Lost at City Hall

One of the agenda items at the recent city council meeting concerned "PUBLIC NUISANCE LOCATED ON W. 1/2 OF LOT 3, LOT 4 and E 1/2 OF LOT 5; BLOCK 69; MARFA ADDITION." The mayor asked the administrator to explain the situation. Mr. Sauceda described a property south of the tracks near the MAC on Philadelphia Street owned by Mr. Montemayor that contained a dilapidated trailer without a roof. Neighbors have been complaining it seems. Mr. Sauceda was recommending a city-ordered demolition followed by billing the owner and a lien if unpaid.

The City has the authority to deal with nuisances related to public health in Chapter 217 of the local government code. The council discussed the situation including the location and condition of the property.

Discussion was hampered by the lack of any maps or photo documentation. In the end, council decided to give the owner one more chance by having the city write one more letter to the owner with a deadline. Unfortunately, they were discussing the wrong property! Here is the property on Block 69. This is between East Texas and East Oak and North Spring and North Aparejo. It appears to be a lovely old adobe house that is for sale.

I checked with the appraisal office and learned that Jose Montemayor owns lots 1-3 of Block 5 in the West Heights Addition at the corner of Yale and Philadelphia. Indeed there is a roofless mobile home at this location. This is the property that was being discussed at the meeting, but not the one listed on the agenda. Council took action on an old adobe thinking they were acting on an old trailer.

It is a good thing that council did not call for demolition! They would have demolished an old adobe house by mistake or demolished an old trailer without proper procedure. Both excellent candidates for a lawsuit had it not been caught before demolition. How did this happen? First, the agenda was seriously flawed. Nobody checked the facts on the agenda. The Sentinel has commented on this problem before. The mayor and administrator have not lived in Marfa long and are obviously not familiar with the various neighborhoods. Councilmembers know the city well and were quite familiar with the property in question, but were not familiar with the legal definitions. This is understandable. Marfans are famous for navigating by landmark and neighbor and almost proud of not needing to know street names.

The second problem was a lack of supporting documentation. Council should have been given photos and maps which should have been posted or projected on the wall for the audience to see. In fact, we don't even have a city map in the Casner room. In a larger city, a building official would be making the case for demolition and would hopefully provide the appropriate documentation. The city is trying to hire an inspector for this kind of work. Let's hope the city sets high standards for documentation. We don't need to invite more construction-related lawsuits following Marfa's mismanagement of the Willaford construction situation and the Rember permit situation.

Florencio has been informed of the problem, and we will probably see it, or at least hear about it, again at the next council meeting. Let's get a map on the wall in the Casner room. We can replace the old GrantWorks map that was once there; it has city and ETJ limits circa 2000. The maps available from the appraisal office are much more legible when it comes to reading lot and block numbers. Two maps would not be too many.