Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The Sweet Home City Council is considering updates to its vehicle removal ordinance.
City Attorney Robert Snyder told council members at their Nov. 14 meeting that two of the city’s ordinances regarding vehicle removal are confusing. He said some of the procedures do not apply to all vehicle removals since they apply to vehicle removal in two different places in the city, public streets and private property.
Snyder submitted a proposal to create a new chapter in the ordinance to deal with vehicles that are abandoned, disabled or hazardous on a public street.
The change will provide two clearly separate procedures for the two types of removal, he said. In the case of public streets, the Police Department handles the removals. In the case of private property, the city’s code enforcement officer would handle removals.
Because of the way police have been doing vehicle removal, it’s taking a week to 10 days to get rid of an abandoned vehicle, which is irritating to neighbors, Police Chief Bob Burford said. Those neighbors call and then have to wait for days before the vehicle is removed.
“You are going to want to remove a hazardous vehicle in the street through a procedure much faster than you do a nuisance vehicle on private property,” Snyder said. For vehicles in the street, the procedure is the same as state law, allowing the removal of a vehicle parked on a city street longer than 48 hours.
“In actuality, whenever you’re dealing with these vehicles on a street or private property, 99.5 percent have been there longer than that (48 hours),” Snyder said.
In the past, sometimes an ordinance governing one type of removal was applied to the other, Snyder said.
The ordinance revision will deal with abandoned cars on city lots the same way it deals with cars left on private property.
Councilman Rich Rowley said he was concerned about residents who park their cars for three days instead of two, something that is not an abandoned vehicle.
In general, the city must prove a car has been parked in the same place on a street for 48 hours before it can take action, Snyder said. Signs of an unclaimed car may be a missing license plate. The vehicle may be on blocks or have flat tires.
A police officer can also deal with it as a vehicle that has been parked longer than the citywide limit of 48 hours, he said.
“In most cases, the cars have been there seven or eight days,” Snyder said.
“I could really care less if you’ve got your car parked on the street for three days when you’re doing something in your driveway,” Police Chief Bob Burford said.
Police typically deal with cars that are obviously abandoned, on blocks, with flat tires or full of garbage, he said. Police attempt to contact the owners, and they often hear from the owner that the car was sold a couple of years earlier. The owner often knows nothing about the abandoned car.
“For us (the ordinance) is more user friendly,” said Community Development Director Carol Lewis, who supervises the city code enforcement officer.
The council held the first reading of the ordinance revision during its regular meeting on Nov. 14. It will hold two more readings of the ordinance. After the third reading, held in December, the council will vote on the revisions.
Present were Bob McIntire, Tim McQueary, Jim Gourley, Mayor Craig Fentiman, Jim Bean and Rich Rowley. Dick Hill was absent.