CHAFFEE COUNCIL FIELDS COMPLAINTS ON HOUSES

CHAFFEE -- The Chaffee City Council asked the city attorney Monday night to investigate what should be done about two derelict houses in the city.

They also addressed a request by a city organization to erect basketball goals on two dead-end streets.

City Attorney David Summers will investigate the houses at 408 Gray and on the third block of Helen. The house on Helen was burned by firefighters as a training exercise, said Mayor Ron Moyers.

The matter was addressed Monday following comments by Chief of Police Ivan McLain.

Ward 1 Councilman Jerry Wolsey said he agreed with a comment from McLain that the burned out house, which is involved in a bank foreclosure, is an "eyesore."

"The citizens in that area are kind of getting in an uproar about that house," he said, calling the house a safety hazard.

Moyers asked Wolsey and Ward 3 Councilman Danny Finley to meet over the request to erect the basketball goals. Finley said the Masonic Lodge is wanting to erect one goal each where both Main and Second streets end.

In each case, Finley said, the goals would be erected 10 to 12 feet down from barricades at the locations.

"They're dead-end streets. There's no traffic down there," he said.

But Summers said two considerations must be addressed prior to allowing construction of the goals. The first, he said, is that the city could be potentially liable if anyone is injured by traffic at the locations. Yet the development of suitable barriers would reduce the city's exposure to that risk, he said.

The second consideration, he said, involves the city's liability if someone is injured from the game of basketball itself. Summers suggested that the city's liability carrier be asked whether the city's insurance would cover such injuries at those locations.

On other matters:

Moyers asked the city's Property and Real Estate Committee to meet with an official of the North Scott County Ambulance District. The meeting will be held to negotiate how much land the district will need along Highway 77, north of the Chaffee Nursing Center, to build its new ambulance building.

The council voted in January to donate city land for the building following a fire at the district's former ambulance garage at Chaffee City Hall. Moyers asked the committee to take up the matter after he had read a letter from the district's secretary, Ron Mix, saying that the district had decided in April to accept the city's offer.

Summers said he would put together a rough draft for a waiver to the city's ordinance that permits truck traffic only over the city's truck route of Main and Yoakum. Two weeks ago, Moyers said, there had been a problem when a mobile home being moved along the route was too wide for it.

The City Council approved James Haney as a reserve police officer. Haney is a full-time city police dispatcher.

City council members approved an ordinance setting the salary of the city's policecourt clerk at $125 a month. The position's salary had been mistakenly lowered to $60 a month by an earlier ordinance, city representatives said.