White County commissioners grapple with nuisance ordinance

(Cleveland)- The White County Board of Commissioners are finding out that coming up with a Nuisance Ordinance for unincorporated areas of the county is as challenging as developing a Land Use Plan for the county.

The commissioners say they want to help clean up some of the areas of the county that have been neglected and could be a health concern.

County Commission Chairman Travis Turner said. “We all see properties and I’m not going to name the addresses, but we ride by them on some major thoroughfare that have lots of junk slash trash and there are people living in these situations and we are limited on certain areas what we can do as a county.”

In drafting a plan the commission wants to provide some regulations to deal with the situations but at the same time not be an overreach to property owners.

During discussions on the issue Monday night during a work session, County Manager Jason Cobb said, “The goal of this is mitigation, not legislation. The goal is to work with the property owners to get it clean and mitigated. The last thing we want to do is go to magistrate court or write a ticket.”

The commissioners say they want to take more time to fine-tune a draft ordinance before presenting it for public comment.

Dean Dyer/WRWH News