City Looks toward Ordinance, Hears from Auditor
The Mayor, City Council Members and City Staff relaxed for a few minutes before the Thursday night Regular Meeting of the Burkesville city Council was called to order. PHOTO | Greg Wells
By Greg Wells
CCN—Editor
As last week’s City Council Meeting was drawing to a close, Council Member Connie Cravens returned to a topic previously before the council: cars and other “junk” in yards. She asked if the City Attorney was drafting the ordinance they had asked for to deal with nuisance properties in Burkesville.
Holly Parrigin, the city’s attorney, said she was waiting for the council to give her input on how they wanted her to proceed.
“I need instructions,” she said.
After some back-and-forth between all those attending, Parrigin said, “I will reprint every one of the examples I brought last time.”
But she, and some of the council members, indicated they didn’t feel that an ordinance could do what some of the council as well as local residents were wanting to accomplish.
Another issue raised was how action has been taken in the past with regards to nuisance complaints.
City Clerk April Thrasher said, “Not only is it the time it send out these letters, and you’ve got to give them two letters, it costs us 40 something dollars now to file a lien (for fines due to non-compliance.)”
She added that as she understands it, the city can only be paid for those assessed liens is when the properties are eventually sold, or the Circuit Court orders the property to be sold.
Mayor Laurel Irby said, “I will contact the Area Development District because there’s 10 counties in that multiple cities—see if any of those cities have an ordinance similar to this, get a copy of their ordinance and then ask kind of what their process is like from start to the end, how difficult it is.”
A suggestion from the audience was that generally cities justify such ordinances under health and safety, because vehicles which are non-functional and/or abandoned, as well as scrap metal and building materials left out are all vermin sources and those can be regulated.
They are also often considered “attractive nuisances,” with the capacity to endanger community children who might play on them.
“Thank you,” Irby said. “I’ll check into that as well.”
The Thursday night meeting began with the council’s approval for the purchase of new computers for the City Police’s patrol vehicles. Police Chief Wesley Long explained that the old computers, originally older refurbished models when purchased, were beginning to fail and provided a choice of vendors for the necessary equipment.
The bulk of the meeting was devoted to receiving and approving the city’s 2025 audit.
A representative of SK Lee, certified public accountants, presented an unqualified statement, meaning that the agency found no sign of significant errors or issues with the City accounts.
He told them that the City finished last year in better fiscal condition than it had the previous year.
