CITIZENS COMPLAIN ABOUT PARKING CITATIONS

JEREMY WALTNER  –  PUBLISHER

A handful of Freeman residents appeared before the Freeman City Council Monday night, Sept. 14 to express their displeasure after receiving tickets without warnings for vehicles that were in violation of city ordinance 8.0224, which says vehicles cannot be parked on city property for a period longer than 72 hours. In at least one case, a property owner was ticketed for having a vehicle parked on the street in the wrong direction. While some were ticketed, others who were notified of violations received only warnings.

Local law enforcement was responsible for enforcing the ordinance at the direction of Mayor Michael Walter, who at Monday’s meeting said he was taking responsibility for the way in which the notifications were administered — specifically, the citations that were not preceded by a warning.

“I take full responsibility for that,” he said. “Evidently something is wrong with the administration process and we are going to have an executive session after the meeting and find out where that administrative process has gone wrong.

“That’s not how I think it should be administrated,” Walter continued. The mayor also preempted the public input by saying he was unsure how those who received a ticket should handle it.

“I can’t give you an answer to that,” he said. “After our executive session I’m going to guess there’s going to be a call in to the city attorney to see what can be done and how we’re going to handle this legally.”

Walter also gave out his cell number — 605-660-7120 — and invited people to text him with their name and number “and I will gladly call you with what we find out.”

A 20-minute discussion followed with members of the public asking more about the ordinance, why some vehicles were targeted and others weren’t, as well as additional questions about what will happen going forward.

Walter iterated that he couldn’t provide any more information until the council’s executive session and his conversation with city attorney Mike Fink.

The city council was in executive session for about an hour to discuss personnel and pending litigation, and Walter confirmed with The Courier on Tuesday that he was meeting with Fink that afternoon. Watch for a follow-up, as well as additional news out of City Hall, next week.