Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Ordinance 129 topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Residents raise notice and wording concerns as Morris adopts nuisance ordinance
Summary
Public commenters flagged numbering, definition and enforcement wording in the proposed nuisance ordinance and argued the hearings were not properly noticed; the council adopted Ordinance 129 and said publication and a 30‑day effective period will follow.
MORRIS, Minn. — Residents pressed the Morris City Council on details of a revised nuisance ordinance before the council adopted the measure on second reading Feb. 24.
Annette Watson, a Morris resident who reviewed the ordinance in detail, told the council it contains inconsistent numbering, repetitive references to items such as 'junkyard,' and that the city removed a prior, broader nuisance definition that included protection of "comfort." She urged restoring a catchall definition so the code can point back to a single standard and suggested adjusting a 100-foot setback for parked ice houses, arguing the distance may be impractical for many property owners.
"I do kind of think that since it is a nuisance ordinance, we probably do need a definition of nuisance that is like an overall covering so that whether we include something or not, we can point back to it," Watson said.
James Stoker, another Morris resident, told the council the three public hearings on the agenda had not been properly noticed in the newspaper as required by the city charter and argued that an ordinance's effective date cannot be immediate: "The effective date cannot be immediate under the charter. It has to be at least 30 days after publication in the newspaper of the law or of a suitable description of the law," Stoker said.
Mayor Wall and staff responded that the city sent required materials to the newspaper after setting the hearings and that, if the council adopted the ordinance that night, it would be published next Tuesday and set to take effect a month later to meet the 30-day requirement. City staff said they would verify publication records and, if the newspaper had not run notice as expected, the council would need to correct the process.
Council members voted to adopt the second reading of Ordinance No. 129 after limited council debate and with the publication-and-effective-date clarification on the record. Council discussion also included minor numbering corrections the council directed staff to make.
What happens next: Staff will verify the newspaper publication and ensure the ordinance's effective date matches charter requirements; any failure to publish may require the council to re-notice or redo the hearing process before final enactment.
