A long and a short

There were two public meetings on Monday evening. The City Council meeting lasted about 15 minutes and the County BZA meeting lasted about an hour and forty minutes.

There were only three councilmen at the City meeting, which was enough for a quorum but any vote had to be unanimous to count. All three voted for the ordinance for responsible bidding practices that had been discussed at the previous meeting. Next the Council heard the recommendation from the ad-hoc cemetery committee. It recommended increasing prices and fees because they have not been adjusted in over ten years and they have fallen behind what other cemeteries are charging. For example, they recommended raising the price of a cemetery plot from $400 to $500 and charging for disinterments. Even with the increases, the charges will average about 70% of what other cemeteries are charging. The Council voted to approve the increases, but the vote was meaningless. The vote that will count will be for an ordinance that will be introduced at the next meeting. The changes will not go into effect for another 30 days after that ordinance is passed, so if you are planning to be buried in Weston Cemetery and do not own a lot, now would be a good time to buy.

Parts for the aerial truck have arrived and perhaps it will be soon fixed. The gas department gave notice that it would be replacing some regulators later this year. 

Forty five minutes later the County BZA meeting started. There were four causes on the agenda, none of much public interest, but still interesting for the stories behind them. Before the Board got to them, however, it elected officers for 2020. They decided no change was a good idea and kept Scott Walstra as Chair and Lance Strange as Vice-Chair.  

There were two petitions for setback variances and two for frontage variances. In the first of the frontage cases a lady who is now in Oak Grove Village in DeMotte wants to sell lots she owns. One lot will have sufficient frontage once a platted road is finished, but until then it does not. It is very difficult to sell a lot that does not meet requirements, so she wanted a variance to make selling the lot easier. It was granted.

The second frontage case involved a property with a house that is set back a quarter of a mile from the road. The owner would like to sell the house and not the crop land that surrounds it, so would like to separate the parcel with the house and outbuildings and include only a 30 foot-wide access. The Board approved that.

The first setback case was for a property that previously had a house but the house had burned down. The property then went into foreclosure and was purchased at a sheriff's sale. The new owner apparently removed the ruins and also the foundation and put in a new foundation. The applicant was a person interested in purchasing the property, but it is too close to the highway. If the original foundation had been left, it would not have to meet the new requirements of the code; it would have been grandfathered in. Further, the owner did not get a building permit to do the work that was done—rules were ignored. The applicant wanted to purchase the property, build a home, and sell it. Probably mostly because the rules were ignored and the people who ignored them should have known better, the petition was denied. The applicant may yet be able to build. If the concrete block that is evident on the site was placed on the original footers, there would be no need for an variance. If building is not possible, I wonder if the property will be allowed to go into foreclosure again.

The last case was for a lady who had built a barn on her property with living quarters that were occupied while the house was built. She financed the house with a construction loan and then went to the bank for a mortgage. The bank required that the lot be surveyed and the results showed that the barn was five feet too close to the road. She needed the variance to get the mortgage loan. (The barn should have been 90 feet from the center of the road and she apparently measured 70 feet from the edge of the road.) Because altering the barn was not feasible and it was a mistake made in good faith, the Board granted the variance.

The BZA would like to find a way to eliminate mistakes like one in the paragraph above. The matter will be taken up at a future Plan Commission meeting.

On Wednesday the house on Cullen  Clark that the City purchased last year was demolished. At 9:00 the garage was gone.

At about 10:30 most of the house was in the dumpster. The property will be used for parking for the new ball fields. One of the entrances may be at this site.

Here is what was left at noon.

At 2:30 it was all gone.

I believe it was Johns Brothers that did the demolition. In a week or two they may begin removing the wreckage from the Town Mall fire.

The SJC sign by the highway is functioning again. I thought it was funny that it was advertising Ivy Tech.

Finally, here is a mystery photo. Do you know where this was taken.