Council Comments on Upkeep of Yards, Code Enforcement

The appearance and upkeep of homes and yards came up at Tuesday's Gulfport City Council meeting, as it has at recent meetings.

The rewording of the garage sale ordinance was up for a vote, and one resident spoke to the council complaining that a homeowner who held a garage sale on 49th Street the previous weekend left the unsold items out in front of the house. The items were still visible from the street on Monday and Tuesday, which she described as an ongoing problem throughout the city.

“Why cannot some employee from the city who has perfect eyesight drive by and do something about it?” resident Lee Stapella said.

City Manager James O'Reilly responded that the city would hope any resident needing a special pickup would call public works to do so. Vice Mayor David Hastings suggested a stipulation in the ordinance that if residents apply for a permit for a garage sale that it be made clear that the area must be cleared of the items from the sale by the next day.

O'Reilly agreed to make it a part of the permit process, and the ordinance was unanimously approved.

“Abusing it by the few hurts the large that really wish to do it right,” Mayor Mike Yakes said.

Also on the subject of property upkeep, Vice Mayor David Hastings went on tour of Gulfport with representatives from Keep Pinellas Beautiful, evaluating the appearance of front yards throughout the city on a scale of one (best) to four. He reported that he came up with an overall rating of 1.5 after four hours of review.

“There are a lot of properties that I would call very messy yards, junky yards,” he said. “It's not to say the city is perfect, but 1.5 overall for the city I think is great.”

He said he then took a tour of alleys and backyards for a couple of hours at a different time and that he was not as impressed. He also met with Code Enforcement Officer Bruce Earling to discuss his findings and says he feels the code enforcement officer is doing a good job but is overloaded with clerical work as part of his duties.

“I still think there's room for improvement, and I would like to workshop the code enforcement to see if there are things that we can do in the code to strengthen the way we want Gulfport properties to look,” Hastings said, describing one as the “Mad Max Property” with 14 cars on it.

Code enforcement will be added to an upcoming workshop.