By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Burlington Alderman Tom Vos called the approach the equivalent of “using a baseball bat to kill a nail.”
After more than an hour’s worth of discussion Tuesday night in the City Council Committee of the Whole meeting regarding the city’s residential parking regulations, the final direction from the rest of the council went mostly the same way.
While the council agreed that something needs to be done to clean up problem yards in the city – specifically those where lawns are used to park numerous vehicles, boats, trailers and junk – the new ordinance being proposed Tuesday night wasn’t the solution.
Instead, Mayor Bob Miller suggested – and the council agreed –the city would look at stiffening its nuisance ordinances and trying to address the problem that way.
The council chambers were packed with people opposing the proposed ordinance, which would have fined residents who had vehicles and/or trailers, RVs and boats parked in their yards.
In the audience was the Rev. Scott Carson, pastor of Grace Church, and Love Inc. Executive Director Bill Schoessling – both of whom wrote letters to the editor opposing the proposal last week and spoke out against it Tuesday night.
“This isn’t about boats and RVs,” said Carson. “It’s about living in difficult economic times.”
Added Schoessling, after confirming that the city was trying to put an ordinance together to address perhaps a dozen current problems for a city with 3,300 households, “that doesn’t make sense to me.”
The public comments came after close to 40 minutes of debate within the council itself. Miller tried to ward off some of the arguments by suggesting the ordinance be complaint-based – specifically, two non-anonymous complaints to trigger the city getting involved.
However, that suggestion wasn’t the only issue – and was even opposed on the grounds that neighbors wouldn’t want to tattle on their fellow neighbors.
Instead, Alderman Jon Schultz got to the heart of the issue.
“I just don’t want to have sweeping laws, sweeping ordinances, to solve a very small problem,” he said.
Other alderman agreed, but Alderman Tom Preusker did say he felt this wasn’t a “blue-blooded” grab or an issue of income. He said simply the goal of the city was in part to raise property values and median income.
He also called Burlington an affordable community to live in, and people want it to look nice.
“I don’t see this as anything different than an employer having a dress code,” Preusker explained.
The argument continued to go back and forth between the aldermen, some saying they heard comments mostly against the proposed ordinances while Preusker said he heard comments mostly in favor.
The audience, however, took a stand against the proposal, saying the city needed to look into the nuisance ordinance and work from there.
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