Cleanup Is Slow In The City
By David Howell
Editor
WATER VALLEY – Local realtor and county supervisor Lee McMinn urged city officials to step up efforts to clean up property in Water Valley during the July 3 city board meeting, marking his third appearance at the city meeting since last October with the same request. Last October McMinn presented pictures of numerous dilapidated, abandoned and burned-out properties in the city and explained that the blight was affecting the value and marketability of real estate in the city.
McMinn’s request followed a hearing earlier in the same meeting for dilapidated property on 1600 Eckford Street owned by James Ray Burleson. During the hearing, which was the second time Burleson had appeared to answer a complaint filed by the city on the property, aldermen agreed to give him six months to continue work on the property after he presented pictures showing improvements have been made.
Both Burleson’s hearing and McMinn’s appearance followed intermittent discussion during the last year after a new Board of Aldermen was seated and started work compiling a small list of properties from each ward that need attention in what was described as a pilot program to address some of the worst eyesores in the city.
The pilot list included a house on Bell Street, property that McMinn inquired about in the July 3 meeting.
“Has there been any progress on that particular house?” McMinn asked.
“He knows he is supposed to be working on it, but no,” City Attorney Daniel Martin answered. Martin added that the property owners on the list have been sent letters, which was a notice stating that if the property owner does not make corrections or revisions to their property, that the city will conduct a hearing to declare the property dilapidated. Martin also explained that Burleson was sent a notice defining the statutory requirements and an actual hearing date, expediting the process.
“I think if you sent every property that was identified a letter, a lot of those are going to take action and go ahead and do it. They have never been asked,” McMinn noted about getting the cleanup effort going on a larger scale.
“If you want us to send 80 letters out… we have to do the research, we have to find the property owners. It is a lot of work,” Ward 3 Alderperson Cinnamon Foster explained.
“It’s been a long time coming, it is overdue. It is the single biggest thing this board could do to help this city,” McMinn countered.
“That is why we have been working on it. We had to figure out the steps to do it. Daniel was helping us with that with. Yes, we would love to send out the notices at once. But are you going to give us six months to do all of the research for every single person and find every single property owner to prepare all those letters and send them all out at the same time, or get a couple done?” Foster asked.
Martin reiterated that before the city can actually take action, a final two-week notice has to be sent to property owners. The letters previously sent out, with the exception of Burleson, were cursory letters requesting the cleanup.
Ward 1 Alderman Kagan Coughlin noted that enforcement will be the top priority of the city’s new building inspector hired in June, Trea Magee.
“He has no problem with it,” Mayor Donald Gray added about Magee’s involvement in enforcing the cleanup in town.
Aldermen then voted to send the Bell Street property owner a statutory notice setting a hearing date for the cleanup as discussion on the matter came to a close.
