By Jason Clay Jansky

Karnes City leaders are looking to get tough on ugly properties in town.

Council members passed an ordinance for the abatement of dangerous and substandard structures during their September 19 meeting, putting the city into compliance with state laws regarding abatement.

The city now has the power to go through a legal process that will allow them to clean up and ultimately acquire a dilapidated, substandard property. Decaying old homes, overgrown land with broken down vehicles and trash, and other properties not up to code may be targeted.

The first step, according to discussion at previous meetings, will be for the city to clean up the property themselves. That will mean bulldozing, mowing, or any other type of cleaning necessary. After the work is done, the property owner will be billed.

If that person doesn’t pay their bill, the city has a process they can go through to put a lean on the property. The city has had a similar ordinance in place for several years.

"It didn’t have all the coverage required to meet state law … that would give us the authority to file a lean. We cleared it all up and added more to it," Pippen said of the old ordinance during an interview after the meeting.

Council also adopted their budget and set their tax rate, adopting the effective rate of 81.97 cents per $100 property valuation.

The budget totals roughly $2.3 million.

The city also awarded the bid for a sewer improvement project to Mercer construction, who came in at $220,000. The project will involve installation of a new sewer lift station at the main sewer plant and an extension of a force main.

Council members also moved their meeting date for next month from October 24 to October 17. Several council members will be out of town on October 24, Pippen said, facilitating the need to move the regular meeting back a week.