The City of Yelm can officially repair potholes and bill property owners where the pothole resides after city councilors voted 5-2 in favor of declaring potholes a public nuisance.
Councilors Joseph Richardson, Joshua Crossman, Stephanie Kangiser, Brian Hess and Terry Kaminski each voted in favor of the declaration, while councilors Tracey Wood and Trevor Palmer each voted against creating Ordinance No. 1123 to create chapter 8.32 of the Yelm Municipal Code.
Gary Cooper, the City of Yelm’s planning and building manager, said Ordinance 1123 allows the city to declare potholes found in the city public nuisances. He said the “Historic Yelm Canyon” is a picture-perfect definition of a pothole being a public nuisance.
“It’s for the intent of being able to address situations that we sometimes get into where we have a pothole that generates a lot of complaints. Folks want the city to take care of it because they think it’s our pothole, but it’s actually a private property,” Cooper said. “An ordinance would establish a process for determining when there is a nuisance. This wouldn’t be something that we’d be proactively going out and looking for things to patch. It would be based on damage to vehicles, potential injuries to citizens and complaints from citizens.”
Cooper said the process would include sending a notice to the property owner to abate the nuisance, and if it’s not addressed, it provides a timeline of five to 10 days for the property owner to repair the problem. The city will not fine property owners but bill them for the repair.
“It’ll be something along the lines of a 30-day notice. We wouldn’t expect somebody to jump out there in five days, but if it’s not addressed in five days, it gives the city the authority to fix the nuisance and then bill the property owner,” Cooper said. “We have the same kind of set up right now with storm water facilities because subdivisions are required through their homeowners association to maintain their stormwater facilities. Sometimes they don’t, and we notify them that they need to. If they don’t, then we have the ability to go in and do the mowing, the cleanup.”
Cooper added that Algiers Road, which closed in December of 2022, is an example of a pothole-related nuisance but not an example of how the process will be handled in the future.
“But if you’re driving your vehicle near the Yelm Canyon that becomes an issue for the citizens in the city,” Cooper said. “We’re not going to be the pothole police. We’ve got other things on our plate.”
Wood believes that this ruling could cause trouble for some struggling business owners.
“I think we’re going about this wrong. I think the situation area can be addressed by the city, rather than by giving the city teeth. If somebody can’t afford to repair the pothole, maybe their business isn’t doing so well or something is going on and they can’t afford it — all of the sudden there’s pressure from the city. I can tell you from pothole repairs, they’re not cheap,” Wood said. “Secondly, try to get someone out here right now, as a private business owner to fix a pothole. There’s not a lot of people chomping at the bit to do it.”