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Danville ethics board to hear complaint

December 09, 2009|By DAVID BROCK

The Danville Board of Ethics will hear ethics complaints against the city's code enforcement officer but not the city manager.

At a preliminary inquiry Tuesday, the board ruled it has jurisdiction in the grievance brought by Irvine Jones against Code Enforcement Officer Tom Broach and City Manager Paul Stansbury over their alleged refusal to properly address Jones' repeated complaints about weeds growing over the property line of his Waveland Avenue home.

Board members dismissed Stansbury from the complaint due to the one-year statute of limitations in the ethics code ordinance.

In the complaint Jones filed in October, he alleges that over the past eight years he filed 28 separate complaints in an attempt to get the city to enforce its nuisance ordinance against the owner a neighboring townhouse development, William Fowler.

Jones claims that by not forcing Fowler to cut back plants on a shared property line, Broach and Stansbury violated three items under Section 2-264 of the city's code of ethics.

Jones' allegations

The allegations include preferential treatment toward the neighboring building's owner, adversely affecting the confidence of the public in the integrity of city officials, and failure to comply with applicable laws, ordinances, orders and regulations.

Broach, who declined to comment following the ruling, had an opportunity to respond to the complaint Tuesday. Broach told the ethics board that Fowler had been cited in the past and other complaints had been taken care of in a timely manor.

"I can assure you that every complaint has been handled forthwith by the code enforcement office and compliance has been appropriate by Mr. Fowler," Broach said. "To date, the property was in compliance with city ordinance, and I make a point to look at the property at least twice a week."

Broach also said that when he was contacted in October by Jones' attorney, they agreed that Jones was within his rights to use weed killer on any plants that grew onto his property.

Jones contends that he should not have to cut someone else's unruly plants.

"All they had to do was enforce the ordinance and make them cut the weeds, and we wouldn't be in this predicament," Jones said. "It is not my responsibility to spend money on Round-Up to spray growth coming from another person's property. It has been an aggravation to me everytime I have mowed the lawn over all these years, and nothing has been done."

The ethics board did not set a date for a hearing but decided to hold off on convening until after Jan. 16 due to the holiday season.

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