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Belpre Council discusses switching property legal notices to city website, clarifies owner/tenant notification
Summary
City staff outlined a proposal to change how legal notices and property postings are served — moving from newspaper publication to posting on the city website and on-site yard postings — and clarified that initial notices go to property owners per tax parcel records; no formal vote was recorded in the transcript.
Belpre City Council staff discussed a proposal to change how the city serves legal notices about property code violations, moving publication from newspaper advertising to posting on the city website and on-site yard postings while keeping initial notices tied to property owners.
City staff said the city will send the original notice to the property owner using tax-parcel records, and that owners will have an opportunity to respond or remedy violations before the city advances to a 21-day legal posting and web publication. The discussion emphasized that the process is separate from landlord-tenant civil disputes.
The change described affects the section referenced in the meeting as “subset c for service,” where the only edit would remove the newspaper-publication requirement and rely on web posting instead. Resident PJ Cassidy, of 824 Bell Rock, confirmed: “the only thing that’s going to change is from where it says and at least 1 publication on. Everything above that stays exactly the same.”
Staff described the practical sequence: code officers will first leave a courtesy hang tag or warning on a tenant’s door; if there is no response, the city will notify the property owner by mail based on tax-parcel maps. If the owner fails to act, the city will post a formal 21-day notice on each affected parcel, post the notice on the city’s legal notices webpage and keep a photograph of the yard posting in the case file as proof if a sign is removed.
Speakers also discussed cost and outreach: staff framed the change as a cost-saving measure, noting newspaper advertising is expensive and that web posting reaches more residents as the city adds permits and project updates online. When asked for an estimate of monthly properties affected, staff replied that the number would be small and did not provide a firm monthly count.
Council members and staff agreed they could update the mailed letters to make clear that a posting may also appear on the city website. No formal motion or vote on an ordinance amendment was recorded in the transcript provided; the discussion focused on clarifying procedures and wording for the service-of-process and public-notice language.
