Staff writer
In an act of hands-on governing that doubled as a gesture of support for his fire chief, city administrator Larry Paine composed a Powerpoint presentation that all but refuted Kevin Tidwell’s claims that Ben Steketee was harassing him without cause.
At a prior Hillsboro City Council meeting, Tidwell shared with the council a list of infractions he had noticed around town similar to ones he’d been ticketed for, with the implication being that he was being unfairly targeted.
Paine and Steketee went to check his work.
The result was a Powerpoint presentation with 33 examples of properties Tidwell claimed had violations. Eight were found to have no violations, while several had violations of inoperable vehicles and vehicles with expired registration. Several of the violations Paine said he and Steketee addressed the property owners about, and were either in the process of being fixed or already fixed.
At the conclusion of the presentation were pictures Steketee took of Tidwell’s home.
“This is why we’re doing what we’re doing on this piece of property,” Paine said. “This is not acceptable in a residential neighborhood in any town, needless to say in Hillsboro.
“You can see there’s a lot of stuff all over the driveways, in and around, to contrast all the properties that we’ve been looking at, it’s significantly more of a problem.”
Tidwell was not in attendance at the meeting.
Councilman Byron McCarty asked whether Tidwell had gotten a front door yet.
“Not to my knowledge, they haven’t called for any inspection,” Steketee said. “He doesn’t have a permit.”
Though code violations were abundant in the residences on Tidwell’s list, council seemed relieved the violations were not as egregious as Tidwell’s.
“Thank you for bringing us that recap so that everybody understands because that night it sounded like we had trash lying all over town, and I don’t think we do,” Mayor Delores Dalke said. “I mean, there’s things that need to be taken care of, but,” she trailed off.
“Absolutely,” Paine confirmed.
In other business:
- Council renewed R&D Liquor Store’s liquor license for two years.
- Council approved changes to the Recreation Commission’s bylaws, allowing for meetings to take place on Mondays at noon, rather than Sunday evenings.
- Dalke congratulated the fire department on its open house Saturday. “I don’t how many of you were able to be there but I thought they did a great job of showing off their equipment and showing off who they are and why they’re here and everything, so thank you for having done that,” Dalke said.