About this meeting
- Government Body
- Municipal Code Enforcement Board
- Meeting Type
- Municipal Code Enforcement Board
- Location
- Clearwater, FL
- Meeting Date
- June 25, 2025
Transcript
903 sections (from 983 segments)
Call to order. Today's meeting of the Municipal Code Enforcement Board is called to order on, what is this? July 06/25/2025. Welcome, everyone. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. Agendas of today's meeting are on the wall at the entrance to the chambers. Remember to turn off your cell phones. The municipal code enforcement board consists of seven members who are appointed by the city council.
We serve voluntarily. It is this board's intention to promote, protect, and improve the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Clearwater by providing this equitable, effective, and inexpensive method of enforcing certain codes within the city. The board considers new business items in two parts. First, violation and then affirmative relief. Formal rules of evidence do not apply. Each side is limited to fifteen minutes. The board may grant additional time. All proceedings will be conducted in a calm civil manner. Individuals who conduct themselves otherwise will be asked to leave. If necessary, they will be escorted from the chambers. I now ask who all planned to speak. Please rise and be sworn in by our clerk.
Our first order of business is going
to be to review and approve the minutes of last month's meeting. May I have a motion to approve the minutes? I so move.
I'll second that.
All in favor? Aye. All opposed?
Minutes are approved. Is there anyone here today to speak on things that are not on our agenda today? No? Alright. Well, we'll get right into our new business items. 4.1 on our agenda has been withdrawn. Agenda item 4.2, case 30 Four-twenty5, find respondents 912 Plaza Street Land Trust at 912 Plaza Street in violation of code for hauling trader trailer and issue an order with compliance deadline and fine if compliance is not met. Is there anyone here to speak on that case? No. Inspector Dixon, you have the floor.
Good afternoon, board. Inspector Dixon, City of Clearwater Code Compliance Office. This is case 34Dash25 for 912 Plaza Street. There is one violation at the property for a hauling trailer parked in between the principal structure and the right of way. Notice was posted and mailed out in March. Compliance date's come and passed. The return the certified mail was unclaimed. Here's the trailer on the day the violation was posted. And here's the trailer today.
Is this a construction zone? I've seen the construction fence up.
No. They tore our house down.
That's not
Oh, okay.
Compliance would be met by removing the trailer and putting it the backyard behind a fence or removing it altogether.
Is she running slow today?
Yeah.
They put it in the back there is a fence around the back of the property, so it could go back there. Recommendation for this case is to request compliance on or before 08/01/2025. Compliance has not met and pose a fine of a $150 per day for each day the violation continues to exist.
Have you spoke with any of the homeowners or anything?
Nope. I spoke to somebody in the driveway, and they said they were friends of somebody who resides there. It's a rental, but the owners are nobody's contact.
I'm not able to get ahold of the owner, Mm-mm.
Do we have any questions for Inspector Dixon?
I move to find the respondent in violation of the code as referred to in the affidavit in this case.
I have a second. Second.
All in favor? Aye. All opposed?
First motion approved.
I move to enter the order requiring the respondent to correct the violation to honor before eightonetwenty twenty five. If the respondent does not comply by that date, the Board may order a fine of $150 per day per violation for each day. Each violation continues to exist. If fines, fees remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed, the city is authorized to close, collect, or settle such lien.
Do we a second?
Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passes.
All right. Next case is 4.3 on our agenda, case number 38Dash25.
Or 20Five-thirtyFive-twenty5.
Find respondents Lance Willard and Bianca La Zarraga at 1109 Charles Street in violation of code for public health safety or welfare nuisance pool and issue an order with a compliance deadline and find if compliance is not met. Is there anyone here to speak on that case? No? Inspector Dixon, you have the floor.
Yes, look, computers.
That is case 35Dash25 for 1109 Charles Street. There's one violation at the property for an, an unsafe pool. It's a pool, new construction that's not, guarded by any kind of barrier. Notice of violations went out in, February, and the property was posted in February also after no response and return mail came back. It's a remodeled property back in the back left corner.
There's a pool there that's unsecured, and here's the pool, closer view. And it's this is the sidewalk. You can just walk on a property. Nobody resides there, so it's a safety violation. Compliance can be met for the pool by placing a barrier around the pool to prevent access, and we request compliance on or before 07/2325 if the violations continue to exist, impose a fine of $250 per day for each day if the violation continues to exist.
So by two people, they're in a little bit of a dispute. I think the dispute has been worked out now, and I'm in contact with one of the owners, and they tell me they're working diligently to get a barrier put up around the pool.
I guess I'm tied, man.
I have questions. Yeah.
Go ahead,
How long has it been going on? Since February?
No. I think this was first brought to my attention after the storms last year.
Okay. The pool was there then? Mhmm. Okay. Is there water in the pool? Yes. And there is public access to it? Right. Okay. And if I'm not mistaken, just as a as a comment or question, the the main point of the fence around the pool is to keep maybe a younger person from falling in. Okay.
Any other questions, Board?
I have
a comment.
Believe it's been going on since the storm, and I know that he's asking until the twenty third, but the sooner the better a fence. Nobody wants the hindsight, you know, nothing's happened in that period of time, but I think it's important enough to just say something about it, that the thing needs a fence put up, needs to be protected.
And what would you recommend? Like eight, Two weeks? Something
sooner than seventwenty three, because that's almost a month from now, and sooner rather than later, would say, ten days, two weeks, something like that, to get it handled or have something done that's effective. July 3. End of the That's next Thursday.
Yeah.
And it and, you know, I know it's if I'm It's a barrier. Right, but I'm looking further at this, it says after three months from the recordation date of such a lean. A lean is one thing, but I'm questioning whether or not there's any ability to do something more effective in terms of a barrier in place beyond what we're looking at here. I don't want to overstep our legal balance, it may be better addressed to our attorney, but I think it's important to just consider that.
Board, do you have any thoughts on that?
I have another question. They say they're working diligently. Have they told you what they're doing, what actions they're taking?
But they say they want this rectified as soon
as possible.
$2.50 a day should do it.
Yeah. Starting on the July 3. Is that what you think? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is everybody in agreement with that?
Think so. It's not safe for children or pets.
Sooner, better. Yeah. Okay, yeah.
Mr. Chair, my only suggestion would be that sometimes with the tight deadlines, as you know, you have to come in and sign these orders, and then we have to get them out in the mail. I'm not aware of any legal restriction as to when you how tight the deadline could be, and I don't defer to the board attorney for specific on that, but we typically do give enough time at least to get the order signed and mailed out and hope that they receive it.
Yeah. That's reasonable. I understand that. That is cutting it kind of close with me. Understood. But sometimes, you know, I don't get down here till Monday, Friday, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way, and then that would only be, you know, get in the mail, it only be three days.
On the twelfth, next following Friday?
Yeah. I think that would be
Gives probably them a week to do something.
Yeah, the twelfth, Sound okay?
After, you know, considering mailing all of that.
That sound okay? Okay. Alright. Mister Strickland, yeah.
Does the city have the ability to go in there and, you know, like we Not till
it goes into our nuisance abatement stage.
Yeah, if I could ask or answer that, we aren't asking for that at this time, I mean, but theoretically the city does have the ability to come to the board and request. We normally do it through our nuisance abatement case process, so that, you know, if we had come and asked for the ability to go on and secure the pool, then that would be something before the something that for the a question for the Board to consider at that time, but we haven't brought it we haven't brought the case in that way.
So basically, we're if I understand, we're limited to what the city's asking for. Well, I
would I mean, the board has their own separate attorney. I represent the staff, so my position would be the board should address what the city's requesting. There is some authority for the board to order abatement, But if you're kind of going beyond what the city is asking for, I would just defer to your attorney to give you specifics on when and how you can do that.
I believe you would have the discretion to alter the deadline moving it up beyond or within thirty days. I think given that extra week would be with mailing and everything and getting it. And I just for the record, I think somebody said the twelfth, but next Friday is the eleventh. The eleventh. Okay.
You with want to the eleventh? I mean, that'll be the time to, you know, I get down here by Friday, Nicole, or Monday, you know, it's never past Monday that I
should get the order signed
and everything, so that'll be a week. So let's, yeah, let's go with that. So, you wanna make our first motion?
I move to find the respondent violation of the code as referred to in an affidavit in this case.
Second. Second. All in favor?
Aye. All
opposed? Motion approved. Second motion.
I enter to I move to enter an order requiring the respondent to correct the violations on or before 07/11/2025. If the respondent does not comply by that date, the order of $250 per day for each day each violation continues to exist, if fees and fines remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed, the city is authorized for close, collect or settle such lien.
Second. All in favor?
Aye. All opposed? Motion approved. All right, 4.4 on our agenda has been withdrawn, 4.5 has been withdrawn, 4.6 has continued to July meeting, 4.7 has been withdrawn, our next is 4.8 case 40Dash25, fine respondents bomb holdings LLC at 234 Palm Island Southwest in violation of code for short term rental and issue an order with the compliance deadline and fine if compliance is not met. Is there anyone here to speak on that property? No? Miss Green, you have the floor.
Good afternoon, board. This property is returned to compliance. We're seeking a declaration of violation.
Alright. Can we get the declaration? I think it's the very last one.
Yep. Or no?
Yes. That's fine.
I move to find the respondent was in violation of the code as to refer to an affidavit in this case. The violation was corrected prior to today's hearing and to enter an order that no fine be imposed. If the respondent repeats the violation, the Board may impose a daily fine in order the city take reasonable actions to abate and maintain the new sense, including entry into the property and charge the respondent with those costs if fines fees remain which will become a lien on the property.
Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion approved. Second.
All right. Our next 4.9 on our agenda has been withdrawn. 4.1 on the agenda is case 42Dash25, fine respondents, Jeremiah King at 201 South Pegasus Avenue in violation of code for exterior services and roof maintenance and issue an order with the compliance deadline and fine if compliance is not met. Is there anyone here to speak on this case? Sir, will you please come up, state your name and address for the record?
Hello. My name is Jeremiah King and my address my home address is 1997 Arvis Circle East.
Mister King, are you are you admitting or denying the violation today?
Admitting.
You're admitting it?
Yes.
Okay. Can I have a first motion, please?
I move to find a violation of the code as referred to in the affidavit in this case.
Alright. Second.
All in favor? Aye. All opposed?
Motion approved. Mister King, if you'll have a seat, we're gonna hear from the city and we'll bring you back up. Okay. Okay.
Thank you.
Mister Steve inspector Stevens, do you have the floor, sir?
Good afternoon, board. John Stevens, co compliance inspector for the city of Clearwater. This is case number 42Dash25 regarding 201 South Pegas Avenue. We have two violations here, one for code section, 315O2B for exterior services and, three fifteen O two d one and d three for roof maintenance and, cleaning the roof. So notice of violation, this actually started back August.
It was sent out with a courtesy letter, And I've had a little bit of conversations with Mr. King and there was some work done to it and then it stalled. Back in January, we ended up, because obviously the hurricanes came that delayed a lot of work and stuff for a lot of people. So I ended up going and sending out another notice of violation and had to eventually end up posting the property. The compliance date after I did the posting was set for March 7 and that mail ended up coming back, returned, but again, the property was posted as you can see there, in my picture.
That was the physical posting for today's hearing. And then this is actually the picture of the property when it started back in August. You can see a lot of the mildew there growing up on the wood trim and everything and also on the side of the siding there on the house. And you can also see the elements up on the roof there, the torn tarp, kinda up here in this area in the corner and then over on this other picture here, that's where another tarp is and there's some cinder blocks that were up there trying to hold those down. By September, he had actually came out here pressure washed part of the house, but then he ran into an issue and couldn't, finish it.
And, that's still kind of where we stand today as we go through the pictures. As you can see, this is what it looked like back on January when I had to post the property. Nothing had been taken off the roof. The rest of the house hadn't been pressure washed. Mister King did send me a copy of a contractor's quote that he had been speaking with to try to get the roof repaired, and that was back in March.
And then I waited, waited, waited, nothing ever occurred. Back in May, we were still at the same place that we were back then. So I went forward bringing it before code board because when I ended up checking our system, there have been no permits applied for to fix the roof. And then as of yesterday, there were still no permits have been applied for to fix the roof. And then these are a picture of the property of how it looked this morning before we came before the board. So as you can see, there's been no change.
Board, do you have any questions for inspector Stevens? Inspector Stevens, have you here
have a seat. Mister King, would you like to come back up, please?
Oh,
how's it going, mister King?
Doing well.
Doing well? Yeah.
Be a lot
better when this place is all fixed, right?
Oh, absolutely.
So what's going on?
So a quick back history on this property. This was a property I inherited from my mother back in 2017. I'm allowing a family a family friend to reside there, 83 year old gentleman. He had nowhere to go. As of right now, we do think we have a family member that could take him in in August. That's just
a little
backstory. I am the plan was is to have this as a a rental property. I met with, several general contractors, even though I know they doesn't exactly, apply to the roof and so forth. But my objective was to take out a cash out refinance and take care of everything. But I'm having some trouble getting, quotes back from the general contractors.
So, since then, I do have a painter lined up. I'm meeting with him on Thursday. He can begin work to paint and pressure wash the full house this coming weekend. And then I did talk to one of the roofers, another roofer other than Mighty Dog, who can they said they can get me on the books four to five weeks from, I guess, when I when I signed the paperwork Okay. Which I'm meeting with him on this this coming Friday.
Okay.
So that would put it, hopefully, start date of early August. When
was our compliance date on this?
What was our compliance date on What
is our compliance date, Inspector Stevens?
We actually didn't make it to the recommendations and whatnot.
Oh, we hadn't made it there yet. I'm sorry. So we didn't know.
No problem,
like to
cover that real quick. Obviously
Yeah. Mister King, I'm sorry, brought you up just a hair too soon. We gotta see what the city wants to do before we can decide I'm on sorry, my bad. I'm getting ahead of myself. John, I'm sorry.
It's not a Continue. So basically compliance could be met for the exterior surfaces by cleaning off the mold, mildew, algae, things like that growing on the side of it and maintaining it on a regular basis. Compliance can be met for the maintenance of the and cleaning the roof by cleaning again off all that debris that's not structural elements of the roof, such as tarps, cinder blocks, sticks, etcetera, and then repair the roof to coat so it's safe, secure, and in a watertight condition. And then we are actually asking for compliance by July 25 or a fine of a $150 a day per violation for each day it exists.
Alright. There we go. Mister King, you can come back up.
No. I'm sorry.
And you don't think you can get the roof going until like the August 1?
No, the what now thing?
You don't think you can get the roof started before the first if you approve a roofer by then?
I was just going by the information he conveyed to me. I literally got off the phone with him in the parking lot and he said that they could get me on the books four to five weeks Yeah. Of today as far as getting the actual work started physically. The painting aspect could be done obviously a lot sooner. I did try to get some of that mildew off by myself, but some of the parts I couldn't reach by myself.
Board, Yeah. Do we have any questions for Mr. King? I
have a
comment or two. Okay, go ahead. Suggestion, and that might be perhaps we set it for a revisit thirty days from now to see where it's at. Compliance may be two months out or an update for thirty days from now. We'll see how well that's progressed and what's, by then I would expect you'd be
able to get a refer, and
if the painting happens and it shows progress, then good. So what, like our August meeting? Is that or an update in July?
We could it out, and he can have it all done within the timeframe he's doing.
True enough.
And that way we're just done with it. Your sake and our sake both, we're done with it. Why don't we leave the motion as is with an extended date? Yeah. So we can get the roof done and everything done. Not look back. Won't have to return.
I mean, are we can we do we can do that.
Yeah. We can extend the date.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. From July to what? Like, August 20 What's our biggest thing?
Thing? What's latest thing? The the longest thing would be the verruf, and like I said, from my conversation with them literally about an hour ago, you said, like, four to five weeks.
Yeah. Before they even start.
Correct. That's when they
take them one day or
two to do a verruf. Yeah. Yeah.
But even if they're if Yeah. Even if, you know, we set it for for August, the roof will be done or if they
have a
contract in
place or
permanently pulled or something, the
Nicole, when's the when's the August meeting?
When's our August meeting? The twenty third no. That's July.
Twenty seventh.
August 27.
Boardy, are you comfortable with pushing extended until the twenty seventh? Going to give you, August 27 is going to give you plenty of
and time
you're going to keep in contact with Inspector Stevens to let him know what's going on, your roof are flaked out on you or something, you know what I mean, a lot of stuff can happen.
Yeah, absolutely.
Many slip and twist the cup and the lid, is what my dad used to say. So, just keep him informed of what's going on and we'll go that route, okay?
Yeah, sounds good. I appreciate it.
Okay, do we want to, let's make our second motion.
I move to enter an order requiring the respondent to correct the violations on or before 08/27/2025. If the respondent does not comply by the date, the board may order a fine $150 per day for violation for each day, each violation continues to exist. If the fines and fees remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed, the city is authorized for close, collect or settle such lien.
Second.
Second.
All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion
approved. Thank you,
Mr. Thank you.
Our next up is 04:11 on our agenda case 43Dash25, fine respondents William R. Black at 2390 Willow Street, Trail in violation of code for abandoned building and issue an order with compliance deadline and fine if compliance is not met. Is there anyone here to speak on that? Yes. If you'll come up and give your name and address to our clerk for the record, please.
As a comment? As a comment. Oh.
Yeah. This isn't the property owner.
Oh, this isn't the property owner? Right. Okay. Well, have a seat again, and I'll call you back up in just a bit. Okay? I'm sorry.
No problem.
I should probably say someone who represents the property before I Okay. Mister Stevens, you have the floor.
Alright. Again, afternoon board. John Stevens, co compliance inspector with City of Clearwater. My case number has disappeared off of there, so I apologize. It's, case number 4325, regarding 2390 Willow Tree Trail. And, just basically number of violations. Here's one for three dash 15 o three, a, b one, b two, and b three for, basically having a nuisance building in a public nuisance condition, an abandoned building in an attractive nuisance. You guys may have remembered this case from back in April's cohort. This was a house that had burnt down the previous year, I believe it was, and the fence had fallen down. There was access to the pool.
Pool was green. The rest of house hadn't been boarded up, there was a bunch of debris on the property as well as, several abandoned, vehicles at that time. We dealt with those cases then, so this is just dealing with mainly the the status of the house right now. Notice of violation was posted in mail back on March 19. I actually spoke to the property owner at the property that day, with a compliance date of April 2, and the certified mail never came back, but it was already posted.
This is the posting that day along with the picture of the front of the the residence. And then, this is the posting for today's meeting. And even though that I've had contact, with the gentleman, since this initial date and everything, I tried to get ahold of him earlier this week to see if he was gonna be here today, and I was not able to get ahold of him. So this was the actual condition of the property when we first did the posting. You can see there was part of the fence down right there, which is actually supposed to go up here and conceal the AC unit and some of this other stuff here.
Believe it's actually part of the furnace. You had the unboarded up window in the front that would actually allow someone to be able to crawl through that main window and make them way back to the back pool area here, where again you can see that was the green pool on the date with part of the fence down here on the ground at that time. Another picture of the front, which is kinda hard to see, but there's actual hole up here in the roof where, you know, the fire was burning, and I guess the fire department had to go in there and probably do some other stuff to ventilate and whatnot, but there's obviously an open hole in the roof. This is on the compliance date on April 2, and as you can see, there was no real change to the property, at that point. Windows still remain unboarded, access is still open to the pool at that time.
And then on 06/03, I went back out to the property goes in speaking with the property owner. He had gotten permits to start putting up and replacing, the fence. So he got his permit to do that, and he told me that he had actually got his tags to repair some of the inoperable vehicles, and he had taken care of that and started the the work on the fence. This was 63 where actually the contractors had completed the fence on that day. So there's been a little bit of improvement on the property, but there's still some some major issues going on there.
This was, 623, and you can see that they he fixed this fence over here on the side as well. And actually, it's gotten, the window boarded up. So now with the fencing there, that's at least cut off access to the pool. It's just still there's nothing else going on with with the house. There's not been any permits obtained whatsoever to try to do any other type of restoration to the house at this point.
You still have the hole up there in the roof. So basically, compliance can be met for these conditions by actively maintaining the grounds, so there's no trash, debris or overgrowth, treating and maintaining the pool so there's not green ground for mosquitoes, having the necessary engineering analysis completed to determine if the structure is safe to rebuild, if so, obtaining the necessary permits to rebuild the residence. If the structure is not safe to rebuild, obtaining a demolition permit and having the structure demolished. And then we are actually asking for him to come into compliance by August 25 or a fine of a $150 a day per day for each day the violations exist.
Board, do you have any questions?
Oh, I do. How long has it been since you spoke with the owner?
I believe it was right before June 3. I think he called me. It was either May 30 or June 1 right in there. I can't remember the exact date. And said that he had secured the permit for the fence and the contractors were supposed to be there the following week. I went by there and saw that they'd actually completed the fence pretty quickly. So it's basically been up right about a month now.
Okay. Any discussions about the house and what the plan is for that?
He still thinks he's gonna be able to get owner builder permits and and fix this, even though in our discussions I've been pretty frank with him, told him I don't know how viable that is considering, you know, his, his medical conditions, age and some other factors, but
Gotcha.
Okay. Thank you.
What was the date of the fire?
I don't know the exact date off top of my head, but it was it was definitely sometime last year, I believe. If not last year, might actually have been the 2023. So it's it's been a while that this has been like this. Yeah.
I remember coming coming across our desk once before. Mhmm. Any other questions, board? No? I don't want to speak.
Do the
first motion if you want.
I'm thinking about whether that's what I was gonna do.
Let's do the first motion first.
I move to find the respondent in violation of the code as referred to in the affidavit in this case.
Second? Second.
All in favor? Aye. All opposed? The motion approved.
Do you want to come back, sir? If you'll state your name and address for the record, please. I'll do it.
Patrick Graftery. My address is 3259 beg your pardon. 3237 Masters Drive in Clearwater in the countryside area. I come to you today as vice president of the Clearwater Neighborhood Coalition, which is a coalition of 36 HOAs and neighborhood associations. As the vice president of the group, this year, we undertook an initiative to support, assist, and escalate as necessary member HOA or neighborhood associations that were having code compliance issues affecting the attractiveness of their neighborhood.
This particular residence is in Woodgate 1 And 2 HOA, which is a member of our CNC, and they reached out to me approximately five weeks ago to ask us to assist them if we could with respect resolving the matter. The neighborhood that this residence is in is a very attractive neighborhood. If you have visited the residence area or driven down the street, it's very attractive. This house is decrepit. It's uninhabitable. It's been that way. According to neighbors, I've been out there three times. For eighteen months, they've been fighting this issue. It's unattractive. It detracts from their neighborhood, and they do not feel that anything is being done to resolve and remove this problem from them.
When I first visited there, there was no fence on the side where the pool is. There was room in the pool including a grill. The pool is exposed. It's green. There was no barrier protecting children from it. Since that time, the fence has gone up. On the opposite side of the house, that fence is now up as of June 23, but the neighbor on that side tells me it keeps falling down and her and her son put it up once and they're no longer going to do that. So that fence is up now, but no, I don't know if it'll last much longer. And that gives anybody that wants to access to the backyard and to the pool, which again is unsafe. So the point we're trying to make CNC and on behalf of that HOA is this is an absolute disgrace to have in a neighborhood and to have it for eighteen months.
They do not understand and are becoming quite frustrated. As Mr. Stevens has said, there doesn't seem to be a lot of activity taking place to just avoid this issue with respect to the inoperable vehicles or in fact the condition of the house. I think we'd hope that the Board and the City and the compliance group can take care to resolve this matter on behalf of the residents in the area. I thank you for your time. There may be some residents from the same neighborhood that live there who would like to make comment as well to let you know how serious and long standing this situation is. Thank you very much for
your Is he still paying his HOA fees?
Pardon me?
Is he still paying his HOA fees?
I'm not sure he's
a member
of that HOA,
but they certainly are.
That does remind me one other comment. I think he's not paid his property taxes as of April 1, and therefore, are being considered delinquent by the property appraiser appraiser at
this time.
Yes. Thank you very much.
We'll do everything we can to try to get this moved. There's a process that has to go through, and unfortunately it takes time. You have a certain, we give certain amount of time, but it will eventually come to an end to where it's either going to be taken care of or the city is going to come in and take care
of it, you know, so. I do appreciate your efforts and
Thanks for coming.
On behalf of residents trying to help them. Thank you very much.
Is there anyone else on this property Thank you that coming like today. Come
There it is. Okay, right here.
If you'll come to the podium and state your name and address for the record, please. Good afternoon. Good afternoon.
My name is
Barbara Fiddler. I live at 2443 Timbercrest Circle West, Woodgate 1 And 2, Clearwater, Florida. And also on the board, the HOA. This house is a health hazard. To me, it's beyond repair. It has a hole in the roof, a dangerous pool that children, vagrants can reside. So it really needs to be, I believe, demolished because it's a health hazard. So that's my comment. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
And the owner does not live on the property, it's a vacant, empty property.
And I have a question for you. Is he paying his HOA dues?
No, he never has. Okay,
thank you.
We're going to do everything we can to help you guys out. All right, we have a second motion, please.
I move to
add If there was no
more questions, I'm sorry, Board, did anybody have any other questions for Inspector Steven or anyone?
I just think we have to insist on that engineers report
to be in
this next time. If not, we should move in to take it down.
Well, eventually it's going to come before us as a nuisance abatement, The city might have to go in there and tear it down, you know, and so. All right, any, no more questions?
All right. I move to enter an order requiring the respondents to correct the violations on or before eighttwenty fivetwenty five. The respondent does not comply by that date. The Board may order a fine of $150 per day per violation for each day. Each violation continues to exist. The fines and fees remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed. The city is authorized to foreclose, collect, or settle such lien.
Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion
passes. Thank you, Board.
Thank you, Inspector. Our next case is 4.12 on the agenda, case number 40Four-twenty5, find respondents code of BudFit LLC at 1185 Court Street in violation of code for signed maintenance and issue an order with the compliance deadline and find if compliance is not met. Is there anyone here to speak on that case? Ma'am, will you come up? Good afternoon. Would you state your name and address for the record, please?
Yeah. My name is Carolyn Arote. 12719 Gillard Road, Winter Garden, Florida 3476.
Can say your name again?
Yep. Carolyn Arote, a r o t e.
Mister miss Arote, do you admit or deny the violation today?
Yes. I admit it.
You admit it? Okay. If you'll have a seat, we'll bring you back.
I move to find the respondent in violation of the code as referred to in the affidavit in this case.
Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? First motion passes.
Inspector Burkhart, you have the floor.
Good afternoon, board. Steven Burkhart, site inspector for the city of Clearwater. This is case 44Dash25 regarding 1185 Court Street. There's one violation regarding code section three dash 15 o two I for sign maintenance. A little bit timeline.
This Paul sign with damaged face panels. Both face panels were damaged during hurricanes in '24. So just a little reminder was September and October. Since many signs were damaged during the the hurricanes, I didn't reach out to property owners for a while. So I started I started to get in contact with that with the property owner in December 24.
I spoke with with the property owner about the sign. And finally, after the sign wasn't repaired, I sent a notice of violation in March with a compliance date, 04/04/2025, and I received the certified mail in March 1825. This is the sign. Both face panels are damaged, and the interior is exposed. That was the photo was taken in December year.
And the picture is May. So I I moved the case to court board, and that that was Just yesterday. Yesterday. Compliance can be met by installing face panels or remove the sign structure. Recommendations for the case 44Dash25, there's one violation for sign maintenance requesting compliance on or before 07/25/2025, if the violation continues to exist, impose a fine of $150 per day each day if the violation continues to exist. Any questions?
Have a question for you. This is Jeff's Jeep's. Right? This one was what it was Jeff's Jeep's location?
Yes. Yes, sir.
Aren't they going for through a full remodel or somebody moving into there? They've been filling the land and doing all that.
There's currently construction going on. Right?
Mhmm. And do those people have a plan for that sign?
Well, I don't know. Okay. Maybe we should ask her.
It wouldn't make
sense if they're
not gonna, you know, to put up their sign if they're not gonna be there. Right. Yeah. Jeff Deeps is Yeah. I remember Jeff's CPR right
there. Okay.
Turned by Greg's. Greg's. All right.
I don't have any other questions.
No. Anybody else have any questions for Inspector Mercker?
I move to define the response. Break it apart.
Sorry. We can come back. We already did hers.
Well, just had let's leave here what's
going on.
So I guess in a nutshell, prior part to this was that I was forced to take the Jeff's Jeeps pounds down. They were in place, and I was told that was a violation because I'm not Jeff's Jeeps. So I should have to pay somebody to take those down and put up a tarp. That's what I did, then the hurricane did come.
So you're going to be the new people in the building?
Yeah. I'm building it, but then I'm partnering with the people that are So we have gone through tremendous lengths to try to get this up and running, just so you know, with the city here, amongst yourself, whoever the city is fighting with themselves over, I need 27 parking spots, but I can't have that because then I wouldn't have enough green space. It's like I couldn't even get through the compliance to build my building. It took literally over a year to get all the the permits to build here. So we're we're finally underway.
You could see now they're finally building a pit that I have to comply for the hurricane that may never hit, whatever, all the stuff. I do have a quote from a signed company. They told me it would take at least eight weeks to get through the permitting process again with the city and be able to get those back up. But I do have the quote as of today. It took them two weeks to go there and do the I I was in I don't wanna put up I can't put up the signs of a business that isn't existing yet, so I was waiting as long as I could, but we're getting very close now. The parking lot is being built. The floors are being done. We're almost there. I hope to actually be in business by August, because it's been eight months longer than I would have liked. So I am completely actively participating.
I don't want to be in violation. I just I can't put up panels for a company that doesn't exist and etcetera, etcetera. So I I don't mind. I just think, realistically, they told me it would be about eight weeks till they could get through because they need permits to do the signage properly.
The city is gonna take eight weeks to get
So the sign company said by the time they drop, give the city what they need, get approvals, and then get them installed would be about an eight week process. Okay.
Yep. So process.
I was
going say, wow, they never Would take that long for
you be open by then, or ready to open your business? Yes,
yeah. Assuming I can get a CO and all of that. Like I said, I mean, they're super actively wrapping up what they can, but would be within that time, I would have liked to have been open by now. So at this point, I don't know 100% that the parking lot is one of the worst tragedies I've ever seen that I'm trying to build. But I believe they're actually pouring the concrete today for the wall that they've built. Again, so I'm assuming the panels could go up within a time frame of being able to within a few weeks of opening officially.
Okay, thank you. We'll set
it for
two months from now.
You want to do the August thing? 08/27,
08/25. If it's not next week, they can come back and let us know where they are in the process.
Right, is it 08/2827,
bump it another month
if needed or it's done.
08/27?
You wanna do 08/27, just give her another thirty days to sixteen days. So that'll be like
Yes, another thirty days. It'll be another thirty days.
Tied it on there. Has. This is good.
Inspector, did you have something to say?
Yes. Just wanna get some clarification. So there's no permits required for the sign for the for the work that city asked for. Face installation of face panels does not require any permits. And we don't ask for installing blank face panels or a tarp, anything that covers the cabinet. So we don't ask for a permanent solution for that.
Seriously? So are you guys doing are you let
me just take
a look.
Are you guys doing a completely new sign or are you just going No,
we're keeping that full sign, to the best of my understanding.
And you're just going
to put in new panel, so they have to change it to LED lighting versus whatever was there or something.
Now is that going to be required permitting to change it over from LED lighting?
The electronic, that's not an issue, that's not a case, it's just for the open cabinet. The open cabinet needs
to be closed. So that's
the only issue currently I have,
and that doesn't require
So she could go to like one of those fabric sign companies to get one of those sleeves that like a pillowcase, I mean you can do that with no permits, he's saying. So the eight week is kind of
It's a matter of, to be quite fair and honest, principle, it's costing me so much extra money to meet all kinds of compliances, now that GCC's gonna charge me extra, and I'd like to just do it once. I like to do it once and do it right. I mean, if that's what it's gonna come down to, that I have to do twice and pay twice, then that's whatever whatever the city decides. I'm just I'm trying to get through this in one piece. It's been
a very
costly undue costly experience to try to build this in the city. I'm just trying to get up and running and help, you know, I'm paying my taxes and everything even though I can't run a business.
So it's been painful. We're just trying to
Understood. To I understand. You know, if been forced to take down the panels in the first place, we wouldn't be in this. So I'm I'm always in the wrong no matter how I kinda look at it. So
We're gonna try to help out a little bit. We're just I mean, eight weeks is not gonna if it'll if you can go get a sleeve, you know, for I mean, there's plenty of sign companies I know around
that You have have to get up. So I have to pay somebody to come up there with a lift and be able to get that up over. It's not like it's down here. No, understand. So, again, whatever you guys truly choose, I'll think if ever you need us. I've made it this far. Okay.
We can do that.
I'm just trying
to give her some ideas. That's the life easier if her 60, That's that she's working on the fine.
That's fine.
Code, it our Board, is that okay? Everybody in agreement on that? Okay. All right.
I move to enter an order requiring the respondents to correct the violations on or before 08/27/2025. If the respondent does not comply by that date, the board may order a fine of $150 per day per violation for each day, each violation continuing to exist. If the fines and fees remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed, the city is authorized to foreclose, collect or settle such lien.
Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed?
Thank you, Board. Thank you.
All right, case agenda item four-thirteen has been withdrawn, four-fourteen has been withdrawn. We are Four-fifteen case number 40Seven-twenty5 find respondents, Belcher Professional Complex at 1419 South Belcher Road in violation code for abandoned building, initiate an order with compliance deadline and fine if compliance is not met. Is there any, one representing the property that that would like to speak? Please come forward. Both of you and one of you, whoever wants to come
up here.
We'll take both of you instead.
I'm sorry. If you'll state your name and address for our clerk for our record here.
Morgan Wert, w e r t. 157 5th Avenue Southwest, Largo, Florida 33770.
Alright.
Holly Jones, 14968 Newport Road, Clearwater 33764.
And you guys are the owners or Property manager. Property manager. I have a question. Do you admit or deny the violations? Admit them? Okay. If you'll have a seat, we'll be right back with you. Can have my first motion?
I move to find the respondent violation of the code as referred to in the affidavit in this case.
Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Alright.
Inspector Maddox, you have the floor.
Good afternoon, board. Kevin Maddox, code enforcement inspector for City of Clearwater. This is case 4725 for 1419 South Belcher Road. It's an abandoned building. One violation for 3Dash15O3B2, abandoned building.
Notice was sent January '25 and '25, compliance date of fourten twenty five, certified mail received signed on '25. The order of events on this was this abandoned building was identified in September 2024 as a courtesy notice was sent. Water has been shut off since 2005. On 10/04/2024, I was in contact with Morgan who was handling the demolition and rebuilding of this building. On 01/24/2025, I sent a notice of violation by certified mail.
I continued to have contact with Morgan. She was sending me correspondence with the engineers for the building demolition in February 2025. Over the next few months, I attempted to obtain a game plan of action or progress for the building. Morgan cannot supply a plan of when the building would be demolished, as I pointed out to her that the sign in the front of the building continued to advertise build to suit. I'll show you the pictures. So in the beginning here, this is the building. You'll see in the back, on the side, they already showed that the roof has damage. Don't go on the roof. May have been problems in the past. This is in the front.
You can see from the front all the way through to the sky through the demolished ceiling or damaged ceiling. This was in April when I had posted it the second time, and it continued to remain the same. During this time, you'll see here where it says build to suit. It just continued to advertise, hey, if you want to come and use this building, we'll build it the way you want to. As of the June 23, couple days ago, it still remained all the same.
I just took pictures in there. The sign was out front showing build to suit. I had had conversations with Morgan, and she was very good about getting information to me, trying to put it in the case. But at some point, we came to an understanding that, you know, everything that you give me, I will put into the case, which you're going to have to present what you're doing with the building to the Board because there is no physical evidence of movement, just paperwork that shows what they're trying to accomplish with surveys and engineers and the like. Compliance can be met by bringing the property into compliance with current property maintenance ordinances and have current utilities turned on or demolish the building.
Recommendation for case 4725, abandoned building request compliance on or before 07/25/2025, or a fine of $150 per day per violation for each day the violation continues to exist.
Board, do we have any questions for inspector Maddox? No. No? Ladies, if you'll come back up. Yeah, go ahead and have a seat, I'm sorry. So what do we got going on with the building?
So if I can just give you kind of a general overview what's kind of transpired over this time frame, and then Sure. Morgan did all of the specific conversations with the compliance officer, and we've kind of been involved in this project together, though she is the she's the muscle behind it all. We did submit we we have recently submitted, which you may have a copy of. If not, we've brought copies from. We finally hired a contractor.
He has completed the survey. He's initiated the civil engineering with Howard, and we expect that to be back either Friday of this week or Monday of next week. And then our next steps through Taunton Construction are developing the architectural plans, completing the due diligence, submitting the permit applications, and preparing physically for the demolition. He did include with that proposals and he's seeking two more. I'll back up for just a second.
At the point that we got our initial courtesy notification, we were already working on this. And that was immediately following Debbie, Hurricane Debbie. Since then, we've also had Helene and Milton come through. So when we we first started this, our normal contractors that we use, that we trust, that we know were tied up. They couldn't help us.
So they kind of said to us, okay, start from the architectural engineering side of it and see what you can get done there. We can get the plans done. Then we can submit to, you know, for bids to contractors. So we started that. That part of the process wasn't much easier. We reached out to over that timeframe. I think it was 14. We have a list of them. Engineers and architects that we reached out to just to get estimates for what the plans would cost. We set those down and, you know, tried to make sure they were all apples to apples.
The problem with that was that the pricing was so vastly different from 16,000 to 163,000 that we kept trying to bring more people into the process to legitimize those bids.
And out of those $14.08 could have taken on.
Now is that for a rebuild or for a complete demolition and in building a new building?
We're going towards both.
We're trying to determine right now whether complete demolition or demolition to the exterior walls makes the most sense. In the course of that, they're also trying to see if there's any potential to to add a story to it. But so we don't know exactly which direction that's going yet. There are two additional bids for the to keep the exterior walls and foundation and redo everything inside to see what makes the most sense, what's most feasible before we initiate the demolition part of the contract and apply for those permits.
How long do you think that's going to be before you make that determination?
Yeah. The GC on the project submitted, a letter that we brought with us that we submitted previously, but that we also brought with us that is asking for a ninety day extension to finalize the plans and and submit for permits. He believes in ninety days we can be completed with at least that much.
So you you'll know whether you're gonna keep it or you're gonna knock it down?
We will not only will we know that, but we will have already submitted for permits by that time. So that was what he what they suggested that we request was ninety days to be able to get that part of the process complete.
September? Is that what you're
June, July, August, September, September.
Somewhere around the September.
We definitely know a lot more and again have that decision when getting those permits that those permits will reflect. Are we demolishing the whole thing
or foundational?
And civil will be back because our civil report will be back Friday or Monday, then the GC will be able to put his eyes on that as well and narrow down some of
That might
some of the options and also
Might help you make a determination. Yes. Once you get that back.
Yeah. That's our hope. Yes. That that'll make that very easy. You know, we have a property owner who's ready, who wants this project behind him, who wants to have a building that can present to people and have an income stream. You know, they've they've got that big piece of it that basically will look like the other building that's on the same property that is perfect. That's their desire. That's how they get a return on their investment.
Board, do
we have any questions for the ladies? I do. Okay. Go ahead, Brown. I don't quite understand your process because applying for a building permit doesn't tell you if you're going to keep the building or tear it down. You need a structural engineer to determine that. Have you had done that yet?
So what he's done so far is we've done a survey that we needed because we didn't have an updated one. And he's got it with, Howard Civil Engineering right now, and that's what we're waiting for to come back for Friday or Monday. He's doing a feasibility study at the same time that all this is going on so that we know what our options are. I don't think that based on what he said, we don't believe that we have to tear the building down, but that it might make more sense from an economic perspective to do that.
Because especially if you're adding another floor, a lot of times the structure is not built originally for two stories. So
sounds like you're spinning a lot of wheels here. You need to get your structural plan, I mean, survey back, and then you're gonna know if you're taking it down or
not. Correct.
And that's what we need to know real soon. Yeah.
And that's, you said, was gonna be on Friday or Monday.
Howard Civil Engineering is expecting to get that to us either Friday or Monday.
Do you have a decision that comment?
Correct. And I expect that decision to be made quickly once we have the piece of the puzzle we
need to make in.
And, of
course, as soon
as I get that report, I'll forward that on to Inspector Maddox. So everything I've been getting, I've been, you know, since this process every month, a couple updates to at
least That's
the best thing is to keep in touch with your inspector, you know, so he knows what's going on and you just haven't ghosted him and, you know,
so. I guess, just Yeah. I'm thinking that July 25 is plenty of time for them to
determine what they're doing. Make the decision, yeah. It would make sense maybe to get an update, but to your point, it sounds like you guys are in the process of figuring out what's the best scenario for the building, and until you can determine that, you don't know what drawings you're doing and what you're submitting, because if you're demolishing all your needs to demolish permit, if you're doing something else with it, then the plans that you submit for permit have to reflect what you're actually going to do with the building. You don't know that yet. So maybe we either, you know, give them the ninety days contract or once or we get them back in a maybe get them back in a month to give us an update of what the plan is and what they're what they've done.
We would continue to send updates anyway. We will send whatever we have as What
I'm concerned about is the inspector said he's just seeing a lot of paper pushing right now. And we're sort of beyond that. I think we need engineers report. So To find out if you're tearing it down or rebuilding. I
understand that. We certainly can provide that. We do have because we the way that our company does things, we have tasks in our Microsoft, and they are dated tasks with any email correspondence pulled into it. So we can show very clearly what we've done. I understand completely from his side that it looks like paper, but if we're trying to determine costs and we need to legitimize them, it is taking much longer than we had ever anticipated it would take. But finding people to do the work and provide the estimates and, and even just information has been difficult.
14 engineers.
I'm I'm under the opinion they don't need an extension of time after July 25. And it can be up to the inspector if he's getting enough information back from the structural engineer as to what he wants to do.
Well, if they have a decision by then and they can tell him what direction they're going and that they're moving toward getting their drawings and stuff, it's I like that. If they'll get that to the inspector, then it's his call about what he wants to bring back to us.
I agree. But they're going to start getting fines on the July 25, whether they tear it down or whether they don't, because it's not going be in compliance by the twenty fifth.
The inspector can hold that off if he says they're compliant?
Well, we make a decision here, the inspector can't hold that off. We're the only ones that can, I mean, once we make a decision, that's it, you know? So we have to make the decision here.
What if we give them thirty days to come back?
I mean, after the, what in August? To come back to July.
No, July, to come back July is
We ten minutes can extend the case until July, we can extend it without doing anything today and they can come back and give us an update on the twenty fifth at
one point.
There's no change, we can assist sponsor, we see progress in the motion that we can
that would just be a, I guess, how would we work some sort of an extension to give them another thirty days to come back and give us an update without, you know, doing our second motion with, you know? I think just, I mean, just that extending the case to allow further progress and to be set on is it
07/25? 07/25.
I have a question.
Typically refer to it as just a continuance.
A continuance, yeah.
Is that okay with the clerk?
How does that affect?
First motion, so they have been found in violation, so it would be the affirmative relief portion that's continued?
Yeah, that's what I was getting ready to say. We already did the first motion, so we would just do an affirmative relief continuance, is what we would call it. I think that'd
be appropriate. Okay.
I just have a question. Okay. Go ahead. How long has the owner owned this property?
Which is definitely over pages.
I believe since 2005. We
just have to say it.
So it's been in this condition since 2005?
No. We didn't have a roof failure. So we had an AC company go up to assess AC conditions for us. We were working with a prospect. And when he went to go up on the roof, he said that there was a place on the roof that was soft. So we put, at that time, the signs up just being concerned. We didn't want anybody to go up there for any reason without being aware that there could be a softness. We were concerned about liability for that. We didn't have any roof failure until Debbie. Until Debbie.
And tenants were in there until then?
No. There's no tenants. No.
Oh, so it's been empty since
2005? Empty.
Correct. With the same owner.
Well, the water
hasn't been on since
Yeah.
2005. That's right.
O '5. Okay.
Yeah. So
That I can't I can't speak to why there the water wasn't there. That was done under my predecessor, so it kind of was already that way when we took
it on.
So you'll be able to come back in in thirty days and and give us some sort of update on what's going on with
this? Sure.
You know? Yes.
Yes. My
only question would be and my concern would be, somebody commented that we would see if anything had changed. What this GC is indicating is that we may not be able to physically see something having happened there yet in thirty days.
Well, we're just gonna give back thirty days for an update on
Okay.
On what's going on. Understood. Yeah. Wanna know which direction you're going. Contract signed. You know? And maybe you're able to get something to it. If it does go to where you're gonna rebuild it, you've got something maybe in thirty days from an engineer or, know, whoever or DC or whatever. All right, Boarder, we in agreement, we'll just extend this case out with affirmative relief for thirty days till our next meeting on July 25, I guess. I think it's twenty third. Twenty third? I'm trying to see the calendar behind you. What, the twenty third? Yeah, oh, okay.
July 23. My bad, sorry.
I keep looking at June, right in the center.
It's the
bottom one.
Is that, does
that sound good to you, Giovanni? Seems fair. Let's do, let's try to word that motion separately.
What is it, affirmative? Affirmative relief. I
a motion on case 40 seven-twenty five to offer to give affirmative relief until our next meeting of 07/23/2025.
Do have a second?
Second. Second.
All in favor? Aye. All opposed?
All right, motion carries. We will see you guys in thirty days.
Thank you.
Hopefully you'll have some answers. Thank you. All right, 4.16 on our agenda has been withdrawn, so we are here to accept the affidavit, we're onto old business items, accept the affidavit of compliance as listed. We're going to do 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.1.3, 5.1.4. Can I have a motion?
I move to accept the affidavits of compliance as listed. Second.
All in favor? Aye.
All opposed? All right, onto our next case, 5.2 on our agenda case twelve-twenty five, except the affidavit of non compliance for respondent Thomas Rizkovsky at 1384 Sebree Street for grass parking. Is there anyone here to speak on that? Sir, will you come up and state your name and address for the record, please?
Hi. My name is Thomas Wiskowski from 1384 Sebree Street. Alright. If I see a little show today, I was up all night. My cat fell with a a possum, and I haven't really gotten much sleep. So I'm just gonna try
and get through this.
Okay. So what what's going on here
with your family?
I brought my RV from my father. My father passed away a little while ago, and I brought my RV to my house. My house is a different type of structured house. It's an L shaped house. And my RV had been there a few times before back in the early '00s.
And I brought it because the last hurricane that we had, I had no option to leave the property, and luckily nothing happened. So I brought the RV, and at that time, I had a bladder stone infection that I got operated on. I was kind of trying to do things both at the same time and the vehicle was there for a couple days and I got fined for an inoperable vehicle and I was contacting the code enforcement, trying to get things, you know, straightened out. I finally got the license on it, and then I got another infraction that, you know, was on the grass, and every time I satisfied, you know, a code violation, I got another violation. But it seems that something is maybe the code enforcement didn't get the email because I, when I got the ungrasped violation, I had contacted code with the an email, and I have the copy of the email here, where I sent them pictures of it being placed on.
I had cement, like, 48 inch 36 by 36 cement pads to put down on the vehicle, they're, you know, on off the grass. And they never responded to me, so I have a copy of the email here.
I think technically that's still on the grass, but just on pad maybe, I'm not sure.
Yeah, I've got four, they're
And I don't think that RVs are allowed in the front
of houses and whatnot. It's not in front
of the houses.
It's behind the fence.
It's behind my primary structure, and it's behind my neighbor's primary structure.
Is it fenced in?
It's inset. I have pictures of it if you want
see I see the case.
I'm gonna bring inspector Jensen up so we can review the case, and I'll bring you back up here in just a bit. Okay. I wanna kinda I don't remember this one, so I need to see what's going on.
Inspector Dave Jensen, co inspector of the City of Clearwater. Let find some pictures. This is Yeah.
Let us see what's This
was brought to the board a couple of months ago. There's been several different violations on the property. We do have a pending order for accumulation of junk and debris. We've actually gone out to the property to do that cleanup. We met with Mr. Ruskovsky, our manager, Ms. Balder and I met with him on the property, spoke to him in person. Some cleanups been done there. We're working on that. In that time, there have been several emails and several personal conversations between Mr. Ruskovsky and myself regarding the RV parking. It has been made abundantly clear to him both by Miss Mulder and myself that that RV cannot be parked where it's at, period. There will be no exceptions. There cannot be begin. Regardless of the of the house, I provided Mr.
Ruskovsky with, I think I have sent four emails to get all the documents and pictures to him that he requested. I provided him with a diagram of our city ordinance regarding what we call a snout house. So you have the structure and then a garage. The front elevation of the structure is the residence, the main building itself, that garage is not a front elevation accounts for the setback of parking and vehicles, etcetera. Again, we explained that to him several times.
I provided that to him. I provided an overhead satellite photo of his house with hash marks showing, you know, in our diagram, the city ordinance of where can can they can it cannot be parked? The regarding what he said where he never got a reply to the email. At one point, he emailed me saying that he was going to rectify the violation of the motor home being parked on the grass by having concrete put down. I sent him back an email making it very, very clear to him that he could not put any sort of hard surface down, whether it was pavers, cement, asphalt, or anything else without first applying for a permit.
That due to the fact that he is right on the property line with the neighbor, he likely would not get a permit. And if he did it without any permitting or anything else, he was running the risk of having to pull whatever he put down out. His response to that email, I think about a week later was, you know, my guy's gonna be here to do the concrete. Again, I sent him an email saying, you can't do that. Next thing I know, there are what are cement pads of your exterior air conditioning that was set on outside of the house?
I think about 10 of those got dropped off at his property. And shortly after that, within a week, they're underneath the motor home. Went out to take pictures, document that. Within a day or two, he had wrapped the bottom half of the motor home in tarps and was holding it with bungee straps. This property is the motor home was blocked in with two rows of too high railroad ties and large, probably eight, ten foot tall palm trees. So how he's going get One of the board members asked, how are you gonna get that out of there for an emergency if that's locked in like that? I can see if I can get I can grab our pictures if you'd It's like to see it's in the same condition today that it was if I just back up here, will that go off to the
I just need my folder.
The railroad ties. Basically, the hunter was doing everything he could to try to keep it there, but he can't.
The whole, the entire time of dealing with Mr. Raskoski, it's been this back and forth of emails and personal conversations of him saying he's going to do something and me telling him you cannot do that or something being done and then here is the violation, please correct it. And then almost just doing something to make it worse. So this is the condition of the RV today. This right here is the neighbor's property. That post right there property running right straight down here. So you can see he's got the RV and these railroad ties butted right up to the property line. This is the tarp material. This is this morning. This is the tarp material I was telling you about.
He's got a bungee strapped and zip tied to the motor home. So, you know, we can't see that the pads or anything else that's sitting on it. When this first started, I noticed that the motor home was sitting there with an expired plate on it, posted it with the expired plate notice. That was taken care of. However, he asked for an extension on that at one point.
He did get it taken care of, and he asked for an extension for getting the motor home off the property. I allowed him that, and then the next correspondence I had with him was, I'm not gonna move the motor home because I need it there to get out in an emergency like a hurricane or something like that. So Mr. Dyskowski, right at the last board meeting, I think it was last month when I presented the month before is nearly $400,000 in liens on a current violation for operating a rental at this residence without residential rental BTR. There are several different vehicles parked there all the time.
The same vehicles every day, it appears he's renting stuff out there and still in violation of that. Again, if the board grants our order today with this affidavit of non compliance, we'll start another accumulation of other fines for this. So I've tried working with Mr. Eskovsky. He has spoken in the email again with Ms. Mulder, our boss, and again, we were on on-site with him and we walked around that property and literally pointed and out every violation, they explained very clearly what needs to be done. And again, it's just at every turn another violation or just nothing gets taken care of. So that's where we're at with the case.
If you have any other questions.
All right. Thank you. Bergskowski.
Mr. Chair, if I may also just to add something or hopefully actually not to add, but maybe to kind of narrow the scope here, just to remind, friendly reminder to the Board that we are here simply on an affidavit of noncompliance for grass parking. So, and what that means procedurally is, is the Board's already made finding that parking on the the manner in which it's parked was not in compliance with the code, and set a deadline for it to be cured. The inspector went out on that deadline and determined that it was not in compliance. So it's really just a matter of was it in compliance on the day or not, and so you accept.
If it was not, then you're accepting that affidavit. If you determine that it was in fact in compliance, then you would not accept the affidavit. But I just say that because I know there are a lot of other issues with this property, and there's been a lot of conversation between our inspector and other staff with the property owner, and obviously, you know, there's a bigger picture. I don't mean to detract from that, but I also just want to keep the board focused on it.
Thank you. Mr. Ruzkowski, understand that we already have found you in noncompliance of this violation. Back at our, the last board meeting, I guess it probably would have been, right? If
you could come to the
podium I so we can hear believe it was two months ago. Yeah, we didn't have a meeting last month. Yeah, would have been two months ago. Yeah, we are Yeah. We heard this part, this portion, the noncompliance portion in What would that have been? May? They came
for that waste issue, they they came to my property with a hoard of people, and they went to the exact area where they wanted to go find whatever they were looking for, and they found nothing.
But we had already had made a, like a determination on your, on the RV about the grass So now we're
gonna That's
the thing because I got, I'm sorry to cut you off, but I sent an email with pictures of it being on pads, and I never got a response on that whatsoever.
Mr. Chair, if I may, I'll try to clarify a little bit more. We did have we did bring this case as a nuisance abatement, so there was authorization by the board to the city to go out to the property and remove the junk and debris. We had lots of conversations internally, because the property owner had issues with that, but he didn't come to the hearing and raise those issues. We were trying as best we could to sort of accommodate him.
Obviously, respect property rights, the city going on to private property is an extraordinary, it's an aggressive action, some might say, so we don't take it lightly. We work with the property owners as much as we can. So that's why the abatement was limited in what the city did, even though we had the authority from the board to go out and do it. That was a separate matter. The RV being parked on the grass is as simple as the city code for parking lot surfaces.
The question of whether or not the concrete pads are sufficient or not, I suppose the board has some discretion in making that decision today. But I'll just read for you the code section. It says it it says that there should be no parking, displaying, or storing of motor vehicles on any grass or unpaved area unless specifically authorized. And then it's this is Section three-fourteen oh three. It says that all parking lots, spaces, vehicular access ways, and driveways shall be improved with the permanent all weather paving material, which is graded to drain storm water.
So, our position is that this is not a sufficient paving material graded to drain storm water. Obviously, he takes a different position, so defer to the board on that determination.
Yeah. But what I I recall, it's in the wrong location anyway, so what no matter what she
says Close to the Incorporate
That's what the inspector's kinda getting at is that the way that it was done is not something that would typically be considered compliant if it had gone through a permitting process.
Way too close to the property line. Mr. Vizkovsky, there's really probably nothing we can help you with on this. We're gonna have to go ahead and find you. You know, we're gonna have to accept this affidavit of non compliance. You know, your chance to talk about this was when we had our hearing or when you had the hearing in April, that was in front of us?
That I had no knowledge of at the time.
Well, it would have been posted on the property that said that, Hey, you have a
I never was notified about, I'm here today because I got notified, I wasn't here there last time, but I was never notified.
Inspector Jensen, there was, he was posted,
Correct. Yes. The presentation of this property is the same as what you've seen today. Yeah. Literally 100 times before. Yeah. You know, I provided pictures of the documentation for
the board of the postings, the
mailings, etcetera. So, and again, before that hearing, there were conversations with Mr. Ryskowski that that motor home could not be on the grass and it could not be where it's at physically on the property.
I mean I just don't understand why, you know, it's 60 feet off of the road center. It's behind the area of palm trees. Nobody can see it. It's not debilitating anybody's view of any kind of road.
It's not
hurting the public in any way. It's helping me in case of a safety issue, case we have another hurricane. I have an out.
I get it. I completely understand, you know, but
unfortunately And we've parked there before plenty of times. Since 'one since I got the property, I've had that.
I've got lucky. Know, I've had properties where I was out of compliance.
I got lucky. You know what the property looks like, right? It's an L, it's cut in, it's parked parallel with the house, it's parked behind my neighbor's primary structure line, and there's absolutely no way it hinders anybody's visual problem.
I completely understand that, I believe you that, you know, it doesn't hinder anything, but,
unfortunately me also because my neighbor on that side has basically we've had issues before with, him kind of disrupting my friends, you know, they were coloring pages and giving them to my girlfriends when they were coming, you know, around 03:00 at night. So this kind of fixes both, situations. I wanted to put in a fence, a six foot fence. I had it permitted a couple years ago, and I ran into some problems, you know, where I I took took that out, and I tried to do it again. I had the fence builder all set up, and all of a sudden, at the last minute, the permit was denied.
I was gonna do a
six foot fence and six foot fence, just like properties here in Clearwater are doing the same thing, and they denied me for some reason,
I don't know why. I sympathize with you, but unfortunately, we're just, we're going to have to find, accept this affidavit of non compliance and just, I mean, I don't know what else to tell you other than, you know, your RV can't be right there. You know, I don't know where you're gonna
put it or what you need
to do, or you just, you know, pay the fines every day to have it there, you know, and it's still gonna get out at some point, you know. I I
There's absolutely no I mean, because it's been there before, and I don't understand why, you know, it's it's not a workable issue. The the house is not structured like any other house. There's only like maybe five or six in the city that's structured like mine. And I bought that property specifically because of that purpose, because I had an RV up north, brought it down, I could have my boat there, could have my RV there. Was It a perfect location for a house,
I said this is the house
I wanted. And all of a sudden now, you know, I've been doing it all these years and all of a sudden I can't do it.
Well, I didn't write the laws unfortunately, or you know, but that's what our code says, so we have to abide by that, sir. So thank you for coming and I'm sorry we couldn't help you today.
So what do I do from
here? Find another place for your RV and try to get all the rest of the stuff on your property in compliance, so he's not gonna bother you anymore, basically. You know, I'm, you know, I'm sorry that that's the way it is. Can I get an
Hi, if I could interject one thing, I'm Kevin Garrett with the Building Department? If he would like to have that, he needs to work with our Zoning and Planning Department and figure out how to do it, where it can be, how it needs to be permitted. There's staff there that he can talk to. They're there every day, Monday through Friday, and it's it's not just sending him away with no answer. There's answers, but he needs to go to the planning and zoning department.
Thank you. Was helpful.
Mister Rusckosky, did you did you hear him?
Yes. Did.
You know, get with him and they'll they'll help you though, you know? I don't
want to do anything as long as I can rectify this certain situation because I really
would love an argument here.
Well, get with the planning department and see how you can figure this all out, okay?
All right,
thank you. All
right.
I move to accept the affidavit of noncompliance and issue an order to it that imposes fines and states that fines and fees remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed, the city is authorized to foreclose, collect, or settle such lien.
Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Alright.
Motion approved. Approved. 5.3 on our agenda has been withdrawn. 5.4 case 30 Dash20 five accept the affidavit from noncompliance. For respondents William R. Black at 2390 Willow Tree Trail for inoperative vehicle. Does anybody have any questions about this, Inspector Stevens? No.
No. He's here on it.
No. I
move to accept the affidavit of noncompliance, an issue in order that imposes fines and states that fines and fees remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed, the city is authorized to foreclose, collect, or settle such
a lien. Second.
All in favor?
Aye.
All opposed? Motion carries.
Okay, on to other board action, case 50 consider the request by petitioner Thessaloniki Candatus Ingdahl at 1936 North Betty, produce the fine, RE permits, and if approved, issue an order that specifies the fine and includes administrative costs and establishes a date payable, or the lien will revert back to its original amount. Let's see what we got here.
A 12100. This
is for 1936 North Betty Lane. Is there anyone here to talk talk about this today?
No? No? He's in, you look at his mailing address, it's Campbell, California, so it could mean that he
Is he on Zoom call or on a phone or anything? I mean
Mr. Chair, we've had this conversation in the past, and our position on the staff side is that, you know, we don't, we really feel like it's the applicant's burden to make their case as to why a fine should be reduced. Occasionally, we will take a position on it, but most of the time, we don't take a position other than we feel that the city, the taxpayer, should recoup its cost of prosecuting and investigating. So, I think there was some discussion about requiring their attendance, but I don't know that the board ever adopted a rule that would require that. I'd have to defer to the clerk or council.
have a question about this.
No, I do. I mean, I would, yeah, there is no rule, but I would like to ask some questions, you know?
Yeah. And if we
can't, you know, get in touch with the respondent, you know, it's like, okay, well, she just don't wanna pay the fine or what, you know? What would question would you?
Well, number one, I mean, obviously, there was, you know, some problems with it, he accrued some fines. Is the property now in compliance?
I don't It doesn't look like it's in compliance based on
what's No, no.
I mean, if he's asking for a lien reduction, that's that would be key, is he? I mean, I read what he wrote down here, that he had some hardship, and he
believed in him. He only said he
had to remove the entire roof, spent six years trying to resolve it, and today I can now final resolve it. Now, does that mean that it's completed and resolved? I mean
Mr. Chair, I guess just to keep this moving, my request would be that the board just continue this item to next month. It's a permit. I don't know if the billing department has anything to say on the status of the case, but we think, again, the application, why I think the board can consider the statements there, but it's just a simple application. It's not made under oath. We don't, there's, it's not notarized signed affidavit or anything like that. So I'm not sure if it's competent evidence for the board to make a decision on. I agree.
We put together just a small little summary just to give you all a little bit of information on what it is, because this all happened long before any of
you were on the board.
So if you want to see that, we can flip through that. Or we can try and answer questions, but we probably don't know a whole lot of the history on that or why they're asking. We haven't had any communication with them either.
I mean, in his answer, he just says that, I mean, he doesn't say why he didn't, other than, you know, they hired someone to remodel it and they took off with the money and, you know, and that was five years ago.
So I make a comment about what you just said? Based on what I'm reading here, he got the roof redone
Yeah.
But it wasn't with the permit, so we ended up having to rip it all off and have another roofer put it on. So that was part of the problem and why he spent so much why he had to spend additional money. His money. Based on my experience as a contractor, you gotta permit it, and if you can't if no other roofer's willing to stand behind somebody else's work because he didn't permit it, then you're doing a new roof, and it appears that's what occurred. So he paid for roofing twice. So I can glean that much from it and COVID, but beyond that, it's hard to discern what else there was and is he in compliance?
Are there records that he had a new roof put on recently?
From my knowledge, because I am new to the city, so we're all newbies with this So I am Katherine Rees, the code inspector for the permits. From what I believe, there is not sufficient evidence for us to have enforced that he actually did work on the roof. So we it was just for the joists that he did, which I can show you the pictures in the slide. And that's really all I got for you on that. These were the notice violations, which I don't think we do have to go through since this was already set to be, you know, in violation.
Yeah, yeah. It's been a crew of fines.
Right. But this is just pictures, so you can have an understanding. This is the joist work, but this was the fascia, but there wasn't any evidence that I could see from the pictures from the previous inspector that showed any evidence of roofing.
Well,
that's really all we have.
That would make me question what was the violation and what were the fines for? I mean, if we're looking at reducing fines, and I mean, there's a lot of missing data
for Well, this violation is in general for working doing work without a permit. So it's after the fact permit that was pulled. So that what did happen, but it's not for roofing. We can't make somebody get permits for something. We can't prove that they actually did. But there was work done, and they were in violation of that. The city's cost was the 4.8 and $0.50
Did we have we filed a compliance for this?
Yes.
So the administrative cost too added to that? That's the administrative cost, 4.8,
dollars 25?
No, I believe there's a separate.
I haven't done the math for this yet, my apologies.
I'm inclined to put this out for thirty days.
And do what, gather more data? If we don't have more data in thirty days, what's the point?
Know? That's true. You're right.
I mean, how are we going to do that? Do we, does somebody go back to him and say we need, we'd like more information, or do we just take out what he's filled out? I mean, what's appropriate? I don't know.
And he started with 2100, not 480, by the way.
Yeah. Well, the 480 is not a total, That's just investigative costs. She's adding up to see what total costs are,
I think. Well, they he hasn't desired reduction to 21 or 10% of what? 1% of
But what if the administrative costs are
more than that, you know? You want know that.
He wants 20%.
All right, Math Wiz. Put you.
Dollars $12.21.7.
Makes 21% pretty good.
We're not going to go below his number. No.
No. We could do the 2,100 and close the file.
Or 5 10. Call him up on the phone.
Me. Board, what's your thoughts on this? Mean, do you want to
with a number or do we want to go with the $2,100 number, or, you know, what's your thoughts?
If our number was 12 100 and he's offering 2,100, why don't we just take the 2,100?
Or we could go 50,000, that's what I'm asking. Or do you want you know? Yeah. What's what number? It's a little bit of
a hard thing to assess. I think sometimes we look at how much you know, what did they do?
That's why I like them standing in front of
us so we
can ask questions.
I'd it's it's a hard thing to
show up. Make it 5,000. Just make it an easy easy number just cause he didn't show. If he wants to plead his case, you need to be here.
That's right. I mean, at least make some sort of effort to just Well, call for him to
that's still a huge savings. Can I
ask you very much? It be appropriate to request more data about what occurred, or no? I don't think
that would hurt. Mean, you have his contact information. He continued it in an attempt to, I just don't know how much effort the Board wants to put in into tracking somebody down that isn't making the request.
I got you. I believe we've given the guy the opportunity, but I mean, this is it, you know.
Mr. Chair, I'd be happy to, if the board wanted to continue this for thirty days and give me some questions, I'd be happy to attempt to reach out to the applicant and request the information and then report back next month.
And for the board's information, just I don't want them to think that, don't want you to think they have not reached out. I've been in contact with the applicant as late as yesterday evening and said and gave them the information about today's hearing, the location, the time, address. So perhaps something happened and they didn't come. But I have been in communication with people.
Okay. I mean What do think about? I don't want to continue. I don't think I want I would like to continue. I'd to settle it can
get done with it, yes.
But I, you know, I'd also like to
Put a number on it.
Did you confirm that did have he did have permits to do reroofing.
Well, it's
a fine check. I looked on
the saying
there's no way to prove that, you know In looking on the Pinellas, if I may, the Pinellas County property appraiser website, it looks like I can't, when I click on it, the link doesn't go anywhere, but issue date 01/1824 roof permit is what I'm seeing on Is that
that for roof permit?
It says roof description, roof.
Okay. So it was permitted then.
That was in twenty four of
last year.
Yeah. It was That's
Regularly, that timeline would be They have about 20
to be in compliance before this can be brought to us. Yeah, yeah. I'm just, I just, I mean, I'm, whatever number the board agrees on, I'm okay with. I'll throw one out, you know. 10. I'll throw one out. 2500. 2500. Fair enough. Okay. What's your number?
I don't know. Why are we going to 2500 instead of 2100? I'm just asking.
Because we're
not just following what somebody asked for,
I guess is the answer.
I If
I may.
I think
sorry. From my perspective, I think that there is a bit of a burden on the owner to provide enough data for the board to be able to make a decision. Okay. I agree. I glean from this that, yeah, it was difficult for him and everything, but there could have been more data provided.
There could have been, if he's looking for reduction, there could have been just more data provided to us to allow us to help make a decision, you know, so I guess there's a little bit of a factor of For
lack
of What more information do we need? The guy had a permit. The violation was
enforcement was in '21.
20 Permits, Four years, he took care of
three and a half years,
you know, if we're just gonna go for, you know, to recoup our costs, that's one thing, otherwise we're just doing an arbitrary number, so, I'm looking for some consistency here. That's not what we've done in the past.
Yeah. Well, normally we have them in front of us and we can ask questions, so if we're having to wing this
But it's not, know, You I
also have to be held accountable for, yeah, So, that's of the whole accounting you know, your administrative cost is not really holding you accountable for the five years that you've in compliance. Even if it's the person in front
of us, the facts are, he wasn't compliant with the permitting, then he was compliant with it, reroofed the whole thing, so just based on what I've seen in the past, I'm not sure that's consistent, but.
I mean, what number do you like? Do like the 2,100?
Well, you could go with that because that's what he asked for. Yeah. Or you go with the actual cost, is a little less than that, but the 2,001 hundred's fine because that's what he asked for. The people who come in here generally, I don't think they ask for higher numbers. They generally ask for lower numbers or the exact number that we've already given them.
Well, part of that too is the fact that had he been in contact with Nicole, he would have known what the administrative costs were and he probably would have requested That's the general pattern.
Just for clarification.
I'm okay with 2,100.
Nicole? I don't provide the applicants. I don't know the cost usually when they're requesting it until closer to the meeting, but I they don't know what it is until they get here.
Okay. So just for
your information.
And so there's his his consequence for not being here.
Acceptable to me.
So 2,100 is Okay. Is what I thought.
Board, is that what you guys I think it's
Let's What do you get a motion on it.
I was thinking higher, but I can go with the 2,100.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Make a motion.
Who's gonna do it? Somebody agree. I make a motion that we accept the $2,100
There you go.
Yes. I'll second that.
All in favor? Aye. All opposed?
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, if I may just, we do typically include a a date payable. Yes, within thirty days. Refer that to its original amount. So if we could just get clarification
Yeah, on it's within thirty days, yeah.
We'd like to present that he pay $2,100 within thirty days.
I second that.
All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion
carries. Okay, on to the next one, which is case nine thousand six twenty one, consider request by petitioners Leonardo Varella at fourteen sixty five Sunset Point to reduce the fine, RE signage without permission to approve additional order that specifies a fine that includes administrative costs and establishes date payable or the lien will revert to the original amount. How you doing? Are you here?
Good afternoon, board. I'm counsel for Mr. Varela, Leonardo Varela, the property owner applicant.
All right.
So I was prepared to, you know, kind of make a brief record for you all, but I kind of picked up on the discussion that just occurred and I think I'd submit as a consequence of the property owner coming into compliance, and I know this is a long one going and, hiring counsel and everything like that, I would ask for administrative costs if if possible in this case. But if you'd like some explanation, this case is long going mostly because, of my clients' one misunderstanding of the administrative process and, you know, the communication that he was getting on behalf of the city. No fault of the city, just his misunderstanding, which he fully takes responsibility for. And then also just kind of being a little too kind to his tenants and accepting that his tenant was gonna take care of their violations, which is what, this reduction request is for. There were two violations immediately, which kinda caused some confusion.
I had to go back and kinda reconstruct the timeline to figure out, you know, what happened, and and, miss Sprague and the rest of the city, they've been very gracious in helping me, do that. But his violation, this piece of property has two, like, business it's a it's like a mini strip mall. So he's got two his business, which is a meat market, and then the other business, which is no longer there, was a a cell phone, Celltech repair business, when he found out that he had a violation, he took care of that immediately. Then he relied on his tenant to take care of the permitting issue that they just kept kicking the can down the road, telling him it was fine. And so he wouldn't, he would assume, you know, thinking no news is good news, that since he hadn't heard anything from the city, that everything was fine, that they, he was in compliance and everything like that.
Unfortunately, he started getting lean notices, you know, several years down the road. And I've been working on this off and on with city since 2022. And if anything else, you know, maybe I should point the finger at myself for not giving him as much urgency and letting him know, you know, the property owner is responsible, you know, for any kind of violations. I don't know that opening up on the record with ineffective assistance to counsel is great for me, but here we are, I'm okay with doing that.
At least you showed up, right? That's right. That's
one thing going on. I got a sense of humor. Nicole, do we know what the administrative is on this?
Yes. The amount is $1,443.20.
This request is more than the administrative funds. Again.
Board, do we have any questions for counsel?
No. No? What's everyone thinking?
Well, there's administrative and then there's the request.
$11.43? Had no questions. Or do you want to go with what he wants it down to, the $19.57, 50?
Yeah. Our counsel and everything, I think.
I'm I'm I'm inclined to go with the administrative on this one also.
And that's What is that? 144320?
114320. 144320. That's what
I thought.
My bad. That's what I thought I heard.
I'm trying to get me a little bit more.
To you
out. To cut Does this sound okay, everybody? 14.431. All right, does someone want make it?
I'd like to make a motion that he pay $1,443.2 as the fine within thirty days.
Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed?
Motion carries. Thank you, have a good afternoon.
Afternoon. Will they send notice? Yeah.
Thank you, counsel. Do you have a card I can send you a copy of the stuff that
we're to Ms. K. Next case on our agenda is 6.3, case seventy nine dash twenty two, consider request by petitioner Baez and Ortiz at 1400 Cleveland Street to reduce the fine for exterior services and shopping carts and if approved, issue an order to specify the fine that includes administrative costs and establishes a date payable where the lien will revert to the original amount. Is there anyone here to speak? Come on up. We're way back here in the back. State your name and address for the record, please.
Good afternoon. My name is Maggie Lichte, and it's 1406 Cleveland Street.
And you represent the property?
I do. Okay. They're my friends.
Alrighty. So we're looking at you guys. What's the administrative fees on this one?
$1,495.20.
1,000? They told us a 100,000.
The amount of the lien is 105,600. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Make it right.
It's his lack of mastering these things. Do
you understand the difference? Okay.
Good. So everything is in is in good standing as
far Everything code is in compliance. He's getting ready to paint the building. The shopping carts are gone. He did it right away. Something got lost in communication there, but, he has been in compliance.
Okay. All right. Board, do we have any questions for her? No. No? So the original fine is 105,600 and the administrative is what, $14.95? 20. Yeah. 20. I'm inclined to to
go with administrative. Yes. If it was clean to pry away and they just it was an administrative thing, they just drug off
Yeah, attachment. I'm good with it. They said it's property was in compliance by the twenty sixth.
Yes. You know, so,
yeah, I'm I'm inclined to go that way. Gentlemen, you guys also? Alright, we're make a make a motion.
I'd like to make a motion that the current lien amount be reduced to administrative fees of $1,495 and paid within thirty days.
And 20¢.
Sorry. 20¢ and 20¢. $1,495.20.
Thank you.
Second. Thirty days. Second thirty days.
All right. All in favor?
Aye. Opposed? Alright. Motion. Great.
Then the next one is 6.4 on our agenda. Case one fifty dash twenty four approved the stipulation agreement for petitioners Henry Martel at 51 Verbena Street. And here is our stipulation of the agreement, and we said we would get a little insight on that stipulation agreement.
Mr. Chair, if I may, so we've had, this is a conversation that has been ongoing on the staff side, and I think the board recalls we had one of these, I don't know if it was last month or
the month or
Couple months back, and
I can't remember
You how it know, a stipulation means that the parties agree to the essential terms before we get the board. So, we don't technically have that here. Unfortunately, it kind of came in quick, and they've got tight deadlines on closing their real estate transactions.
So,
don't have a stipulation agreement. But what in I lieu of being able to accomplish that, because, you know, we're the city and you hear folks complain about this a lot, but it's just the nature of a big organization where there's a lot of people involved with every decision that gets made. You know, we just didn't have the time to get all the appropriate players in the room to make decisions with regard to this. But what I have done is I've provided the template for what we've used in the past for stipulation agreements, and I just let it's got all the blank information. I just took all the specific information from the agreement before and made it general, created kind of a form, if you will.
And we'll just have to defer to the board in terms of how you want to address this. We were not able to circulate it through staff and get approval on the city side to agree to the essential terms. But it's my understanding is that the property is not in compliance, but that we've got a willing and anxious buyer who wants to invest and improve the property. We want to facilitate those kinds of things when they're available. So, we don't want to get in the way of that.
But from our side, in trying to protect the community and the community's interests, we just want to make sure that those things are done in a timely fashion. So with that, I'll turn it over to you all. Looks like the clerk may have something to add.
I'll provide some more information, and my apologies. So yesterday, we had some network issues throughout the city. So I know that some people had to go home, some people had no connection. So we worked through it and I was able to speak with and talk to Rebecca Mulder about the agreement. Okay. And it was provided to I'm sorry, are you
Kyle Martel. I'm sorry. That's
no problem.
My name is Kyle Martell, and I'm the manager of Terrier LLC. And I'll give you some more information as soon as Nicole is finished. Sorry.
And it was provided to Kyle yesterday. So and I emailed it. Eventually, it made its way to you.
All good. Yes. We we didn't have Internet at City hall yesterday. So
So Kyle read over this and everything?
Yes, sir.
And and everything looks good on your
Everything looks good. If if you want any background information, I'm willing to give that to you.
Okay. I've got a
few questions. If you don't wanna stand there and talk, you can if you want.
I'm the manager of Harry LLC. We were gave a six month bridge loan in June to Curucci Development. Bad apple, he stiffed us. And so we just won the property back at auction on on the June 10. Okay. I had no idea about any type of liens. Well, there might have been, and the builder was kinda saying what the builder that was also involved with Karruji development was telling us that they were taking care of these things and blah blah blah. So now we inherited this. And just in a real quick turnaround, there's a a legit commercial developer, does multifamily and Park and Alisa. They're based out of Clearwater. And we have a closing this Friday.
Ready to get going.
So look, the bottom line is the bad apples, we're getting them out. And what I'd like to do is step in here and, you know, I know, listen, you guys been frustrated with this property, and I don't anticipate any other problems. So, you know, I put down I didn't know what number to put down, so I said legislative administrative cost, if the direction of cold, and, you know, however you guys want others.
I mean, sounds
What are the how much are the fines on the property?
I mean, the total fines? Yeah.
I do not have that.
Okay.
Did I tell you what it was on
your trip? You did. I can pull it up.
I don't think I can get on to this.
I mean,
this is kind of already, like, been hashed out. Know, what it I'll saying yes. All right.
Well, they have more data than none of them.
Oh, my apologies. It's 36,250.
So it hasn't I'm good with this. It hasn't been, you know, in Yeah. Too long collecting leads. It's been going on some them that we see. Yeah. You know, some of them seven, eight years, you know.
It's gonna be needs
a five minute recess after this case. Or less.
After this one. Okay.
Yeah, I don't see any problem. Do you guys see any problem with the administration costs on this one?
No.
$12.78 20? No?
Alright. Just to add to it, the way that I've written this is that, they have until the August 24 to get everything into compliance. If they do that, they can pay the reduced amount within thirty days, and then the city will release all the liens. If they miss any of those deadlines, the agreement becomes void. It's like it never happened. They would just have to come back through the process again.
Okay. Just one technical question here. Are we sure you got the right signature here? Because it mentions Henry Martell as the owner or contract purchaser, and then on the back you've got Verbena LLC, which is not the entity that you mentioned.
Yes. Verbena LLC is Park and Leisure, that's they're buying it out of an LLC, so it's a brand new LLC. I don't know if it's you could find that on sedbiz.org. Actually, Henry Martel is my father's first name, and that was on the contract. But the name of the company that we just put out of business was Kuruchi Development, which I didn't see on there at all. But we're actually Terry LLC is the company representing, which is Henry Martell, I'm the managing member.
I'll take a closer look at those. If the board approves the essential terms of the agreement, then I would assume that that would give me all the authority I need to make sure that it's executed properly.
Mean, you
might just put more tell on individual put individually. It's not that that much money, so I but as long as you guys are comfortable, that just didn't seem like it was
matched It's good catch and I'll take a closer look at it before we get signed. Okay.
I'll make a motion to accept the stipulation agreement as written.
Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries.
Thank sir. Thank you. Board member has requested a five minute recess. We will recess at 03:29 and resume at 03:34. Code enforcement board is now back in session.
I'm sorry. You have the floor, sir.
All right. Good. Thank you. I'm Kevin Garriott again with the Planning and Development Department. I'd like to change the agenda here just a little bit and introduce our new city assistant city manager. And that is Mr. Alfred Battle, who is right here.
Welcome. Welcome, Mr. Battle. How are you today?
I'm great. Good afternoon. I just happened to try to come around to all the advisory boards and committees just to introduce myself. So I'm here just to show face and say hello and say a great job. I've been watching you on television before I came here and get a chance to do it today and you guys are doing great work, but I wanted to put a face with the name in case you heard it but hadn't seen it. Here I am. In case you have any questions, feel free to reach out. And again, thanks for the work that you do, and I'm very happy to be here with the city of Clearwater. So thank you.
We're happy to have you. Welcome aboard.
Thank you. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you.
I don't have one with me, but if you have one, I'll take that.
Yeah. But
thank you again
for allowing me
to say a few words.
Yes, thank you. Thank you.
Sorry, Bruce. I'm on the back.
Appreciate it.
Give me
a call. Alright.
Oh, it's
still got Andy's name
up here.
I'm getting ready to call
him Andy. Ethan.
Ethan.
On these last,
nuisance abatements, do
we need to hear evidence from the, see evidence from the inspectors before we go ahead and make a ruling on these? Usually, I mean in the past we've brought them up and they've kind of went through the whole thing again with the pictures and everything, and you know, did we necessarily have to? I don't know that you have, I think you necessarily have to, but
Mr. Chair, if I may, because this conversation has come up in the past that I'm
aware of.
Rebecca's not here today, but she was the one that had kind of requested that there still be some kind of minimum presentation. Oh, okay. I think prior to her time as the manager, the cases were accepted without presentation. My personal opinion is that the statute seems to say that if you have evidence and the inspectors are available, that that would be legally sufficient. Obviously, if the other side's not here, then there's not gonna be
That's why I was asking Another side, right?
So you're only gonna hear one side, but I think from the staff side, our position is that it's still helpful to the board to kind of see these cases and see the pictures and recognize that these are nuisance abatements, which does these are activities where the Board is authorizing the city to enter onto property and clean it up. So, this is what I would consider to be extraordinary activity. I mean, these are it's not like you're levying a fine and asking them to fix it in a few months. We're talking about the city going on to private properties. So, take as I said earlier, we take that very seriously.
We respect private property rights, constitutional rights. That's our obligation as a public entity. I give you that information when you to make your decision, but obviously defer to your Board Counsel in what you ultimately do.
That's fine. I mean, that's fine with me. Just noticed there wasn't anyone in the gallery, so I was like, well, hey, can we just sort of like we do the affidavits, how we lump all the affidavits and noncompliance together? I thought, hey, maybe we could not lump these together, but just here say the case and then just make a ruling immediately.
Rebecca wasn't here today, and I know she does have an opinion on that, so I'd be remiss not to speak up in her absence.
No, no, Thank you also. Our next item is 7.1 on our agenda, case 56 Dash25, accept the nuisance abatement lien for respondents Christian and Antoinette Patton at 835 Bruce Avenue for lot clearing and issue an order with compliance deadline and authorize the city to mitigate the violation if compliance is not met. Director Kasman, you have the floor. Alrighty.
Thank you, board. Good afternoon. I was, not sure I was ever gonna make it up here.
It's been a long one so far.
It's been a long one. Sorry. Try to finish out fast as strong. Daniel Kasman, code enforcement inspector for the city of Clearwater. This is case number 56Dash25 for 835 Bruce Avenue, which is a nuisance abatement. There's one violation here for code section three dash 15 o three b five a b seven, and b eight for lot clearing. I set up notice violation in May. Complaints date in June. And after David of Postings, came as a complaint from neighbors in the area. This is down on the beach. As as you know, a lot of our a lot of our properties got hit. We're just trying to ask folks to clean up at least the yards in the meantime while they decide what they're doing with their properties. But I tried calling the utilities at this location. Nobody's tried to get back to me. Here's the posting on the twenty eighth.
Yard was in the same state, overgrown. The right of way slowly get taken over. This was after the compliance date. And then two days ago, and then today, when it went by, still the same state at the property. So compliance is meant for lot clearing by mowing the lawn, edging the curb and sidewalk, removing all debris from the premises, requesting compliance honor before five days from the date the lord renders its order.
Any questions?
No. Nope.
I'm gonna all take turns on this one. I move to enter an order finding the respondent in violation of code requiring the respondent to correct the violations within five days of the Board's rights order.
The respondent does not comply within
the time specified. The city may take all reasonable actions, including entry into the property, to abate and maintain the nuisance and charge the respondent of the reasonable costs, which will become a lien on the property. If costs, fines, and fees remain unpaid three months after such legal side, the city is authorized to foreclose, collect or settle such a
lien. Second.
All in favor? Aye. All opposed? All right, motion carries.
7.2 has been withdrawn. 7.3 has been withdrawn. 7.4, case number 59Dash25, accept the nuisance abatement lien for the respondents Desiree M. Hoyle, Estates at 412 Princess Street for lot clearing and inoperative vehicle and issue an order with compliance deadline. Authorizes the city to mitigate the violation if compliance is not met. Victor Kasman.
Good afternoon. Again, board. Daniel Kasman, code enforcement inspector for the city of Clearwater. This is case number 59Dash25, 4 12 Princess Street, a nuisance abatement. There were two violations here for code section three dash 15 o three b five a for accumulation and placement of nuisances and code section three dash 15 o three b six for an operative vehicle. This is the day of notice that went out in May, compliance day of June. The FDA posting same day as the notice of violation. This too came as a complaint from neighbors. From the street, doesn't look like too much is going on, but then when you take a look at the deck, there's a bunch of trash and debris that's been accumulating on the deck. Over there, in the side of the property, there's a VW with no license plate on it.
I tried calling the utility number, but nobody picked up. Here's the date of the posting. Again, same issue on the side. Same issue
with the
car. The compliance date. Same problem.
And then
two days ago and then today, same thing. I did get a call from the daughter of the owner today who informed me that her mother is the owner of the property and that she had passed, and she's looking to get the property back into her name so she can do what she has to be done. I informed her in the meantime if she needed all she needed to do at this point is clean up the yard, get her cars properly tagged or removed from the premises, and she'd be okay. Also told her she could show up for today's meeting, but it looks like she wasn't able to make it. So
There's utilities on there. Yeah?
Yes. It
looks like
a light in that one picture the outside light was on. Yes. So she could take probably that trash and, like, the city could take it away.
Possibly. But it seems like a lot was happening. And like I said, mother had passed, the dog was finally back in town. Hopefully, this would be taken care of before we have to do anything with it. But the clients may have to a lot clearing by removing all trash and debris from the ground of the property. Clients may have to enoperate vehicles by displaying a license plate with current tag on every vehicle on the premises or remove any inoperative vehicles, and requesting compliance every four or five days from the date the board renders its order.
Any questions? I'm ready. You ready? Somebody go.
I move to enter an order finding the respondent in violation of code and requiring the respondent to correct the violation within five days of the Board's written order. If the respondent does not comply within the time specified, the city may take all reasonable actions, including entry onto the property, to abate and maintain the nuisance and charge the respondent with reasonable costs, which will become a lien on the property. If costs, fines, and fees remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed, the city is authorized to foreclose, collect, or settle such lien.
I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries.
All right, next is seven point Thank you. Thank you. Next is 7.5 on our agenda, case sixty-twenty five, accept the nuisance abatement lien for respondents Karen Winter Christie at 1184 South Duncan Avenue for lock clearing and issue an order with the compliance deadline, authorize the city to mitigate the violation if the compliance is not met. Inspector Gingen, you have the floor.
Good afternoon. Make this short and sweet. The grass is long and needs to be cut, we wanna cut it.
You guys don't have to go back out this afternoon. Longer we keep you here, you've to do this afternoon.
Dave Johnson, co inspector of the city. This is case Sixty-twenty5 at 1184 South Duncan. One violation for overgrowth on the property. We've had issues at this property, I'm sorry, in the past. Still have Failed that. We still have an ongoing board order with some junk and debris. In the last couple of weeks, for whatever reason, the grass has not been taken care of. Posted and mailed the property. The posting was removed, so someone at the property removed it. Jeez.
Yeah. This is some of this grass, as of yesterday, is close to four feet tall, which you'll see here in just a minute. This is the date that I opened the case. The front rear yard, there's a pond right here in the back yard. The posting again, this is a little longer than it appears in the picture in the south. So this is the north side. The south side yard is not quite as long as this north side all the way back to that pond is extremely overgrown. This is on the eighteenth. The date of compliance is not taken care of yet. And then this yesterday, to do the same thing, that's one of our 12 inches cones. Again, you can see how tall some of this stuff back here
is about halfway up the fence.
The blaze can be left for the overgrowth by the parcel being mowed, any excess grass material must be removed from the property as well. So all that tall grass doesn't just get left there. Requesting compliance within five or five days after the board renders its order.
Board, do we have any questions?
No. All right.
Move. I move to enter an order defining the respondent in violation of code and requiring the respondent to correct the violations within five days of the board to an order if the respondent does not comply. Within the time specified, the city may make take all reasonable actions, including entry into the property to abate and maintain the nuisance and charge the respondent with reasonable cost, will become a lien on the property. If cost, fines, and fees remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed, the city is authorized to foreclose, collect or settle such lien.
Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed?
Right, motion Thank you.
Point six has been withdrawn. 7.7, case number 662Dash25. Accept the nuisance abatement lien for respondents. Bird J Smith, estates at 2080 Douglas Avenue for lock clearing initial north, compliance deadline, authorize the city to mitigate the violation of compliance is not met. Inspector Dixon, you have the floor.
Hello again, board. It's K62Dash25 for 2080 Douglas Avenue. There's one violation at this property for overgrowth and trashing three. The property was posted at the beginning of the month, so the compliance date ten days later. I don't think the mail ever made it to him, but the property was posted. Here's the property on the day of posting.
They are cutting the front
yard, but the back and side yards are not being cut. More of the front. In the backyard you can see all the overgrowth behind and up near the house. And here's this morning the grass was cut again in the front, but the back is still in violation. So compliance will be met by clearing all overgrowth and debris from the property, and we're requesting compliance five days after the Board renders its order.
Boards, any questions? Nope.
I move to enter an order finding the respondent in violation of code and requiring the respondent to correct the violations within five days of the board's written order. If the respondent does not comply within the time specified, the city may take all reasonable actions, including entry onto the property to abate and maintain the nuisance and charge the respondent with the reasonable costs which will become a lien on the property. If costs, fines and fees remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed, the city is authorized to foreclose, collect or settle such lien.
Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Next
is 7.8 on our agenda. Case number 63Dash25, accept the nuisance abatement lien for respondents Jacqueline Hunter and Edith Hunter at 1110 Fairmont Street for inoperative vehicle and issue an order with compliance deadline to authorize the city to mitigate the violation if compliance is not met. Inspector Dixon, do you have
the floor?
K 6325 for 1110 Fairmont Street. There's one violation for an inoperable vehicle. The vehicle was posted at the beginning of the month. They were given ten days. This vehicle has an expired tag from, I believe it was 2019. It's kind of hard to read because it's so old. He had to write up on it. But today the vehicle is still there. There's a different tag on it. And this tag belongs to a red 2006 Chevy.
I believe that plate is doctored. You look at it from the side, it looks like 23. If you look straight at it, it looks like 25. So they're still not in compliance. So to meet compliance, they can remove the vehicle from the property or make repairs to the vehicles roadworthy as well as display a current license plate that is assigned to the vehicle. Requesting compliance five days after the board renders its order.
Any questions, board? No. All right. Mr. Plumb. I moved
to enter an order finding the respondent in violation of code and requiring the respondent to correct the violations within five days of the board's written order. If the respondent does not comply within the time specified, the city may take all reasonable actions, including entry onto the property to abate and maintain the nuisance and charge the respondent with the reasonable cost, which will become a lien on the property. If costs, fines, and fees remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed. The city is authorized to foreclose, collect, or
settle such lien. Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Alright, motion carries.
7.9
is withdrawn.
Yep, seven point 9 has been withdrawn. 710, case number 65Dash24, accept the nuisance abatement link for respondents. Advance Stores CO at 1620 Gulf To Bay Boulevard for inoperative vehicle initial order with the compliance deadline, authorize the city to mitigate the violation if the compliance is not met. Inspector Stevens, you have the floor.
Finally, again. Alright. Alright.
Let's see
here. Good afternoon, board. John Stevens again, co compliance inspector. This is, case 6525, reference 1620 Gulf Of Bay Boulevard, nuisance abatement for an inoperable vehicle. That's the code section there that they're violating. This is actually the very back lot of the advanced auto parts there, right there on the corner of Gulf Of Bay in Yelvington. And this is the trailer right here. You can see way off in the back corner there. That whole lot is theirs. The original complaint came back into April, as long as as well as some other trailers there on the lot.
And I was able to talk to Advance Auto and they got the trailers off of there. They said they supposedly knew the person that owned this one and would get ahold of them, get them to get rid of it, and then it never disappeared. So on May 30, posted it with a compliance date of June 9. The certified mail was signed for on June 6. And this is what the trailer looked like on the thirtieth. You can see no tags or markings on it whatsoever. This is the day after the compliance date. No tag has showed up. It's still on the property, and it was still there this morning. No tags or anything on the property.
And Advanced Auto has not reached out to me in any way, shape or form. So that's kind of where we're set. Compliance can be met for the storage of an operable vehicle by displaying a license plate from the vehicle on the vehicle and maintaining the condition of the vehicle both mechanically and legally or removing it from the property. And we are requesting compliance five days after the board issues report.
Board, any questions?
No. Mr. Strickland? I moved to enter the order finding the respondent in violation of code and requiring the respondent to correct the violations within five days of
the board's written order.
If the respondent does not comply within the time specified, the city may take all reasonable actions, including entry onto the property to abate and maintain the nuisance and charge the respondent with a reasonable cost, which will become a lien on property. If cost, fines and fees remain unpaid three months after such lien is filed, the city is authorized to foreclose, collect or settle such lien.
Second. All in favor?
Aye.
All opposed? Motion passes.
Thank
you, If we have no more business to attend to, Board, we are adjourned.
Thank you.
Okay, thanks.
This transcript was automatically generated from the official public meeting video and is presented unedited. It reflects remarks made on the public record by elected officials, staff, and public commenters. Transcript accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.