Clay County commissioners direct rewrite of red-flag open-burning ordinance, ask for fine schedule and clearer liability language
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Summary
After prolonged discussion about enforcement and who can be cited, commissioners asked the county attorney to draft amended language that would add a fine schedule (to limit mandatory court appearances) and clarify which party is legally responsible for unattended or out-of-control burns.
Clay County commissioners on the floor Tuesday asked the county attorney to draft revised language for the county’s red-flag open-burning ordinance to make enforcement more workable and to include a fine schedule that would reduce mandatory court appearances.
The discussion — one of the meeting’s longest — centered on whether the current ordinance, adopted in 2022, implicitly requires anyone cited for a violation to appear in court. The county attorney said the ordinance’s text ties the penalty to the maximum for a class 2 misdemeanor and, as written, “How that is always gonna be interpreted is that they're gonna have to go in front of the judge, and the judge is gonna determine the fine.” He recommended a schedule of stipulated fines so most people could pay a set amount instead of making a court appearance.
Commissioners and public-safety staff also raised persistent enforcement problems: identifying the legally responsible party when land is held in a trust, when property is rented, or when multiple people might have been present. Fire-department comments emphasized that the ordinance was useful as an education tool and that requiring callers to report who would attend the burn had reduced false responses. The fire official said the county’s false responses “have gone down after about a year or two of having this,” while noting enforcement remains difficult in practice.
The county attorney reviewed civil avenues for cost recovery under state law (citing the civil-liability statute discussed in the meeting) but said civil restitution is separate from criminal fines. Commissioners asked whether the ordinance could also direct billing for suppression costs; staff said a criminal citation does not automatically produce restitution and that civil lawsuits or billing would be needed to recover suppression expenses.
After debating options including defining a ‘person conducting the burn’ or a ‘land manager,’ the commission gave direction: the county attorney will research model language, propose a fine schedule (for example a stipulated dollar amount for first offenses), and confer with law enforcement and fire chiefs before returning a drafted amendment for the board’s review.
The board did not vote to change the ordinance at the meeting; commissioners instructed staff to return with proposed wording and a recommended penalty schedule as the next step.