After getting nowhere with friendly requests to property owners about removing junk from their properties, Bethlehem Mayor Sandy McNab and the town council earlier this month asked the town attorney to turn up the heat.
On March 11, attorney Ron Bennett sent a “Notice of Violation” to 10 people with a stern warning to haul away their old cars, appliances and demolished buildings or face up to $1,000 in fines and 60 days in jail for every day past the 30-day removal deadline.
At Monday night’s called council meeting, Bennett went through a stack of files on the properties.
One of the files belonged to Danny Yearwood, the chairman of the Barrow County Board of Commissioners. He owns three properties in Bethlehem, two of them on West Star Street, the town’s second busiest road.
Bethlehem orders junk removed
When Yearwood bought the two properties, one had an old junkyard on it. The other had an old garage.
“It was like any junkyard you ever went to,” the mayor said after the meeting. “He probably hauled three tractor-trailer loads of tires, car parts and who knows what else out of there and cleaned that up.
“And he got started on the other side of the street with the garage building that was there. The garage was probably 25-30 feet long by 20 feet. It wasn’t big.”
Yearwood found a church that wanted the blocks, and most of them were removed. But the job wasn’t finished, and that was two years ago, the mayor said.
“They had four walls to start with. Now it’s just one corner and some blocks scattered in the grass.”
Though Yearwood’s clean-up job will be one of the simplest, town officials couldn’t let the county chairman slide because of his position, the mayor said.
“Regardless of who owns it, if we need something cleaned up, there is not going to be an exemption just because he’s chairman,” McNab said. “I can’t very well tell somebody down the street they need to clean theirs up and he not need to clean his up. Fair for one is fair for the rest of them.”
All of the property owners who have been contacted are in violation of the nuisance provisions in the town code, according to copies of the letters they received.
“The failure to complete the demolition of the structure is a violation of Chapter 33 (Nuisances) of the 1992 Bethlehem Code of Ordinances in that it is causing hurt, inconvenience and damage to others in the Bethlehem community,” states the letter to Yearwood.
A different property owner on West Star Street has “an accumulation of refuse and junk” on his property. Someone on Mary Street has junked household appliances. And on Manger Street, someone will have to remove inoperable vehicles, refuse and stacks of wood pallets.
The mayor said the enforcement actions are the most he remembers at any one time during his 26 years in public office. Most of the earlier complaints came in one at a time from neighbors.
Town officials generally figured “if the people on both sides can live with it, everybody else should be able to,” McNab said. “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
“But it depends on which side you’re looking at.”
In other business Monday night, the council adopted a resolution in support of the 2010 U.S. census. But it tabled until the regular April 5 meeting a pair of proposals from McFarland-Dyer & Associates for engineering and planning services.
Guy Herring, the county’s former director of planning and zoning, now works for the Suwanee company and at the council’s regular March meeting proposed the privatization of the town’s planning and inspection services. Those services currently are performed by the county, which also receives all of the fees the town collects for those services.
At Monday night’s called meeting, Herring said for 80 percent of the fees the town collects for the services, MDA would provide plan reviews; stormwater/engineering reviews and analyses; building plan reviews and building and site development inspections.
Herring said the company for an hourly fee also would handle any of the following: code enforcement; the evaluation and revision of ordinances and land-use management codes; rezoning proposals, variances, modifications, special use permits and annexations; long-range and short-range planning services; mapping, and services such as grant research and writing.
The town attorney asked Herring if his firm would agree to use task orders for individual projects to give the mayor and council a firmer idea of the costs of the services before they are requested, and Herring said it would.
MDA’s bid on the design of an intersection improvement at highways 11 and 324 was $25,000.
“It was like any junkyard you ever went to,” the mayor said after the meeting. “He probably hauled three tractor-trailer loads of tires, car parts and who knows what else out of there and cleaned that up.
“And he got started on the other side of the street with the garage building that was there. The garage was probably 25-30 feet long by 20 feet. It wasn’t big.”
Yearwood found a church that wanted the blocks, and most of them were removed. But the job wasn’t finished, and that was two years ago, the mayor said.
“They had four walls to start with. Now it’s just one corner and some blocks scattered in the grass.”
Though Yearwood’s clean-up job will be one of the simplest, town officials couldn’t let the county chairman slide because of his position, the mayor said.
“Regardless of who owns it, if we need something cleaned up, there is not going to be an exemption just because he’s chairman,” McNab said. “I can’t very well tell somebody down the street they need to clean theirs up and he not need to clean his up. Fair for one is fair for the rest of them.”
All of the property owners who have been contacted are in violation of the nuisance provisions in the town code, according to copies of the letters they received.
“The failure to complete the demolition of the structure is a violation of Chapter 33 (Nuisances) of the 1992 Bethlehem Code of Ordinances in that it is causing hurt, inconvenience and damage to others in the Bethlehem community,” states the letter to Yearwood.
A different property owner on West Star Street has “an accumulation of refuse and junk” on his property. Someone on Mary Street has junked household appliances. And on Manger Street, someone will have to remove inoperable vehicles, refuse and stacks of wood pallets.
The mayor said the enforcement actions are the most he remembers at any one time during his 26 years in public office. Most of the earlier complaints came in one at a time from neighbors.
Town officials generally figured “if the people on both sides can live with it, everybody else should be able to,” McNab said. “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
“But it depends on which side you’re looking at.”
In other business Monday night, the council adopted a resolution in support of the 2010 U.S. census. But it tabled until the regular April 5 meeting a pair of proposals from McFarland-Dyer & Associates for engineering and planning services.
Guy Herring, the county’s former director of planning and zoning, now works for the Suwanee company and at the council’s regular March meeting proposed the privatization of the town’s planning and inspection services. Those services currently are performed by the county, which also receives all of the fees the town collects for those services.
At Monday night’s called meeting, Herring said for 80 percent of the fees the town collects for the services, MDA would provide plan reviews; stormwater/engineering reviews and analyses; building plan reviews and building and site development inspections.
Herring said the company for an hourly fee also would handle any of the following: code enforcement; the evaluation and revision of ordinances and land-use management codes; rezoning proposals, variances, modifications, special use permits and annexations; long-range and short-range planning services; mapping, and services such as grant research and writing.
The town attorney asked Herring if his firm would agree to use task orders for individual projects to give the mayor and council a firmer idea of the costs of the services before they are requested, and Herring said it would.
MDA’s bid on the design of an intersection improvement at highways 11 and 324 was $25,000.
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#1
Anonymous
on
03/23/10 at 03:34 PM
[Reply]
Yearwood, please clean up your junk. Don't embarrass us anymore!
#2
Michael McCoy
on
03/25/10 at 05:23 PM
[Reply]
I sure wish Winder's town council would clean up some of our eyesores that we have.One of the first cleanups we should get started on is that trash pile just accross from the entrance to Fort Yargo.We should be ashamed for anyone visiting us from the south on 81 just after the Welcom to Winder sign is the most disgusting piece of property that someone calls home.Code enforcement should take a bulldozer to it and the second eyesore is on the SW corner of 81 and 316.If I was thinking of opening a business in Winder and I saw these properties as I came into town I would do an about face.
#2.1
Penny
on
03/25/10 at 07:22 PM
[Reply]
Thank you! I feel the same way. I think Winder is a wonderful little home town ,but the first time I saw both those (((((homes)))), I ask how the hell do people live there. If they have children please someone get the children some help. I have to say the town counsil should have them removed there is no way that the home can be safe for anyone. The garbage outside is toxic.