More than half of the audience of the City Council meeting held on May 16 were residents of Dowd Court.

Their mass attendance followed a complaint regarding two particular neighbors. Many who live along the street consider these two homes “nuisance properties.”

The Dowd Court homeowners appeared at the meeting because of a published agenda item calling for the discussion of  dangerous/unsafe and nuisance properties in Kimball. The city currently lists a total of nine unsafe buildings.

“What is the council planning on doing if the nuisance properties owners get a letter and they do nothing?” asked Dowd Court’s Arne Christensen.

“They will get a second letter,” explained mayor James Schnell. “After that we will decide if we will spend your tax dollars having the city employees taking care of it.”

At issue for the semi-circular neighborhood of modern homes was, in part, the effect of poorly maintained properties on resale values.

Can you imagine someone wanting to buy a house sitting across the street from something like that?” said Les Reemts.

Dangerous or unsafe properties are generally listed because of open roofs, open walls or broken windows. Nuisance properties are defined as residences or businesses that may have downed trees that are not removed, old cars that may not be running in front of the property, trash in the yard, an over abundance of weeds, a downed fence and so on.

“Why doesn’t the City just go up right next to the sidewalk on these properties and put up a six or eight foot fence all around the property?” Christensen asked. “we can look at a nice looking fence and let the people that want to live in squalor live in squalor.”

Council member Kim Baliman pointed out that residents need to make the city or the police aware of all such structures, adding “Mark [police chief Mark Simpson] can only do so many at a time because of the due process of the law.”

The police may investigate such situations, but their power extends only so far. First the city must approve a list of properties considered unsafe or nuisances. The owners then receive a notice and are allowed time to respond.

“We need to make people aware, especially in the downtown area, that they have an obligation to keep their buildings safe and that is why they will get a letter,” Schnell stated.

If owners fail to clean up a property, the police can then issue a citation. The consequences of this include possible fines or court appearances. With unsafe properties there are state laws that apply and procedures that have to be followed.

Another complaint that the residents of Dowd Court had an issue with was the large farm equipment and vehicles that adorned their streets, as well as a complaint regarding the strong, unpleasant odor put out by the farm vehicles.

There have been citations issued to the neighbor in question.

“We have a semi going by our house on Dowd Court,” said Pat Quillen, “it doesn‘t make any sense.”

“Maury and I have been fighting this damn town since 1999 to get it cleaned up,” explained Becky Schudnick. “I can come back in six months and the same thing will be going on. It hasn’t changed in twelve years.”

Simpson pointed out that a few things have improved along community streets over the past year. He added that a notice will be issued soon on cases liable to be brought to court.

“As a council”, explained councilwoman Kim Christiansen, “we are limited on what we can do.”