Roodhouse looking to clean up town

By Editor | June 10, 2026 |

By Carmen Ensinger

Wanting to clean up your town and actually having the authority to do it are two very separate and distinct things – depending on the municipality’s ordinances.
Roodhouse is finding this out now. Currently, their ordinance, in a nutshell, says that, for example, a property needs mowed. A citation is issued and the homeowner is notified. The council is given a list of properties that need mowed and they must approve the city mowing these properties.
Problem, the council only meets once a month, unless they are convened in special session.
Roodhouse Police Chief gave a summary of the ordinance.
“It is the only ordinance that we have like this,” he said. “Basically, it says that we make our list and we give that list to you guys (council) and you give us the authority to mow those yards if the homeowner doesn’t comply within the five days allowed given them from the time the ordinance violation was issued.”
Which would work out fine if the list was given perhaps right before the meeting, which is held on the fourth Wednesday of the month. But if a property has tall grass and weeds on say the first week of the month, by the end of the month, the yard would be totally unmanageable if left for an additional three weeks and the homeowner, if still even located at the residence, doesn’t address the problem.
Therefore, Robison asked the council if they would consider changing the ordinance and giving the police department the authority to act on these lists.
“I don’t know why you can’t change the ordinance to give the Police Department the authority to order the mowing,” he said. “After the five-day period given per the ordinance violation is up.”
City Attorney Todd Parish said in most cases, a city sticks a sign in the yard in question saying if the yard isn’t mowed it will be mowed by the city at the homeowner’s expense.
The change in the ordinance might need to be made because the city would then charge the owner a rate of $40 per house for the mowing, weed eating or whatever else is necessary to bring the yard into compliance.
“We have had several people who have complied after we issued them a citation,” Robison said. “But most of the places in question are abandoned.”
No action was taken on the matter.
Utility Superintendent Brandon Malin said that Alderman Steve Speeks called in about a broken pole behind Mathews Auto Body, next to the former Reco building.
“There are a lot of three phase electric banks back there because of the machinery that used to be used in the Reco building when it was up and running,” Malin said. “Now, there are about three different owners in there and it is basically being used as a storage unit.”
Malin said they are trying to fix the issue as cheaply as they can, but anything done with those kinds of electric banks costs a lot of money.
“If you’re not running at high capacity, say 80 percent of what they are built to handle, you’re actually costing the city money,” he said. “It costs the city more to run them than what we are bringing in because all they are running is lights and they are built more for commercial businesses.”
Malin estimates that the city is losing $25 to $30 a month on these power banks.
Malin said since he has been with the city there has been an issue with the storm sewers in the Cressy Addition.
“When we get a big rain like we did a couple weeks ago, it becomes like a big pond over there,” he said. “We were able to borrow a root cutter from White Hall and hit our main problem and pull out a bunch of roots so I think we have that taken care of and we won’t have to put a new line in.”
Malin said they have started on the Roodhouse Rez road project.
“The County is assisting us with that and they have put down a couple 100 ton of rock so far and then come back in a day or two and put down more,” he said. “Then, when we oil and chip our roads, we will have that done at the same time.”