When junk is someone's treasure

Quirkiness and old-Montana values raised in defense against city decay ordinance

By DAVID ERICKSON / and RICHARD HANNERS

Whitefish Pilot

With a little help from their friends, and a little nostalgia by some city councilors, DeBourah and Don Morris won a slight reprieve from the city's revamped decay ordinance Monday night.

Another Whitefish resident, Roger Wold, was given no slack. The Whitefish City Council ordered him to remove junk vehicles he allegedly used to store perishable food from his property on Park Avenue within 30 days.

City staff have responded to eight decay ordinance violations since the city adopted the new regulations in March 2007, but only two have been referred to the city council for final resolution.

The goal of the ordinance is to "regulate, control and prohibit conditions that contribute to community decay," such as accumulating junk, debris or refuse that result in unhealthy, indecent or offensive conditions. That includes inoperable and/or unlicensed vehicles.

In the case of the Morrises, neighborhood resource officer Dru Dennison said the city has received complaints from neighbors, visitors and concerned citizens about an inoperable school bus and car, a camper, a truck bed, a truck canopy and accumulating debris.

DeBourah Morris says they're the victims of constant harassment by a developer who built condominiums next to their property at Colorado Avenue and Edgewood Drive.

"It's just a matter of wealthy people coming in and not liking the way Montana used to look," she said. "But why should I leave my family home?"

The Morris's house has an eclectic charm, with flower beds and odds and ends scattered across the yard. They have wood piles and a bus that DeBourah says she can prove is fully licensed and operational.

The condominium development directly behind her house stands in sharp relief to her property — orderly, upscale and spotlessly clean. The two properties could not be more different. DeBourah said the condo residents and developer would like to see her disappear.

"They don't like our old house, and I don't blame them," she said. "If I paid $750,000 to live in one of those condos, I wouldn't want to look at us either. But I was here first."

The city first sent the couple an abatement notice seven years ago, city attorney John Phelps told the council.

"We've been receiving complaints on the property since 2001, before the condos were built and the neighborhood changed," Phelps said. "This will not go away and will remain a point of controversy."

The Morrises last dealt with a city notice on May 26, 2005. They cleaned up their property and received a thank-you letter from Phelps, but he also asked them to remove their bus.

"We drove them around in the bus to prove to them that it worked fine," DeBourah recalled.

EIGHT PEOPLE ADDRESSED the council about the Morrises, including several neighbors who support the couple.

Shannon Fremont-Smith said she "giggled" when she first saw the couple's home, but over the years, her family have become close friends with the Morrises, and her children love to play in their yard.

"They're beautiful neighbors," Fremont-Smith said. "They just do things differently."

Laura Manning, a fourth-generation Montanan who has sold units in the adjoining condo buildings, said she likes the school bus, too, and her parents, who are buying one of the condos, say the "junk" doesn't bother them. But "junk" can accumulate, Manning said, and it was good the city was alerting the Morrises to the situation.

Rob Farrington, who lives in one of the condos, said he's lived in Montana since he was one, "so I understand the quirkiness." But he also noted how much money the city has put into rebuilding Colorado Avenue, with its new sidewalk and streetlights.

On the other hand, "My parents' property in Kila looks a lot like theirs," Farrington said.

DeBourah told the council their Galaxie runs, "but it smokes like crazy," and she and her husband referred to their school bus as a "motor home." People often ask them why they don't move to the country, she said, but "when we moved here, it was the country."

That was a point councilor Shirley Jacobson picked up on right away. After 57 years of driving past the property, Jacobson said she was well acquainted with how much it had improved and how much adversity the couple have dealt with — DeBourah was sick for four years with cancer, Don lost work as a logger, the state tore up their property to build the viaduct, and the city tore up their property several years ago to rebuild Colorado Avenue.

Jacobson motioned that the Morrises be given 30 days to clean up what they think is junk. The council agreed, adding that they couple must also show that both vehicles are licensed and operable within that time.

WOLD'S SITUATION WAS quite different. The city claims it sent him several violation after a neighbor complained of two abandoned vehicles used to store perishable foods, including eggs, milk, turkeys and bacon. According to the complaint, "when it begins to warm up, the food in the vehicles starts to decompose, rot and smell."

The complaint also noted a compost pile was used for trash and never emptied. The neighbor wrote that "the smell from the compost pile is nauseating. The compost stench radiates into our backyard, and at times we are unable to spend time there."

After the city received no response, the planning and building department declared the property a public nuisance. Dennison told the council she went to Wold's home with a Whitefish police officer, but Wold disagreed with the city's position.

The council ordered Wold to remove the junk vehicles along with farm equipment, inoperable mowers, appliances and the compost pile within 30 days. If he fails to comply, the city could either hire someone to do the work or use city employees and bill Wold for the work.

Ready to sell

Don and DeBourah Morris say they've had enough of being harassed by the city and developers and have put their property up for sale.

They made the announcement public after they faced the city council on Monday night because they wanted the city to get its "test case."