Wednesday, November 10, 2010
 
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CITY BRIEFS

Parking violators, sidewalks, property ownership and more

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[November 10, 2010]  At the Tuesday evening committee-of-the-whole meeting of the Lincoln City Council, eight members were present. Kathy Horn and Tom O'Donohue were absent for the evening.

City prepared to crack down on parking violators

Ken Greenslate, the city of Lincoln police chief, said he has two volunteers who will commence training on Wednesday to become the first of the city's volunteer parking enforcement team.

He said training will take only a short while, and he expects to have the volunteers working in the downtown area in the very near future.

The duty of the team will be to monitor and enforce the two-hour parking rules in the downtown area. They will issue tickets to violators but are not to get involved in any personal confrontations with those violators.

Greenslate had said early on in his proposal that volunteers would be instructed to not engage in any disputes with violators, but to contact the police department and let an officer handle any such situation.

During discussion, it came up via Alderwomen Joni Tibbs and Marty Neitzel that this may not entirely solve the problem.

Tibbs said she didn't understand why department heads and employers would allow their staff to run outside every two hours and move their cars. She said employers should put a stop to that.

Neitzel expanded on that issue, saying that it wasn't just employees. She personally has noted cases when vehicles she knows belong to business owners have been parked in front of businesses, taking up spaces that should be left for shoppers.

Parking in the downtown area has long been an issue. Throughout the past several years, many discussions have ensued regarding controlling the use of spaces around the square by county employees and also impressing upon business owners the negative effect of allowing employees to use the spaces closest to their work.

It is hoped that cracking down on parking violators will help with this issue. At the same time, several aldermen have expressed a concern that it will have a negative effect on downtown shoppers, as they too will have to observe the two-hour parking rule.

Parking violations in the downtown area carry a $10 fine.

Money running out for sidewalk repairs

Alderman David Armbrust and Tracy Jackson, street and alley superintendent, said the annual budget for sidewalk repair has pretty well been expended.

Armbrust said there is enough money in the budget to cover projects that have already been approved, but any new requests are going to have to be put on hold.

Jackson said that money provided by the motor fuel tax is covering sidewalk repairs, snow removal, cold patch for immediate street repairs and the purchase of salt for the winter.

In order to keep funding available for the latter, sidewalks will have be let go for now. He did note that in severe situations, such as a sidewalk that poses a trip hazard, there is a certain amount of funding that will be held aside for emergency fixes.

City approached to sell property it may not own

John Lebegue, city zoning and safety officer, said he has been in discussions with Manny Gaston regarding three lots located on West Kickapoo near the viaduct.

Gaston believes the lots belong to the city of Lincoln, and he would like to purchase them, as they adjoin property he already owns.

Lebegue said Gaston has provided a copy of a 1961 deed showing the city owns the real estate.

There was a time when the property was used by the city's public works and there is a sewer Rubicon at the corner of one parcel.

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However, city attorney Bill Bates said he is not at all certain the city owns the property.

Bates said that when the Lincoln Lakes Condo Association was formed, those lots were included in their survey, but they don't appear to have been included in any deed of ownership.

Bates said that in conversations with Bonnie Young at the Logan County Title Co., he has still not been able to determine who owns the property.

He indicated that the title company could issue a letter of ownership, but he has the impression they are not willing to do that based on the information they have now.

Inquiries have been made at the office of the Logan County tax assessor, and that office is also unable to determine who owns the land. Bates said there have been no recent tax assessments on the property, but that would be the case if it belonged to the city.

If the city is eventually able to verify it owns the property, then there are two methods of disposal available to them.

Bids could be taken on the ground, which would be open to the public and offer Gaston no guarantee he would be the winning bidder.

If the city wanted to sell directly to Gaston, the property would have to be appraised, and the city and Gaston would have to conduct their transaction based on that appraisal.

At the end of the discussions, Tibbs asked if this was something that needed to go on the agenda, and Bates said at this time no. He feels there is still a lot of research that needs to be done in this matter before the council should make any kind of decision.

In a somewhat related matter, Snyder said the city has cleaned up a right of way on North Kickapoo near Ophir Street.

He said the right of way contained a lot of trash, including some scrap metal, which the city sold.

He wants the council to think about and discuss disposing of that property. In this case, the ground could not be sold; it would have to be vacated to the property owners on either side.

The advantages of this would be that the city would no longer be responsible for keeping the area cleaned up. On the other hand, once vacated and if the area becomes an eyesore again, it would then be a code violation and an enforcement issue for the zoning and safety office and the city attorney.

Meeting ends with executive session

At the end of the night, Snyder asked for a very brief executive session and called on Tibbs, who chairs the building and grounds committee, to make the motion.

Tibbs' motion was for an executive session to discuss the purchase or lease of real property for the use of the city.

[By NILA SMITH]

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