Chillicothe mayor wants to further target nuisance efforts

CHILLICOTHE – Mayor Jack Everson wants to join with council members and local law enforcement in new discussions about strengthening the city’s nuisance ordinances in an effort to target activity at businesses and establishments that require repeat visits from police.

“(It’s) about businesses, and that includes landlord properties, that create a redundant and reoccurring police interdiction, whether it’s a bar, whether it’s a hotel kind of property that we keep having to send police officers to — to establish a different level of fine to pay for the police service that keeps having to go there,” Everson said. “That tends to deplete the police department ... ties up our resources for some really inconsequential issues when they could be out doing better things.”

The type of activity could range from repeated calls to break up fights outside a local bar to various types of illegal activity covered in city ordinances.

The “rubber stamp” repeat nuisance fine presently built into the law is $250, Everson said, which may not have much impact for some businesses but may be very impactful for others. By toughening the law, the chances for increased compliance go up, he added.

“The more we take out of the cycle, the system of opportunities for drug use, for crime, for prostitution to take place, the sooner we’re going to get things cleaned up,” he said.

The mayor is reaching out for help in the effort to council members who were involved with creating legislation making property owners responsible for cleaning up meth lab activity on their property. He added that as discussions move forward, the owners and managers of businesses that have experienced repeat visits from police in the past would be brought into the loop to offer input.

“I think we need to go and tee it up instead of dumping a new law on them,” he said. “Maybe that, in and of itself, will get compliance. When we have people in the community that are working with us to eradicate things like that, we operate at a whole different level.”

Councilwoman Pat Patrick, who headed the effort that led to the meth lab ordinance and has been instrumental in city nuisance legislation, said she will need to meet with Everson to get more specifics on what he has in mind, but that the existing nuisance law covers the type of activity, such as prostitution, that the mayor appears to be targeting.

“I think the tools are there already (to fight that activity),” Patrick said. “The problem is, we don’t have the manpower.”

She said officer Randy Pratt, who has been handling both nuisance and parking enforcement issues among other duties, has been very busy just trying to keep up with the number of nuisance complaints being made under the existing ordinance.

Still, Patrick said she is willing to discuss further any ways nuisance legislation could be used as a means to reduce some of the illegal activity going on in the city.