City Council: Stop Parking in Your Yard

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Council member Amy Melton joins us nowon kfab's Morning News. Good morning to
Amy, Well, good morning Scott. Wasn't it already illegal? Isn't it
currently illegal to park a car inthe yard? It actually is against Jeff
Chapter fifty five of our city Code. It's enforceable by code enforcement. So

(00:21):
if your neighbor is parking their carin their yard, you can call code
enforcement. They're required to send aninspector come out and inspect it. They
will give them basically a ten daynotice they have to remove the car or
they can actually code enforcement the citycan then remove it. So what's changed
now with this warning? Okay,what's changed now with this ordinance that the

(00:44):
council passed over your vote is alsoBrinker Harding and Juanita Johnson who voted against
this. This goes into effect August. First, what's the difference here,
Well, the difference here is there. It's now a criminal fraction. So
a code enforcement is just a civilviolation. This actually made it criminal.

(01:07):
It's a criminal infraction under our codeunder chapter twenty. Now, what Peter
Festerson did if he reduced the fineto fifty dollars, I did vote for
that. I voted for that amendmentbecause it was up to five hundred,
which I thought was pretty excessive.I mean, park your car in your
yard, get a DUI. Idon't know this, find me. It

(01:30):
couldn't be the same, So Idid. I did support the amendment to
fifty dollars. Now what I didn'tsupport here, here's what I get.
I get the frustration of people whodon't want their neighbors parking their cards in
the middle of their front yard.That would be very frustrating. I don't
have that, Scott. I'm notsure if your neighbors are doing that.
I think that that's frustrating. Idon't necessarily disagree with council Member Hugs ordnance.

(01:59):
I agree with this. One actuallysays only cars that have a current
valid license plate can be ticketed forfifty dollars. So that means, I
guess, if you want to parkin your yard, either remove your license
plates from your car when you doit, or don't renew your license plate

(02:21):
and drive basically an unregistered vehicle becausethose do not fall under this ordnance right,
well, that is, if someonedrives it. Yeah, it seems
like if the idea, if theidea is as you said that there are
people that don't want to have theirneighbor park a car or a boat or
a camper or whatever right there intheir yard because we don't like looking at

(02:44):
it. Well, right now,under this ordinance, if someone goes out
there and paves that part of theyard, the camper is still there.
It's just now on a concrete padrather than on grass. Or if you
don't want to pay for pavement,you just throw some gravel down. You
go there, we go. Ijust put some gravel on this part.
Now it's a it's an adjacent gravelpad for my boat. And you can

(03:07):
still have it right there in thesame spot in the yard, but now
it's got gravel underneath rather than dirtand some grass and mostly weeds. Does
this accomplish what Councilman Hug and theother members of the councilor are looking to
accomplish, Well, that would not. And I would say you may not
be able to get a permit tojust pour concrete anywhere in your yard.

(03:28):
By the way, again, there'scode. There's codes that we have to
comply with. And if you wereto poor a driveway, do you have
to go get a permit, andI'm fairly certain that Omaha Planning wouldn't give
you a permit to like pave yourwhole front yard. What about just throwing
some gravel down, Well that doesn'twork necessarily either. This gives an exception

(03:49):
for a residence with a gravel driveway. However, Chapter fifty five, which
is still in effect, does nothave these exceptions. And the other exceptions
that I find just ridiculous is youalso you're allowed he's allowing you to park
in your yard from ten am toten pm on Columbus Day, Gym teamh

(04:12):
Independence Day, Labor Day, ThanksgivingDay, the day after Thanksgiving, So
those holidays, I guess if you'regoing to do this, I don't know
why you would take those holidays.So you can't park a car in your
yard on Mother's Day, but youcan park a car in your yard on

(04:32):
Columbus Day. Well, Columbus Dayis a huge celebration for I'm sure singles
of people across the world, andthey need to have a lot of room
for people to park. So toyour point though, that if someone has
a car that's fully registered, it'sall up to day with their tags,
their plates and everything. They can'tpark that in their yard. But if

(04:55):
you don't register your vehicle, ifyou let those tags expose, by all
means, uh, pour up rightright here next to the haciendas and or
next to the Hacienda's a house rightright next to the linden tree here,
and you can just park your carright there in the yard. Right You
still can't do it under Chapter fiftyfive. So basically you can park it

(05:19):
there for ten days or until somebodycalls on you. To me, you
should ticket any vehicle. I mean, if you're going to ticket a vehicle
for being in somebody's front yard,it should be any vehicle, whether it
has a valid registration or not.I guess separating those two doesn't make any
sense to me either. And sothough they're just you know, when you're

(05:39):
voting for laws and for ordinances,the idea ideas can be great, but
the devil is sometimes in the details. And I just couldn't support this.
I mean, I can't imagine you'rea couple of years from now, somebody
is going to be in court andthey're going to be like, but judge,
you know it was I thought itwas Columbus Day because you know,

(06:00):
Columbus Day is really on October twelfth, but supposedly it was celebrated on October
fifteenth this year. I mean,and then the judge is going to look
at this and be like, whowrote this ordinance? Who exempts Columbus Day
like as a holiday? Well aspart of those Those are the things that
I just I don't like. Ijust don't like the path laws that somebody

(06:21):
can look at and just say thatdoesn't make any sense, even even if
the concept is good and the intentionsare good, you know, I just
can't support something that isn't necessarily consistent. And I think it also puts Omaha
police in a position. I don'tknow how many calls are going to get

(06:41):
when it first goes into fact,hopefully none, but in making them kind
of the yard police, yeah,I don't know that that's necessarily an effective
use of their time. That's whatcode enforcement is for. Yeah, Omaha
police are you know, just sittingaround twiddling their thumbs. This will be
something they can do if they haveto come out there and deal from a

(07:02):
criminal aspect of parking in your yard. That takes time away from coming out
and busting someone for smoking in anon smoking establishment, which also you got
to call police on heavy sarcasm onthat phrase. Last point here for Amy
Melton, You're you're a representative fromDistinct seven north West Omaha. That's where
I live. I mean, wehang out together at the yacht Club out

(07:24):
there with Muffy and Buffy and bottomtooth. Is it just that you don't
see this as a problem because noone does this out and rich, beautiful
West Omaha, where the streets arewide and paved gold. But on the
other side of town, which Iunderstand exists, we talk about it at
the yacht club. The streets arevery narrow. There's not enough room for

(07:44):
parking a lot of these homes,and sometimes people by virtue of necessity,
have to park in their yard.And this is not a problem on one
part of town, but it isin the other. It is true.
I think in our older and theolder part of our town, which typically
is east of seventy second, youare going to find that more people find

(08:05):
the need to park their cars andmaybe a portion of the yards or like
in their backyard. I do thinkwe're gonna have a whole bunch of people
we're gonna be really upset about thiswho aren't hurting anyone who may be parking
their car in the back of theirhouse. That doesn't bother anyone. But
if one of their neighbors gets madat him, they're gonna be calling,

(08:26):
and then the police are gonna haveto go to their door and tell them
I'm gonna have to give you aticket or move your car. I actually
think Omaha police will actually knock onthe door and say, hey, you
want to move this so I don'thave to give you a ticket, because
that's I think how our fine menin blue treat the constituents of Omaha.
They're most likely just going to giveyou a little warning and say, hey,

(08:46):
move it. And you know,my guess is if you're having a
funeral at your house and it's andthen circumstances is gonna be like, all
right, could you just have amoved in a couple hours so I don't
have to come back color color mestrange, But I would hope that our
police officers are doing things far moreimportant than counting cars in yards. Yes,

(09:07):
council Member, this seems like there'sa lot of education that has to
go down here before this goes intoeffect. We got to August First,
it's Amy Melton, Omaha District sevenrepresentative. Thank you very much for your
time with this here today on newsradio eleven to ten KFAB. Thank you.
Cut absolutely anytime we've got traffic,that's what one of the cops doing.

(09:28):
Forget about gang members, Jim,forget about fentanyl, forget about all
of this. Let's make sure wecount cars in people's yards.