Council approves Turkey Island evictions and cleanup
May 8—OTTUMWA — The Ottumwa City Council wanted to strike the balance between having compassion for people who are inhabiting Turkey Island, while also emphasizing taking the next steps to clean it up.
The council voted unanimously during Tuesday's meeting to evict the people who have been setting up unauthorized campsites on the city-owned island, and to proceed with the cleanup effort, which is expected to take a few days and cost up to $10,000.
Turkey Island has no utilities such as electricity, and there are several safety concerns in regard to access to the island, which is mainly accomplished by boat, or by trespassing on railroad property.
"It's completely undeveloped at this time, and obviously a train can come at any moment, which makes it pretty dangerous to be on the bridges," city director of community development Zach Simonson said.
Simonson said that in April the code enforcement department received a complaint from the Ottumwa Police Department regarding the campsites. According to several pictures of the premises, trash and personal items have collected and campsites have been set up using tents and tarp shelters.
Simonson told the council that the city hasn't done a cleanup of the island "in quite a while," and that most of the items have accumulated in the last several months. He stressed many concerns about living on the island, considering its difficulty to access.
"Obviously there's concerns different times of the year about fire, and right now there's concerns about high water," he said. "If there was a medical emergency, if there was violence, if there was a weather-related emergency, it would be really hard to get anybody safely off that island.
"We do believe we need to get folks out of that condition, but to do it as respectfully as we possibly can."
The city is working with the Rolling Hills Coalition, which is part of Central Iowa Shelter and Services, to assist in finding safer spaces for the people.
"They do have a caseworker who wants to come out there with us and connect people with homeless-related services, and any other services they might need from a social worker," Simonson said. "We're going to do that in the next week or so and go get folks out of there."
The other part of the issue is the budget for cleanups. Simonson said the code enforcement department is already $30,000 over its budget for the current fiscal year, and if the city uses its mowing contractor for the cleanup, it was estimated to take three or four days and cost anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000, which is dependent on what else is found.
"Part of going over the budget was cleanup at a property on Branham Street (43,000 pounds of trash), which is the largest we've undertaken," Simonson said. "But we've had a lot of issues with these types of camps on Union Street, we've had them kind of north by the highway, north of Alta Vista Avenue.
"So we're already exceeding our budget even further by doing this one."
Council member Keith Caviness wondered about the feasibility of using city staff to perform the cleanup.
"If our budget is already over, we need to project the time when we can send some of our people out there a few hours at a given time, and give them a method of getting that trash off the island, but safely," he said. "If it takes us a year to do it, it just takes us a year to do it."
Simonson said the cleanup doesn't fall under his department's purview, but city administrator Philip Rath said it would be difficult for city staff to do the cleanup.
"I mean, staff is stretched pretty thin as it is. This isn't something we had in the budget," he said. "As far as a timeline, it would be allotted if they weren't doing other projects. Parks, for example, is in high-mowing season right now and they're basically mowing every day.
"So you can't say we'll just do it on a rainy day, and it's not necessarily winter work either. I understand what councilman Caviness is saying, but this is why we contract some of this stuff out, because if we have staff do it, it's taking time away from building inspections, rental inspections, other things they're doing."
Caviness did say that signage should be posted in that area to restrict residents from being on the island.
"We're not throwing them off the property, but they didn't have any right to be there to begin with," he said. "We're actually serving them by getting off the island and allowing them to relocate, if possible, someplace else. I'd recommend posting that it's private property with no access available."
The council noted that how the city proceeds should be with respect to the individuals, not scorn.
"They're still people and they're still Ottumwans," council member Bill Hoffman Jr. said. "We don't want to make them more helpless and give them the kind of assistance to help them up, not just so they don't return, but so they can get the help them the help they need."
Simonson agreed.
"Posting a notice itself is going to be disruptive to the people that live there, and they could get into fights over what's theirs," he said. "So we're going to try to figure out the best way to give folks a good amount of time to get the things they need, and be fair and do what we can do. We don't want to have to throw away everybody's personal items."
