City compliance officer in cleanup effort

Grand Coulee has named Deputy Clerk Valerie Keck as its nuisance ordinance compliance officer.

Mayor Chris Christopherson told the council May 15 that she has already started sending letters out telling residents of their non-compliance with the city’s ordinances.

Keck will also be active in “dangerous building abatement.”

The city’s efforts to get people to clean up their properties were started after Becky Billups, a resident who lives on Burdin Boulevard, complained that places near her residence looked like a “ghetto.”

This sparked a response from some of her neighbors who attended a subsequent council meeting to rebut Billups’ remarks.

The mayor listened to some of the exchanges between the parties, and then advised the council and visitors to the council meetings that he wouldn’t put up with personal comments between visitors to the chamber.

Billups was there again May 15 to report that things in her neighborhood were better, but work still needed to be done.

Keck had taken pictures of the area and, with the mayor’s and council’s direction, was going to advise people of violations.

Christopherson told the residents of Burdin Boulevard who attended a recent council meeting that he was going to see that the city’s ordinances were enforced.

The mayor told the council that Keck was spending about a day and a half a week gearing up to see that the city’s nuisance ordinance was enforced.