The City of Indianola could soon start cracking down on abandoned vehicles.
The mayor and the board of aldermen held a special call meeting on Wednesday afternoon to discuss existing city ordinances related to junk and abandoned vehicles and a potential framework for enforcement of those laws.
“No need to reinvent the wheel,” said Mayor Ken Featherstone. “We’ve got the laws on the books. We just need some enforcement and to put some teeth into it.”
Aldermen Darrell Simpson, Ruben Woods, Marvin Elder and Sam Brock were present, as were some city department heads and Board Attorney Kimberly Merchant.
Merchant outlined a number of options the city has when it comes to enforcement, noting that citizens are entitled to due process in these cases.
“We have a lot of strategies we can use,” she said.
Merchant said one option is to treat abandoned vehicles like adjudicated properties.
Another way is to go through municipal court.
She detailed a proposed timeline of actions that include identifying the offending property, taking a photo for “necessary evidence,” sending a warning letter, and then following up with another photo after a prescribed number of days.
If the vehicle is still in the yard, Merchant said the city should pursue a case.
“It shows they did not comply with the letter that was sent,” she said.
Merchant said a sticking point the city will likely run into is whether the car owner agrees with the definition of “abandoned.”
Woods agreed.
“It can be sitting on the ground, and people will say that it’s running,” he said.
No action was taken at the meeting, but Featherstone said it was a good start, and the city would meet again to discuss more strategies.
Merchant said the city wants to let citizens who may have abandoned vehicles on their properties or on the street know that enforcement is around the corner.
“We are trying to clean up the city,” she said. “Up to this point, we’ve been addressing (high grass) and old and abandoned structures, but we want to broaden it a little bit.”
