Kenai Mayor Pat Porter is sponsoring an ordinance to change the nuisance abatement fee to only $50 per day instead of a fee of up to $500 daily, as the code stands currently.
Kenai City Planner, Matt Kelley…
Kelley: “The fine isn’t automatically administered. The city would give the property owner an amount of time to correct the violation. If after that time elapses, then the city may fine the property owner $50 a day. If we didn’t include the fine amount in this portion of code, it would default to our other part of code that talks about fine and penalties and that is $500 a day.”
This ordinance may seem redundant to Kenai residences but the updates for the code will help with the overall method.
Kelley: “Any property within the city of Kenai would be subject to this ordinance and already is. What this does is this adds a little bit some more definitions to the ordinance now and then further defines the nuisance abatement process.”
The fee will not be the first and only warning given to a business owner or resident, it will be the last thing to come after the city has tried to help fix the nuisance. The whole community of Kenai is in mind with this code.
Kelley: “The whole idea is it’s dangerous to the public health, safety and welfare, is really what a nuisance would be defined as. So we would open a code of violation, contact the property owner, either by phone or by email or just visitation with the property owner and then send a registered letter outlining what they’re in violation of.”
The view the current fee schedule for the City of Kenai, click here.