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Show A BLIGHT TO CITY'S BEAUTY The one thing that has detracted most from the general appearance of Cedar City as a thriving, progressive pro-gressive and we might say "clean" city, has been the unkept and messy look resulting from the lack of care of vacant, unoccupied and in some instances, occupied lots throughout the city. Added to this has been the detraction from streets caused from allowing allow-ing heavy growths of weeds along irrigation ditches ditch-es and sidewalks in almost every part of the city. Until recently city officials have been handicapped handicap-ped insofar as forcing property owners to clean up their premises, whether used or unused. About the only chance they had of forcing such action was when the situation became so band that it created an unsanitary and unhealthy condition. Clean-up campaigns, cam-paigns, conducted periodically, have done little to encourage many property owners to clean up the premises because of the civic pride they might possess. pos-sess. As far the streets and sidewalk situation, where weeds have grown to shoulder heighth year after year, city officials should have had no problem in eliminating the weeds, unless they could use the excuse ex-cuse of "lack of funds". The streets are city property and the responsibility of the city administration, so there is no legal obstacle, the only excuses could be lack of civic pride on the part of the administration, or lack of funds with which to accomplish the job. Now steps have been taken that leave the city with little excuse for letting weeds on the streets, along irrigation ditches and sidewalks, or messy debris de-bris covered vacant or unoccupied lots continue to blight whole areas of the city, particularly residential areas, and citizens can and should expect prompt action ac-tion in eliminating this condition. Equipment has been acquired by the city with which weeds from streets and sidewalks can be removed re-moved quickly and economically. Surely city officials have enough civic pride to act as promptly as is possible. pos-sible. A new city ordinance has been adopted and is legally in effect which makes it possible for the city to force cleaning up of every unsightly piece of property proper-ty in the community. This ordinance makes it possible possi-ble for the city to go onto private property and clean up unsightly debris, overgrown weed crops, and tumbling tum-bling down, unsightly buildings, and assess the cost against the property for collection through property, taxes. However, the ordinance will not be worth the' paper it is written on if it is not enforced, and it should be general enforcement and not just isolated hit and miss situations. The city now has the authority and the means to correct a situation that has detracted from the appearance ap-pearance of the city, and in many cases seriously reduced re-duced property values, so it is not out of line for the citizens to expect or even demand early action on this perplexing problem. We feel sure the administration administra-tion will act on this matter, but suggest that we really real-ly need FAST action, which the citizens are entitled to expect. |