The TurnAround Team, Inc. General Meeting – 22 January 2007
Deb Swank, Chair, called the annual meeting to order at 7:00 PM.
Tom Benaka briefly announced some items of interest: Public comment forms are available for the MPO Regional Transportation Plan and there will be a public meeting in February; Free income tax assistance is available through VITA; and free dental care will be available next month at the Expocentre.
Tammy Fisher, Supervisor of Code Compliance Section, spoke about the current activities of the Code Compliance Section. Sandra Cline and Dennis Boyles, Inspectors, also attended. Tammy talked about the Property Resource Guide and Property Resource Map as sources of helpful information and phone numbers. Sandra has worked as an inspector for 12 years and is cross-trained as a Nuisance / Housing Inspector. Dennis is in training. Plans are to have all inspectors cross-trained in 2007. A vehicle violation is pretty simple – if it isn’t street legal then it is violation. Dennis talked about housing violations. The code has a very long time line so sometimes it seems like houses are in disrepair for too long. Last year there were 3000 nuisance violations compared to 100 housing violations, but the housing violations take much longer to clear. Nuisance stuff outside is pretty simple – if it intended to be outside then it can be outside; if it is intended to be inside then it must be inside. Code Compliance results for 2006 will be announced at the press conference. Code Compliance is going to be promoted positively in 2007. There are some issues with the timelines for Nuisance Code that are in Kansas statutes. They are going to be reviewed in 2007. Tammy asked for help from the neighborhoods for support for code updates / enhancements to make them more enforceable.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:00 PM.
People who are interested in improving the quality and image of Central Topeka, particularly people who live in or own property in the Central Topeka area from Monroe to MacVicar and 21st to the Kansas River, are particularly encouraged to attend. For further information, call 234-2883.