The Montezuma County commissioners continue to struggle with the issues of rubbish and blight. For some time they have said many county residents want unsightly properties to be addressed.
At their workshop last week, county attorney Stephen Tarnowski presented them with a draft of an ordinance regulating rubbish that he said borrowed heavily from one in Mesa County.
The draft ordinance lists a number of items that could constitute rubbish, including junk vehicles.
“I took the inclusive approach to what would be defined as rubbish. . . so you guys could see this might be quite an expansive project,” Tarnowski said.
The commissioners then debated how many junk vehicles would be allowed on private property.
Commissioner Kent Lindsay asked, “At what point does it become a salvage yard?”
Chairman Jim Candelaria said ten or twenty cars shouldn’t be allowed to sit around with no purpose because battery acids, oil, and other elements could create an environmental hazard.
“If you’re going to pass an ordinance like that,” commented Commissioner Gerald Koppenhafer, “you’re going to have to put some kind of number on it. It’s not these people that have one or two or three out there. It’s six, eight, ten.”
They agreed that three vehicles that don’t have current license plates or registration might be a reasonable limit.
Planning Director Don Haley asked whether junk mobile homes had been included in the draft, and Tarnowski said yes.
Haley said the Planning and Zoning Commission has concerns about how any kind of rubbish or blight ordinance could be enforced.
“Planning and Zoning’s main input is, if you don’t have the funding for it, then why start it?” Haley said. “You’re talking several hundred thousand dollars to try and operate this. There’s no return as far as revenue to the county – it’s strictly trying to clean stuff up. This is going to be nothing but turn your neighbor in.”
“It’s already that way right now,” Candelaria said. “The complaint we hear is a neighbor turning in a neighbor.”
Haley said he understood that, but enforcing such an ordinance would be difficult
“This is a big jump off a cliff,” he said.
It’s one thing to help people clean up their properties, such as by offering free landfill days, Haley said. But having a full enforcement division investigating complaints and taking people to court would be costly and problematic.
“Whose complaints go first?” he asked. “Are we going to be out counting cars and trying to get right of entry and checking license plates and registrations? At the clerk’s office? You’re basically trying to create a whole division.”
“There are so many places around that have them that the amount of complaints is going to be enormous,” Koppenhafer said.
Haley agreed. “Every farm, every ditch, every arroyo has washers and dryers and stuff from 50 years ago. Are you going to go retroactive? Is everybody grandfathered in?”
Haley said the issue of junk mobile homes is another problem.
“There’s probably 1500 mobile homes that are junk,” he said. “Where are you going to put them?”
He said junk cars can be taken to Belt Salvage, but a junk mobile home goes to the landfill “and just becomes a bigger pile.”
“And there’s no grants, there’s no help,” Haley said.
The board ultimately agreed to post a survey for 30 days, take input, then have a public hearing on the subject. The survey is available at montezumacounty.org
