KIMBALL -- The City Council received pushback from community members in the most recent meeting about changes to city ordinances. 

In the July 16 meeting, the council approved to update the city code related to unsafe buildings and property maintenance. 

City Attorney Matt Turman said the city code on unsafe buildings is pretty bare bones, and the nuisance code is “OK,” so they want to tie the two together in an effective way.

Mayor John Morrison said this change needs to happen as part of the city’s goal to clean up the town of dilapidated properties. The city has been turned down for several grants for not meeting certain requirements, so this is a step toward that. 

In the same meeting, the council approved to apply for a million dollar grant to allow the city to purchase dilapidated properties to refurbish them.

The city needed to create standards pertaining to what is a safe home to have a legal basis to move forward with cleaning them up.

Council Member Creg Pike said he is looking forward to being able to address the properties that are dilapidated, abandoned or have nonexistent owners.

One community member spoke up about the lack of help given to property owners to fix up their properties and worries she is going to lose her property due to the change in ordinances.

“I don’t have money to fix up [my property] or programs to tap into, but I don’t want to give up my property,” she said.

Turman explained that the government can assist the city in economic development, but they can’t constitutionally give money to people to renovate a property.

Morrison said: “We are trying to address what you’re saying. We have a tight budget too; this grant will help us to help you.”

Council Member Christy Warner said when applying for grants and programs, you must show why you need the money, so this can benefit community members in giving them an outline of standards they need to meet.

Council Members Gabe Ingram and Don Muench echo that the city needs to start somewhere and show they are trying to meet requirements to have a chance of receiving grants. 

“This is a process to bring safety to the community and those who live in it,” Muench said. “It’s not to bring houses up to what we think our standards should be, this is for safety. “If you have a property that is leaning to the side ready to fall over, it should be torn down.”

Morrison assured the community that the city cannot simply take someone’s property, nor do they want to do that.  

“We’re not going to condemn properties because they have weeds or junky yards,” Morrison said.  

Another community member Anne Warner also expressed concerns, saying, “Not everybody can keep their houses looking immaculate. Not everybody’s standards are up to their neighbors. I think you should be really careful about kicking people out of their homes.” 

It is currently state law that if a house is considered unsafe, through due process, the owners could be evicted, Turman said. The change in ordinances doesn’t change what is already state law.

“To be clear, the purpose is not to kick anybody out of their home,” Turman said. “The ordinances are in place for extreme cases where the house is dangerous and can cause harm to the community.”