The Village of St. Joseph is working to crack down on properties that violate Village ordinances.
Village Mayor Tami Fruhling-Voges said that it is difficult for the Village to enforce ordinances because they are non-home rule.
According to the Illinois Municipal League (IML) non-home rule municipalities may only exercise powers for which express authority is provided by state law. This means that non-home rule communities are dependent on obtaining grants of authority from the General Assembly and Governor.
Villages can achieve home rule status in one of two ways. A Village is automatically given home rule status when its population exceeds 25,000 people. Villages can also hold a referendum to determine if residents want their Village to become home rule.
According to IML there are currently there are 215 home rule communities in Illinois. An additional 169 could become home rule if the population threshold was lowered to more than 5,000 residents.
Fruhling-Voges said the current process to enforce ordinances is to send violators a letter.
“Most of the time residents are willing to address the issue,” she said.
However, some residents do not want to address their ordinances violations and recently the Village decided to get serious about enforcing its ordinances.
The Village has entered into an agreement with lawyer Justin Brunner to have him prosecute ordinance violations.
“The most serious violations will be the ones that will be prosecuted,” Fruhling-Voges said.
The Mayor said the most serious issue with ordinance violators is that they affect the property values of their neighbors homes and property.
“Property values are important not only for private property owners, but for every taxing district,” she said.
Fruhling-Voges said this includes the Village, schools and fire protection district.
The Village will begin the process with documenting the violations, calling the property owners and then sending letters.
Fruhling-Voges said the Village wants to give residents plenty of opportunities to work with the Village to correct the ordinance violations.
Trustee Jim Wagner is Chairman of the Health and Safety Committee which has been dealing with the ordinance violations. His work with cleaning up a property on Monroe Street started the Village board discussion regarding how the Village will enforce ordinance violations moving forward.
Wagner is currently working with the Illinois EPA to force a property owner on Monroe Street to clean up their property.
“I have been communicating with the EPA directly to keep them informed on what we are doing to push this property forward,” he said. “The EPA has recently given this property owner a $6,000 fine.”
Wagner said with the Monroe Street property, the Village is working with engineer Clark Dietz and their attorney to survey the property and inform the property owner where his property line. Part of the problem with the property is the Village believes the property owner is storing items on Village property.
Wagner said the Village is trying to work with the property owner to clean up his land.
“We offered to help him dispose of the tires on his property after he cleaned up the trash on his property and Village property,” Wagner said. “Also, we require him to stop burning. So we are willing to help him out at the expense of the Village to move the property forward.”
Wagner said the Village has also been in contact with the Kickapoo Rail Trail regarding the Village’s position on the cleaning the property up as the rail trail goes directly beside the property. The rail trail board is willing to help the Village clean up the property, Wagner said.
Wagner said the property owner has also blocked the Village road near his house with items and preventing Village employees from accessing the road.
Wagner said that while some may feel the Village is being too hard on residents, they are doing it for the betterment of the entire Village.
“The bottom line is all of the residents that live in this area seem to do a very nice job on keeping up on their property,” Wagner said. “I see Christmas decorations out and well kept yards. We owe it to these residents to continue to work on getting this cleaned up so they can enjoy living in St. Joseph.”
