A citywide effort to curb nuisance vehicles will be in full force next month.
City manager John Connet made the announcement this week, saying that more information would be made available to the public in the near future. Representatives with the Clinton Police Department, the Clinton-Sampson Planning and Zoning Department and city managerial staff met earlier this week to discuss dealing with one particular matter that has been rearing its ugly head — nuisance and unregistered vehicles.
The vehicles pose not only an eyesore, but serve as a safety hazard against city ordinances, officials said.
“In the month of March, we will be undertaking what we’re calling a ‘nuisance vehicle blitz,’ where we will be going to all areas of the city and enforcing all of our nuisance vehicle (ordinances). There are a lot of vehicles that we’ve noticed that are unregistered, nuisances, inoperable and don’t have tags on them.”
Connet said the city will be organizing a “blitz team,” made up of personnel with the Clinton Police Department and the Clinton-Sampson Planning and Zoning Department to identify such nuisance vehicles and get rid of them.
“We will go through and remove a lot of vehicles,” said Connet. “We will be doing lots of public promotion and education, letting people know what they need to do to get their vehicles registered or get them removed. Once we start, we will tag the vehicles and give them seven days to remove them. If they don’t remove them, then we will have them towed and they will have to either pay the towing fee or the vehicles will become the property of the towing service.”
Mayor Lew Starling said safety issues were prevalent, and the enforcement of ordinance was meant not to hassle, but for the greater good of the community.
“We do this not to harass, but we do it for safety,” said Starling. “Both of our chiefs here have been vigilant about (dealing with) something that is unsafe in the city. We just can’t have that. There are safety issues here, and that’s the reason we will be focusing on that.”
Budget calendar
A tentative budget calendar for the 2013-14 fiscal plan was signed off on by the City Council this week, which covers all major budget-related activity through the end of June.
The calendar includes the scheduling of Capital Improvement Plan meetings, budget workshops, the budget public hearing and the adoption of the 2013-14 fiscal plan. A CIP meeting will be held later this month, as city managerial staff is still in the midst of a departmental review of those capital projects, large line items that are approved as part of the regular budget but also prioritized in a long-range plan.
According to the calendar, on March 1, operations budget packages will be distributed and operational budget submissions will be made by departments at the end of March. Throughout April, operational budgets will be developed, leading up to the formal submission of the CIP and recommended 2013-14 budget to the mayor and City Council.
Budget workshops are tentatively scheduled for May 14 and May 21, to be held at 6 p.m. on each day.
A public hearing on the 2013-14 budget will occur at the Council’s June 4 regular meeting, with the plan to be adopted at a special meeting on June 18.
Chris Berendt can be reached at 910-592-8137 ext. 121 or via email at cberendt@civitasmedia.com.
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