Driggs may give nuisance rules teeth
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DRIGGS — The city of Driggs will again consider changing its nuisance ordinance, but only the piece regarding enforcement.
“It’s something I hear often, the enforcement aspect,” said Driggs City Council member August Christensen. “That we don’t have a lot of enforcement.”
The city began discussing making the rules regarding junk and debris on peoples’ property easier to enforce in the fall of 2014, but that update grew to a full rewrite of the ordinance. A contentious public hearing in May of last year led to the creation of a Nuisance Ordinance working group of Driggs’ residents, which met several times to create another draft.
That draft was heavily altered several times and was the subject of more public hearings before the council decided in Jaunary of this year to put the issue on hold for several months.
The council decided to examine the issue again at its second meeting in September, so at its Sept. 20 meeting, Driggs Planning and Grants Technician Annie Dell’Isola brought the council a recommendation on how to proceed with the nuisance ordinance.
She recommended that the council follow the original intention of revising the ordinance, as outlined in October of 2014, which was to make it easier to enforce.
Dell’Isola said her finding was that the substance of the current ordinance should be left intact and that only the fee and penalty structure should be updated.
“I just would like to button that up and make it really clear,” she said.
To that end, she proposed replacing the fee and penalty portion of the ordinance with the updated civil fee and fine schedule that the city passed last year.
Council member Wade Kaufman said the extensive nature of the failed rewrite ruffled some feathers within the community, and that he favored addressing only the enforcement aspect.
“Going through the [rewrite] process, it was pert near a headache,” he said.
Jay Mazalewski whose term on the council began this January, also agreed with the limited update proposed by Dell’Isola.
He said he wanted to make it clear to the public that the intent of this latest effort is not to redraft the substance of the nuisance ordinance, but only to address the penalty section and to “bring it to current standards.”
The council advised Dell’Isola to draft a proposed update to the enforcement section for consideration by the council. No timeline has yet been set for when the draft will be completed or for when the council will consider it. The council left the decision on a timeline to Dell’Isola.
Councilors also indicated that a full public hearing might not be necessary for this more limited change, though Mayor Hyrum Johnson said there should be public outreach on the topic.
Johnson said that, before the council took up the issue again, information would be posted on the city’s website and an email would be sent to those interested in the issue.
This article was originally published in the Teton Valley News. It is used here with permission.