MASON CITY – He got his house and property cleaned up and put-up for sale by a local realtor, but the Mason City council showed no mercy for an elderly man, deciding that his house shall be bulldozed to the ground.
The house at 32 6th Street NW owned by Phillip Flinchum has been declared unsafe and unsanitary, and by a vote of 5-1, declared that it will be demolished.
Flinchum, with the help of neighbors and other volunteers, had cleared away truckloads of “stuff” from his property and even done some painting and weed removal.
But it wasn’t enough for the council, who last month had given Flinchum 30 days to clean up his property or else.
Flinchum’s home sits about a block and a half away from a boarded-up property where a person was murdered and countless crimes have been committed in recent years, but council has taken no action on the structure at 410 North Washington, critics say. These same critics say that the council and mayor have found a new elderly person to bully, and others point to council member Travis Hickey himself, who has flagrantly flaunted the law and the ruling of a Mason City board several years ago that ordered him to attach his two large garages, which he never did. Hickey, recently, had criticized Mason City code enforcement officers who he claimed don’t do their jobs “until someone complained”.
Others, however, say that the council is just being tough an a citizen who was hoarding junk and forcing him out was overdue.
