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Campbell official: There is problem with junk in city
CAMPBELL
The city’s zoning inspector is doing some spring cleaning.
Pete Ross would like to give junk-cars and junk in yards a clean sweep out of Campbell.
In the coming months, better not let your grass get too high. If you aren’t making the cut, you might be put on notice.
Ross, who works part-time for the city, said Monday that the city will push harder to enforce codes against clutter.
He said that there are a lot of junk cars in Cambpell, at least for a small town. But an even worse problem, he said, is the trash and debris he finds in residential neighborhoods.
“People just leave furniture and all kinda [junk] by the front porch,” he said.
He said the worst neighborhoods for clutter are mostly within a minute’s drive from the city hall on Tenney Avenue.
He said there is a problem with junk in the yards of abandoned houses, and the city could assess property owners after removing it.
The city would have to spend some money initially, he said, to put liens on those properties.
“But it’s a last resort, if you can’t get the attention of the property owners,” he said.
City administrator Jack Dill said he agrees “wholeheartedly” the city should clean up abandoned properties.
“The problem arises with money,” he said.
He also said it’s a problem finding owners who may have died or live out of the state.
He said the city has been trying to find someone to talk to about the Old Faith Temple Baptist Church property on Roosevelt Boulevard behind the city building.
“It’s a typical situation,” he said. “If you can find them, you can assess them. But finding them is the tough thing to do.”