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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 vehicles she knows belong to
business owners, 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] |
