Jamie Munks
The State Journal-Register
At least one Springfield alderman wants to make it easier for residents to find up-to-date information on problem properties in their neighborhoods.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if a citizen could go the website without having to make a Freedom of Information Act request and keep up to date that way?” Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin said Thursday evening at a city budget hearing. “I think we have to move in that direction.”
McMenamin, during a hearing on the budgets of Mayor Mike Houston’s office and the city’s Office of Budget and Management, singled out an increasing workload for the municipal court, due in part to problem properties and marijuana violations.
McMenamin asked City Council Coordinator Tim Griffin to come up with a budget proposal that would “begin to address this.” Such a system could allow the public to search properties by address and find out what stage of the legal process an abandoned property is in.
City officials have cracked down on abandoned properties throughout the city in recent years, forcing property owners to register them and bring them up to code within a certain amount of time. If they don’t meet the city’s time frame, the buildings can be torn down.
Creating a more easily accessible online system would allow people to find the information they want themselves, which would ultimately cut back on interruptions to staff in the city clerk’s office, the city’s legal office, and the building and zoning department, McMenamin said.
That discussion emerged Thursday night as aldermen sifted through Houston’s budget request for fiscal year 2016, which begins March 1. The request for the mayor’s office is rising 1.65 percent, or nearly $53,500, from the current year to $3.3 million.
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Thursday marked the final budget hearing in a series of five that started two weeks ago. Now, if aldermen have budget requests and proposed changes, they’ll submit those to Griffin. An appropriations ordinance will then be proposed at a February city council meeting, and a public hearing on the proposed budget is scheduled for the Feb. 10 committee of the whole meeting.
“We’d be looking to pass the budget at the second meeting in February,” Budget Director Bill McCarty said. The second Springfield City Council meeting in February is scheduled for Feb. 17.
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 