldt lamented what he called the inequality of enforcement. “I don’t like the idea of putting neighbor against neighbor,” he said.
“If I want to keep my grandpa’s car in my backyard, I’m going to keep it,” Lippoldt said. “I don’t hunt. I don’t fish. I don’t watch sports. I mess with old tractors and old engines because I enjoy it.”
Councilman Steve Crum said he understood that people liked or needed to have a place to work on cars, “At the same time,” he said, “my parents live on Van Arsdale, and they have a chain-link fence, and just about everybody on the street has one, and I don’t think I’d want to go down that street and see twenty vehicles in (20) people’s backyards.”
Although there was debate on the issue, this was used as an argument for permitting people to store inoperable vehicles at storage facilities. A need was addressed, though, to allow some place for people to store their vehicles.
“It doesn’t matter to me if it’s an operable or inoperable vehicle. People are going to have cars they need to work on, and they’re going to need a place to store them,” said the mayor.
“Basically, just common sense is what we need to follow,” said councilmember Bill Youngers. “Outside storages should be able to store inoperable vehicles as long as they’re well-screened.”
Another issue was whether things would be permitted behind privacy fences that would not be otherwise.
“I figure if someone’s driving by my house, and they can’t see anything behind two wooden panelings, it shouldn’t bother them,” said resident Gary White.
Councilmember Keith Pierce wanted to know if the city passed some kind of time limit for having an inoperable vehicle on private property, how it would be enforced. “When does the clock start ticking? Once it gets discovered?”
The role and authority of the code enforcement officer was also discussed. Some council members thought that giving the officer more discretion would eliminate some of the sillier violations and would create a more understanding atmosphere for individual circumstances. Others thought that the authority could be abused or be too big of a burden for the officer.
“I’m a firm believer that friends will help friends and not the other person,” said Haysville’s Howard Cook. “There should be a criteria…and make it equal for everyone.”
“Kale ought to exercise politeness and say ‘here is the law, here’s how you can fix it,’” said Harris, of Haysville Code Enforcement Officer Kale Topinka. “If it’s not taken care of, then you can come back. I think politeness first. If that doesn’t work, then you can stand back and throw the folderol.”
Crum defended Topinka, who was at the meeting but didn’t speak. “Kale is doing what the council has asked him to do. I’m sure Kale gets a lot more rudeness thrown back at him than he throws at people,” he said. “If Kale wasn’t doing his job, we wouldn’t be here. He’s doing what the city’s asking him to.”
The council is going to consider the thoughts expressed at the workshop and will use them, as well as input from city employees and codes of other cities to make any changes to the current city codes.