We will call this meeting to order.

It is six o'clock on March twenty-fifth.

Welcome to the City Tempe Board of Adjustments meeting for March twenty-fifth, twenty twenty six.

The time is six PM.

The City of Tempe Board of Adjustments is authorized by the Arizona revised statutes and the City of Tempe zoning ordinance.

Its function is to grant relief where a literal enforcement of the zoning ordinance would result in an unnecessary property hardship to interpret provisions of the zoning ordinance variances and to hear appeals from any pro person or city official aggrieved the decision of a person responsible for the enforcement of the zoning ordinance, zoning administrator and hearing officer abatement.

The board has the City of Tempe Community Development Staff summary reports on the items being considered at this meeting, and will use these reports in their deliberations.

Brett Siegel.

And then starting.

Sean McCarley.

Mary Foy.

Richard Dalton.

Katie Cross.

And staff introductions.

Terrible.

And Jennifer Daniels, our administrative assistant.

And Jeff Wolf is doing media.

Jason, I'm sorry, Jason Wolf is doing media.

During the public hearing, all applications and interested citizens when your request is called or when you wish to address the board, please make sure you have filled out the one of the citizen request forms located on the table by the doors.

Then step to the microphone and state your name and city of residence.

Please submit the form to a staff member before you begin speaking at the microphone.

For members of the public, you will be given up to three minutes to speak.

Staff will assist in monitoring time.

Also please note that WebEx chat box is not monitored by staff.

Okay.

Brett, Andrea.

I don't have any additions or corrections, and I'll have to abstain as well.

I have no additions or corrections.

And do we have a motion to adopt the minutes?

I'll make a motion to adopt the minutes.

Do we have a second?

Second.

All right, and uh all in favor, say aye by raising your hand.

Uh Andrea, did you say yes or no?

I sorry.

Sorry, it's right.

All right, so we have five and two abstentions.

And we have one item um tonight, an abatement appeal.

This is a request for an appeal of an abatement decision for the Kelly residents located at 321 East Beatrice Street.

The appellant is Keith Kelly.

Is he present?

All right.

Um would you like to come up and make a presentation?

Or your argument.

I have a question.

Yes.

Who are the two people that were online?

They are they are board members that are not physically present.

They are uh only um present in a hearing online.

Oh, okay.

Go ahead.

I'm not quite sure what the next step in this process is gonna be.

Well, give an introduction of who you are and what you're asking the board to do and the facts behind it.

Okay.

Um my name is Keith.

My family's had the house since 19 since February of 1960.

Um I've never had anything quite like this happen ever.

Here about a year ago, I had two people that moved into the backyard, and it was supposed to be the wife was supposed to stay just long enough until her husband bonded out of jail.

They were two homeless people that me and a friend of mine from church had been working with for about a year, and by that we just dropped off uh blankets and sandwiches in the winter time and coal water and sandwiches in the summertime.

That was the extent of it.

And uh then we found out that the county was gonna bulldoze this homeless community over here in the in a uh county island, and uh the woman was gonna end up living on the street.

So Bill asked me if she could move into the backyard until her husband bonded out of jail, and I said, Yeah, I don't have a problem with that.

And uh so she moved in.

Well, it turns out these two people are professional dumpster divers, and the first thing I noticed was in the first five days, she's going out and bringing back huge amounts of things that they pulled from alleys, and it starts piling up.

And I told her after about five, six days, I said, You can't stay here, so you're turning this place into a nightmare.

And uh she said, No, I'm gonna stay here.

And I said, Well, then I'll go through the process of getting rid of you.

And she's go ahead.

She said, Uh, why don't you file an eviction notice?

She said, I can drag that out for over a year, and it'll cost you a small fortune.

You want to pay a pro uh license process server 125 dollars to serve me in the backyard with a court paper.

And uh it was obvious that this wasn't their first rodeo.

They have been through this entire abatement process before here about two years ago at her husband's mom's place when he inherited her property.

They did the same thing over there, overloaded it with more junk than you can imagine.

And uh so they weren't there very long, and I was going through the Arizona revised statutes, and I came across uh an item 33-1378, which is how you remove guests from your property where there's no lease agreement, there's no contract, there's no rent, and you just call up local law enforcement, and they come out and escort the people off the property.

This is exactly the situation that I was in.

Only I go to the city of Tempe, and they the Tempe police said, Oh, well, we don't really like to get involved in things like that.

Which I my stepbrother was a Tempe cop for 23 years, and I can't ever remember him selectively enforcing the law.

This was a situation where if they had done their job and escorted these people off the property, I wouldn't be here today because that nightmare in my backyard never would have happened.

And uh, but it did.

Anyway, I turned 70 in January.

I'm retired, I'm on a fixed income.

I don't have the money to fork out to have an outside crew come in and remove all this stuff.

I removed probably three quarters of it, but there's still a lot back there.

I had something happen on the 25th of February, which I believe was the hearing date for um the original hearing date for where we're at tonight.

About 7 p.m.

I had a Tempe cop show up, knock on the door.

I opened the door and asked if I could help him, and he said, uh, yeah, I'm here with Crystal to get her personal property.

What like the city of Tempe, they'll hold on to somebody's property for a month, and if you don't pick it up in a month, they dispose of it.

It's been three and a half months since they were escorted off the property.

And uh she brought some guy with her, it wasn't her husband.

He had a van, and they start loading stuff.

First, I told the cop, I said, Well, I'm not gonna let her just come in here and start dragging stuff away.

They stole so much stuff from me when they were here, I would like to get some of it back, and it's probably in a lot of these boxes and and uh suitcases.

There was over 80 suitcases in the backyard, and a lot of it had some of my stuff and a lot of their stuff and and everything, and uh so we go in the backyard, and here's some guy that brought his van.

I don't know who it is, never seen him before, and the cop just lets him start going through anything he wants in the whole backyard.

And I said, Well, why don't you start with that junk over there?

Let's start with that and move this way.

And uh anyway, we had words, and I guess they were there over an hour, and then they finally took off.

But it was it was kind of upsetting that they just show up without any warning, without a court order, nothing.

They just happened to show up when they want to uh do what they want.

I know at one point um Crystal said that I wasn't allowed in her backyard anymore because I come back there and go, hey, you guys need to start getting rid of this stuff.

I got another letter from the city of Tempe.

And uh, don't tell me what to do.

You need to get out of my backyard.

They were taking the place over.

I think they figured we've got an old man here, he lives by himself.

His wife died about a year ago.

And we can do what we want.

They tried to poison me twice.

I don't know with what, but I know that things like that don't just happen.

You don't just get sick as a dog for two days, and then on the third day you wake up and everything's fine, like nothing ever happened.

I was pretty sure that they thought they could do away with me and then just take over the property because nobody would miss me, and that's what they set out to do.

AJ, he has a trial coming up here pretty soon.

Um, he was arrested for um breaking into a construction site stealing copper.

And uh, I mean, these are two of the worst people that you could ever imagine in your city, and yet they were catered to by the Tempe police and that uh Hope, what is it, Hope 7 or whatever it is?

Um anyway, that's that's where we're at now.

I want to continue cleaning out the backyard.

I got the front yard completely done.

They removed the the big dumpster this morning.

Um I want to continue what I'm doing until the place is the way it used to be.

I can't afford to pay $5,500 retired, I'm on a fixed income.

I I don't want to spend the next three years of my life trying to pay off a lien on the house that was the responsibility of the city of Tempe to take care of these people, get these people off my property.

Mr.

Kelly, you're asking for more time.

How much more time?

Do you think you need?

Probably a month.

I have a question as well.

Um, when did the city first notify you uh that this was a problem or that there was uh excessive junk?

I believe it was the first or second week in June.

Thank you.

At that at that first abatement hearing, there was another uh home that was involved, and the woman said, Um, you both have had X number of months to take care of this.

Well, I hadn't, because they didn't get evicted until November 25th, and even then they told me the cop told me when he was escorting them off.

He said, You can't touch any of their stuff for at least five more days until their the opportunity for a civil standby expires, and then you can move their stuff.

So all that all that time, Mr.

Kelly, and when did they come back to get their stuff?

What was the date of that that you described?

February 25th.

Okay, so they were evicted and they came back on the same day?

Three months later.

They came back three months and February.

Yeah.

And let me ask you, so since February 25th, um of 2026?

Yeah.

Correct.

Okay.

How much of the trash in the backyard, the junk in the backyard have you been able to remove?

Probably three quarters of it.

There's still quite a bit back there.

And what about the car that was up front that was mentioned in the ticket?

That's still there.

I want to get that running again.

Um hopefully I can get that running real soon.

I have some questions, Mr.

Kelly.

Yeah.

Did you get did you on that vehicle?

Did you get the uh registration renewed?

No, but I did get the license plate.

Okay.

And then do you have any photos or anything of the progress you've made since uh November 25th?

No, I haven't.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions from anybody else?

So after the abatement uh notice was issued in November, um the homeless people were still living in your backyard.

Yeah.

Until February of this year.

No, they they were escorted off on uh November 25th.

Okay.

That does lead to a question.

You had mentioned that civil standby expired five days after the eviction.

Yeah.

Um, in that time from November of well, we'll say 20th, um, like after the civil standby expired.

Did you remove any of the stuff between then and the middle uh in February 25th when they came to pick it up?

I moved a lot of stuff, a lot.

There was more than you could imagine.

I mean, it just incredible.

They were hanging stuff from the three trees.

I have three large trees in the backyard, and there was stuff hanging from there.

And I have a large cross in the backyard, and there was stuff hanging from there, going out to the fence.

Thank you.

The code enforcement people did a good job.

They kept me informed and they were really decent to work with.

Um they're not the issue here.

The issue is um having to take care of something that never should have taken never should have happened to begin with.

And then uh having to deal with things that that crop up, like her coming back and getting her stuff, some of it.

Okay, and so Mr.

Kelly, all we can deal with is the abatement issue here tonight.

And so what I'm understanding is you're asking for maybe 30 more days.

I think in your original paperwork you would ask for 60 more days.

Yeah.

Okay, and that's what you're asking for at this time.

Okay.

Um, does anybody have any other questions before I ask the city to present?

All right, Mr.

Kelly, you can have a seat.

We'll call you back up to rebut after they've presented.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Um you're using it.

Thank you very much.

Umbers of the board.

Um, for the record, my name is Robert Mansolillo.

I'm a senior planner with the planning division.

And this is uh request for an appeal of an abatement decision at 321 East Beatrice Street.

And the zoning map, it is in the R16 zoning district, and it is just south of the Tempe Scottsdale um line, uh east of College Avenue.

And so I'm gonna just run down some key dates.

Um, first, this is the section of the Tempe Municipal Code.

That's um that's in question.

It's section 21-3.

Um it states that it shall be unlawful and a violation of the city code for any person to commit a nuisance or willfully omit to perform any legal duty.

And uh the nuisance includes any one or more of the following conditions.

And this basically covers um the collection of trash in exposed or covered area external areas.

And anything that could become a hazard to public health or safety, such as harboring insects, rodents, or vermin.

And the subtraction subsection does not uh shall not be deemed to include items kept in covered bins like trash bins, things like that.

So it would be external storage of any of these items.

And so we have some images of the property from mid-November of 2025.

So this is the front carport area.

Again, more of the entry to the front of the home.

This is the backyard area.

We have a few slides of the backyard.

Back shed area.

And so some of the key dates of this case.

So in June 10th, 2025, code compliance received a complaint for people living in the rare yard.

And on June 11th, the next day, uh, inspectors found trash and debris in the front side and rear yards and the inoperable vehicle in the driveway.

And the first notice to comply was mailed to the property owner.

On August 15th, um there were no changes in the violation.

So a civil citation was issued.

And on October 9th, the owner pled responsible for the violations and did pay uh fines, all the fees.

On November 14th, the date those images were taken, um, posted a notice of intent to abate the property since there was no change to the condition.

On January 6th, 2026, at the hearing officers meeting, uh, Code Inspector Michael Moreno uh gave an overview of the case itself, um highlighting some of those key dates that that were just mentioned.

Extensions were given to the property owner through through at various times.

The citation was also issued.

The inspector then presented photos taken earlier in that day, showcasing the the uh remaining violation on the site.

And the property owner provided a status update on the current state of the home and welcomed help from the city to to clean up the property.

And hearing officer McDonald approved 180 day open abatement request.

And on June 20th, 2026, the applicant filed an appeal of the hearing officer's abatement.

And at this point, I'll turn it over to Drew Yochum, Deputy Director of Community Enhancement to fill in some of the details.

Thank you.

Good evening, Chair Floyd, members of the board.

Appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight.

My name is Drew Yoakum, and I'm the deputy community development director here with the city of Tempe.

Um I oversee the code compliance staff, and we are tasked with the health and safety and welfare of our residents in our neighbors and our neighborhoods.

Um oftentimes the cases we deal with, we're not only working with property owners, but we're also managing the community impact of what these violations have.

Um, specifically with the case tonight, as Robert had mentioned, this case originated from a complaint from one of the neighbors.

Um with any complaint that code compliance receives, we're obligated to not only investigate that, but address any violations that come up with the property owners.

And throughout the entirety of this case, uh both Tempe Police Department and Code Compliance have been receiving numerous complaints for not only the junk trash and debris that we're talking about, um, but the people that were living in the rear yard, the behavior of those people living in the rear yard, the amount of foot traffic coming and going in and out of the house, the backyard, and into the alleyways, both day and night, and the amount of time that it was taking for the city to actually resolve these issues.

Um just for conversation, I'm gonna present a couple of photos to help frame our conversations before I make a few more points.

So as mentioned, this is a photo taken in August 15th.

So this is a couple of months after the case had already started.

Um as you can see, there's a lot of trash and debris throughout the backyard.

This is a centralized um angle from the backyard looking at the rear of the house.

This is a photo from November 14th.

As you can see, not only no progress was made, but it's actually gotten worse.

This is a photo from January 6th.

This is a photo taken the day of the hearing.

This was presented to the hearing officer at the hearing, showcasing not only no progress, but again, it was getting worse.

And I apologize, I can zoom out a little bit on this.

And then finally, this is a photo taken this morning.

So this is the state of the current backyard, same angle.

As you can see, not only no progress, but now we're also dealing with deteriorated landscape and other violations that have cropped up.

Um, as mentioned, this case is about uh chapter 213B1.

That was the slide that was referenced to you all, um, showcasing that it is a violation of the Tempe City Code to store things on the exterior of a structure or building, and it is also a violation to have junk trash and debris littered throughout an open area.

As you can see in the backyard, that's what we're discussing today.

Um Mr.

Kelly has talked a little bit about the time this case has been going on and the amount of time that he had to take care of these problems.

And as of today, his case has actually been open for 10 months.

We're talking specifically 288 days.

Um, by comparison, our typical code compliance case allows typically for 30 days for compliance before enforcement action is taken.

And our case with Mr.

Kelly began on June 10th of 2025 with a 30-day compliance deadline of July 10th.

Now, on July 10th, we met with Mr.

Kelly on site, noticed that no progress had been made, so we talked to him about next steps.

He told us that he was working with the Tempe Police Department, requested an extension, so we gave him till the end of the month.

On July 28th, we went to the property again, no progress had been made.

Spoke with Mr.

Kelly, asked him what his next steps were.

He said the people in the backyard would be leaving soon and he would be able to take care of the junk and debris items.

We came back on August 15th.

Again, no progress had been made.

Contacted the Tempe Police Department, they were unaware of any communication.

On that day, we issued Mr.

Kelly a citation with a deadline to either dispute that citation or pay the fine after 14 days.

On September 2nd, Mr.

Kelly did in fact dispute that citation, and this is important why I'm talking about these dates because when that dispute came about, the court date was actually set for October 9th.

What that meant was it was a 55-day extension granted until we could go to court.

So it was a 55-day administrative extension where code compliance was not going to take enforcement action until there was a resolution by a judge in court.

On November 14th, when we were, or excuse me, on October 9th, when we were in court, Mr.

Kelly was found responsible for the violations on property.

He stated to the judge that he was working on the violations, after which we met with him outside of the courtroom, had another discussion, granted another one month extension to try and work with him to get this property into compliance before beginning abatement proceedings.

On November 14th, we visited the property.

Again, no progress had been made.

Actually, it had gotten worse.

Talking with Mr.

Kelly, we handled up delivered him a notice of intent to abate, explaining not only what was in the notice, but the next steps, the process.

What was going to happen?

We were going to go to the hearing officer.

We were going to go to the hearing to do an abatement.

And what we explained to him was this was actually a benefit.

This is a solution.

This is a tool that the city can help resolve this issue.

We can bring him to compliance, reduce the community impact, and kind of help him resolve this hurdle standing in front of him.

Because of that notice of intent to abate, though, again, I want to talk about the time, and that was from November 14th to the hearing on January 6th.

That's a 53 administrative extension, again, another 53 days granted to Mr.

Kelly to make any sort of progress.

Robert went over the minutes from the hearing.

And at the hearing officer, I just want to reiterate Inspector Moreno presented the details of the case, stating that at the time of the hearing, the case had already been open for seven months.

He presented photos the day of the hearing showcasing not only no progress had been made, but it had gotten worse.

Discussed the numerous conversations that not only ourselves but other city employees across Tempe PD, Code Compliance Management Supervisors had with Mr.

Kelly, talking about solutions rather than resolutions and how to work with him to solve this.

Mr.

Kelly gave his presentation, providing a status update.

He had the intent to continue working on the problem.

Welcomed any help from the city.

So the hearing officer granted that 180-day open abatement, explaining to Mr.

Kelly that he would still have a two-week appeal period, another two weeks where he could work on that, work with us if he had any questions.

Before that two-week appeal period ended, however, on January 20th, Mr.

Kelly did submit his written appeal.

In that written appeal, he stated I wanted an additional 60 days to resolve this issue.

From January 20th to today, we are now on day 63.

And you can see from the photos today, we still have no progress.

During the course of this case, Mr.

Kelly has received several extensions from code compliance, totaling 258 extra days beyond the compliance date of July 10th that we typically allow people to clean up this property.

Mr.

Kelly did discuss a little bit about his communications with the Tempe Police Department.

I do want to say to pretty much make a quick point.

I feel like I'd be remiss in my duties if I let the assumption stand that the Tempe Police Department is not doing their job correctly.

Mr.

Kelly was provided clear and consistent communication by several different people on several different occasions throughout the course of this case, not only from the code compliance staff, not only from CARE 7 staff, not only from the Tempe Police Department and the courts during our court hearing that this is not a trespassing issue.

The Tempe Police Department do not oversee evictions.

The individuals did leave after, again, on multiple occasions.

If he did not want to do that, the city attempty police recommended an order of protection, which Mr.

Kelly finally did do in November.

It's over the counter, and once that was done, the tempeh police did serve that order of protection notice, and the individuals were removed.

Um in conclusion, though, I I just want to make sure Mr.

Kelly and the board, everybody here understands that the abatement process is not something that we use to punish residents or individuals.

This is something we use to encourage and assist people to come into compliance.

This is something that we utilize as a tool for a resolution, not only for Mr.

Kelly, but we also have an obligation to the community, the impact that this property has had as well.

Um Mr.

Kelly himself today did ask you for a 30-day appeal window.

Um if this appeal was upheld, we're okay.

Or if this if this appeal was granted, we're okay with working again for another 30 days.

That is not something that code compliance is against.

We want resolution, we want to work with them.

If the appeal is denied, we would give him 30 days anyways.

There is a 30-day appeal period, and as I discussed already, we have administrative extensions for waiting for these processes.

So if it was denied, he would still get 30 days until that appeal period is over.

And I'm I'm open for any questions you may have about code compliance with Tempe PD.

Any questions?

When going to pay for the abatement, how does that process work?

Is it like a monthly payment that someone makes, or is it pay in full?

And if not, interest starts accruing on it.

Yeah, great question.

I appreciate that.

So um a couple of options to them.

So once the abatement is concluded, so a city approved vetted contractor goes onto the property, remedies the situation.

Um, we then give the invoice to the property owner.

They have a set amount of time to pay that invoice with no penalties, no fees in full.

Um, if they don't, they can let it go as a lien on the property.

It does accrue interest, but then they can take care of it at their own time.

So sometimes people can't have the money right now and they need time to work on it, it gives them that flexibility.

And what is the interest rate?

Um I'm not actually sure the math on the interest rate, it is accrued daily, but I'm not sure what the percentage is.

I apologize.

Okay.

Um, a comment I have is um when Mr.

Kelly was talking up here, he had basically said, can I have 30 more days?

And whether we grant the appeal or deny the appeal, he's gonna get 30 days anyway.

So it seems like this could resolve itself.

I mean, if I'm hearing everything correctly.

That is that is correct.

If you grant the appeal for 30 days, then we would be in the same boat, and we would appreciate that another opportunity to work with Mr.

Kelly to resolve this.

It definitely sounds like uh the city's working with them doing from from where I'm sitting.

Do doing our best, but we do have to keep in mind the community impact as well.

So understand.

Uh Brett, any questions?

Can we see that photo again?

Uh the the photo uh most recently taken of the property.

One second, I need to tell my uh thank you.

That's all I have.

Andrea.

No questions, thank you.

Any other questions?

Um, just for my clarification again, the reason the two people in the rear yard left on November 20th was not per eviction, but for our order of protection.

That is correct.

So an order of protection was actually served on those individuals where they were required to be removed from the property.

They do have an ability to contest that in court.

Um, but actually it took two times.

The first of an order of protection, they did contest.

Mr.

Kelly did not show up to court to actually follow that through, so it was quashed.

He had to do it a second time.

And then on that time they never fought it, so they left the property.

Thank you.

And the order of protection, uh, that's for two years, correct?

In effect.

Uh it sounds correct, yeah.

Two years, yes.

Okay, thank you.

And after the two years, they can come back because there's no order of protection, probably.

They could, but at that time they would have lost their status of residency unless re-establishing it.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Mr.

Yockwood.

Mr.

Kelly, do you have any rebuttal at this time?

It wasn't the city of Tempe Police Department that suggested the order of protection.

I went through the county to get it because I couldn't get anything done through the city of Tempe Police Department.

They didn't like to get involved in stuff like this.

If you read the Arizona revised statute 33-1378, you will see that it was exactly the kind of situation that I was in.

They just didn't want to get involved.

But they got involved later on.

One of them has been in the sex industry since she was 18.

Uh topless bars for six years, and then some other stuff.

And uh, and the other one's a career criminal.

He was part of the outlaws motorcycle gang in 2012.

He was sent to prison for a shooting down here on the freeway.

Um these are not nice people.

They're not and it's just a shame that things had got to this point.

I couldn't believe that they wouldn't escort him off the property back in in May when I first contacted him.

It was exactly the kind of situation.

Then if you look at, oh, you have to get an eviction notice, you'll have to go through the eviction process, and everything was landlord, tenant, landlord, tenant, rent.

None of that applied to us, to me.

I'm not a landlord.

They're not tenants.

They should have escorted.

Pardon?

I don't mean to cut you off.

I I just have a couple quick questions for you about about the issue that we're here to address.

Can you tell us what was going on from the point that you had them evicted from your property to I guess January 6th, and then what happened after or excuse me, not January, uh in January when you had the abatement uh decision.

What how come progress hasn't been made?

A lot of progress has been made.

The pictures that were taken, there was twice as much stuff there.

The ones that they took in August, they brought in double the amount of stuff that was in the pictures from August.

They brought in double the amount.

When they escorted them off the property the second time, I said, hey, check this out.

They went and got this this morning.

This wasn't here this morning.

Look at this.

I showed the cop, and he's like, oh, okay.

A lot has been removed from the backyard.

You wouldn't believe the the sheer amount of stuff that was back there.

And they're stealing my stuff as they go along.

There's two of them, one of me.

I take off one of them keeps point, and the other one goes starts rummaging through everything in the house.

A lot of my stuff came up missing.

Some of it I've gotten back because I found it in the in the boxes of their stuff that they were getting ready to take.

Mr.

Kelly, I hate to interrupt you, but I do have a specific question.

So we saw a picture from January 6th, which was the abatement hearing, where there was a lot of stuff.

The people had not been there since November 25th, I believe.

Um there was just as much junk as the picture we saw from the last hearing from November.

Um, so from January 6 to when the people came with the sheriffs to remove stuff, and I think February 25th, you said.

Um was there stuff added, or is it the was it the same?

And then once they remove their stuff from February 25th to today, there just doesn't seem a huge difference between the January 6th picture and the picture they took today.

That they're removing their own stuff, and then you're saying you you did three-fourths or three quarters of the stuff.

It doesn't seem that big of a difference to my eyes.

The one part of the can you explain to me what you you did during that time as far as removing items from the yard, front back, especially the backyard, because we have pictures of those.

I got rid of a lot of stuff.

The front yard looks great.

Everything that was on the front yard's gone.

The torque is still there, but everything else is gone.

It looks really good.

Um storage section along the east side of the house, which is probably about 30 feet long, 30 by 12 feet, I guess.

Um they had that up over six feet all the way down and stuff.

Like I said, there was over 80 suitcases.

A lot of the stuff that was that had value, I took to the thrift stores, and I had some of my friends that would haul stuff down there to the thrift stores.

Um right now, if you look in the backyard, you'll see probably 15 bins and uh tubs with lids, you know, the plastic ones.

You see, probably 30 of those, and they're empty.

Um I was gonna load them up with stuff that was valuable and run them down to the thrift stores.

I think uh we live in a throwaway society.

Um, I think it's a sin to throw away valuable stuff.

Right, but you're asking us to give you 30 more days, and as you've heard um from Mr.

Yochum, that if we deny it or grant it, you're gonna get 30 more days, right?

My question and my concern is is that gonna be enough?

Are you gonna be able to do that in 30 days to take all that stuff that's still there in the backyard?

Are you gonna be able to clean it up and become in the compliance?

If I don't break any more ribs, I will that actually happened here two months ago.

Um I will give it my best.

I got kind of screwed this week because uh the temperature was up over a hundred degrees, and uh it takes a toll on you.

I'm not as fast as I used to be, not as strong as I used to be.

Um I have a question.

Where's the stuff that doesn't have value going?

Like you're saying anything that has value you're loading up and taking to the th the thrift store.

Where did the other stuff go that didn't have value?

It went into the dumpsters that I rented from the city of Tempe.

They removed one this morning, and it was about half full all the way down.

Um I've rented them four times since November.

There's been a lot of stuff go out, but it's just such an incredible amount of stuff.

It was like the stuff hanging from the trees.

There were these cloth things that were six, eight feet tall, and they had pockets on both sides, and they had them strung up in the trees, and they had them loaded with all kinds of stuff.

So I I do understand and I do feel for where you're coming from with having squatters in your backyard.

Um, I do, however, agree with the city that this is a good way to get the backyard cleaned up because it is a nuisance to residents.

They've complained about it, and as not great as it is, it I I would recommend trying to get it cleaned up with the dumpster, maybe friends from church if they could help.

There's an app called Task Rabbit where you can rent people for 20 bucks an hour, and I know that'd be a lot cheaper, but I I do think that the abatement needs to happen for the residents in the neighborhood.

One of the people that's complained is a guy that lives across the street that wants to move his friend into my house.

And uh we got into a discussion here a while back.

He was blaming me for all the dumpster divers in the neighborhood.

And I said, No, dumpster divers in the neighborhood don't come in because of me, they come in because you guys throw away valuable stuff.

That's what they're here for.

That's what they come in for.

You want them to not come into the neighborhood anymore?

Don't throw away valuable stuff.

Get off your lazy ass and take it to the thrift store.

That's what they would do.

Is anybody have any other questions before we break for discussion?

Brett, Andrea.

I don't.

No for no questions.

All right.

Uh thank you for your presentation.

We're gonna break for discussion amongst the board.

Okay.

I would like to say one other thing.

Sure, of course.

All the way up through November 25th, I wasn't allowed to touch anything, according to the Tempe police.

They said if I tried to remove anything, I could be charged with theft, taking these people's stuff, and I could possibly be sued.

They protected them all the way, all the way down, and a lot of the stuff I know they were stealing from other people.

At least 80.

Most of those ended up going to the Salvation Army, which is about a half mile from the house.

Um just an incredible amount of stuff.

I did recover some of the stuff, some of my stuff that had come up missing.

Anyway, so you want to take a recess or something?

I have a comment about uh the notices from the police.

Were you given any type of notice in writing?

Like did they give you serve you with a letter or give you a ticket or say anything that said specifically you cannot remove stuff that is the property of your tenants or the property of your squatters or anything?

No, like they give you not, I mean that was all communicated verbally.

The only thing I got from them was that and it was the police officer's name.

That was it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Mr.

Kelly.

We're gonna discuss amongst up.

You can just have a seat.

Okay.

All right.

Um open discussion.

Um, does anybody have anything to say?

Um while we're here and we heard Mr.

Kelly's story, our focus is exclusively the abatement, and that's where our authority starts and stops.

That's correct.

Is the abatement and any of the circumstances behind it aren't truly relevant to the abatement.

I mean, they I mean we just when it comes to that, we have to deal with the facts that are there, the stuff is present, and we see it.

That's correct.

We're we're here to deal with the abatement.

And so the question is, do we deny the appeal or do we grant the appeal?

And from what we've heard today, either way, he's gonna get 30 extra days.

Like you said, um, either way, if we grant or deny the appeal, he'll have the 30 days.

Um I think that approving or sorry uh denying the appeal would give us the guarantee that this is going to get cleaned up so it no longer um is an issue for the neighbor in the community.

I would agree with that.

That's my opinion as well.

And yeah, I would I would say the same thing because the question I was gonna pose is what happens if the appeals granted the 30 days is given, and then that's just another 30-day administrative extension, and we're right back here again, is my thought on the matter.

So I mean, if uh the the resident Mr.

Kelly's asking for 30 days, the city is going to give him 30 days regardless of which way we go, then maybe denying the appeal would guarantee that that's gonna happen in those 30 days.

Uh Brett Andrew, do you have anything to add?

I agree with what's been said, it's an unfortunate circumstance, but given the amount of time he's had since they've been uh evicted from the property.

I think he's had a sufficient amount of time to get the problems resolved, and denying the appeal guarantees that it's taken care of.

I think Brett said it perfectly.

I do too.

Do we have a motion on the floor?

I motion to deny the appeal PL.

Do I have a do I have a second?

I'll second it.

All those in favor of denying the appeal say aye.

I all those opposed say nay.

None opposed.

Motion passed.

The appeal is denied.

Thank you.

There are are there any chair staff updates that need to be announced?

Then I will adjourn the meeting at 6 48.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.