(a) No person shall obstruct any ditch, drain or watercourse along, upon or across a public roadway by placing leaves, brush, rubbish, trash or any other substance in such drain, ditch or watercourse.
(b) No person shall divert any water from adjacent lands across a public roadway.
(c) No person shall enclose any ditch, drain or watercourse without prior approval of the City Engineer so that the enclosure conduit and size and the gradient of the enclosure, are satisfactory to the City. All charges generated by the investigative process shall be paid by the property owner.
(d) Whoever violates or fails to comply with any of the provisions of this section is guilty of creating a nuisance, and the abatement process shall be as follows:
(1) The Service Director is hereby authorized and directed to establish an inspection program for the purpose of discovering and alleviating such nuisance conditions.
(2) Upon determination of the action required to correct the condition, the Director shall cause a notice to be given to the owner of the abutting property stating the existence of the condition and the action required to correct it. The notice shall further state that the owner is ordered to correct the deficiency within five days from the date of the receipt of the notice, or to authorize the City, on a form provided by the Director, to correct such condition. A conditional extension may be granted by the Director.
(3) If the owner requests the City to correct the condition, the owner shall be liable for the cost of the use of City personnel and equipment as outlined in Chapter 1068. The owner shall file with the City a deposit in the amount of the Director’s estimated cost of the use of City personnel and equipment at the time the request for the City to do the work is filed. Upon completion of the work, the owner will be notified of the actual cost and will receive either a bill for additional costs not covered by the deposit, which bill shall be payable within thirty days from its date, or a refund forthwith for any unused amount on deposit.
(4) If, within five days from the date of receipt of the notice by the abutting property owner, such owner has failed to correct the condition and has failed to file a request and deposit with the City for the correction of the condition, the Director is hereby authorized to cause the work to be done at the expense of the City. He or she shall keep accurate records of the costs of the project which shall become a lien on the abutting lands. At the completion of the work, the Director shall certify the total amount of the cost involved to Council. Council shall forthwith pass an ordinance assessing the total cost thereof, plus interest at the rate of ten percent per annum until such amount is paid, and a penalty of fifteen percent of the cost thereof to cover additional expenses to the City caused by the owner’s failure to abate the nuisance. Upon passage of such ordinance, the Law Department shall take such action as is necessary to recover the total amount, either by causing a certification to be made to the County Auditor, in such circumstances as authorize the same to be done, by recovery in a court of competent jurisdiction or by enforcement of the lien.
(e) Nothing in this section is intended to supersede the right of the City to abate any nuisance which may occur within the City and which is not provided for in this section, so long as such right is granted to the City by the laws of the State and/or the laws of the City, including, but not limited to, the rights granted to the City by Sections 660.18, 660.20 and 1042.06 of these Codified Ordinances. (Ord. 56-83. Passed 5-23-83.)