Creston City Council sent amendments to the ordinance regarding city powers back to the workshop Tuesday after a number Creston residents spoke out against it.
The ordinance as previously written gives the city the right to “exercise any power and perform any function” the city believes it must do in order to protect the city and its residents, in accordance with Iowa Code section 364.1.
The addition to this ordinance describes some of the powers and functions the city is able to perform through this section of Iowa code, such as using administrative search warrants.
Creston Code Compliance Officer Bobby Wintermute first brought this amendment to the council Feb. 20, along with several other clarifications for nuisance codes. He expounded on this specific amendment during public forum Tuesday night.
“The addition of administrative warrants is at the advice of legal council and was included with the nuisance revisions to conserve time and cost, but is in no way intended to be used for nuisance issues,” Wintermute said. “When there is a nuisance issue on a property, I have no reason to enter a home. I have no desire to enter anyone’s house. Though members of the city staff are allowed to be on private property, I avoid it as much as possible.”
Wintermute explained the administrative warrants are already legal under both Iowa code and the Creston ordinance. “This is not a new ordinance. Adding them to our code was meant to make it easier for the public to access the information when needed,” Wintermute said.
Two Creston resident spoke against the ordinance. Randy McIlravy asked the council to put “another public meeting out there” in order to increase overall understanding. Mark Battaglia asked the council clarify the verbiage of the ordinance for the same reason.
At a previous meeting, the council had approved the first reading amending the ordinance. Rather than approving the second reading Tuesday, Councilmember Richard Madison motioned to move the ordinance to a work session. “We can flesh it out a little better. I’ve been getting a lot of calls about this one.”
The council voted to move to a work session 6-1, with Councilmember Kiki Scarberry voting against it.
Due to the similar nature of amendments to ordinance 24-08 in Chapter 145 regarding administrative search warrants, this change was set to a work session as well.