OREM -- To get Mayor Joe Nelson's dander up, talk to him about messy yards in his city.
He doesn't like them."I get as many calls about this type of thing as anything," Nelson said in a recent work session of the City Council. "We have a nice city, but I would not want to be a neighbor to some places I've seen. What can we do to make sure these things don't go on?"
Nelson said there is a residence near the City Center buildings that is in violation "day after day after day" of the city ordinance governing nuisances and care of property.
"We have an ordinance and we need to enforce it," said the mayor. "Somehow we've got to get them cleaned up. Thank goodness, it's only a few."
But those few tend to be very visible, especially set in among homes and yards that are properly tended.
City Manager Jim Reams said perhaps one of the assignments given to the neighborhood advisory councils could be that of neighborhood cleanup. He said perhaps the first step would be to initiate an educational campaign advising people that ignoring their junked cars and yard debris is a class C misdemeanor.
"In a practical sense, it probably comes down to a need for more manpower for the city," Reams said. "Neighbors hesitate to complain (to the offenders) and so it needs to come from the city."
Sanford Sainsbury, director of planning and development, said Brenda Lerwill is in charge of checking into nuisance violations and handles an average of 26 violations a month. "We do not go out on patrol. We respond to complaints," he said.
Sainsbury said the city generally makes sure the violation exists, then writes a letter and makes a phone call to the property owner advising the owner of a deadline for cleanup. A follow-up visit and second deadline is made if corrections aren't made.
Some people are worked with for as long as six months, he said. "We try to be resident-friendly."
Nelson said one residence has a perpetual yard sale going and another vacant lot is filled with garbage year-round. "I feel sorry for the people who have to live next to something like that," he said.
Councilman Bill Peperone said his first job involved scanning a community for nuisance violations and advising people of the need to clean up their yards.
"If we start doing this, you'll get calls from the violators where you're now getting the calls from those upset over the violations," he told the mayor.
City Attorney Paul Johnson said the city does take a few residents into court every year over junky yards and nuisance violations.
"The problem is, some don't consider their stuff to be debris. That's their stuff," he said.
"I went to a home with rats and mice running around. It was horrible," Nelson said. "How do we control that? It decreases values to have junky yards."