MASON CITY – Lawyers for the city of Mason City and embattled home owner Phillip Flinchum today agreed to a stay in the proceedings in his case against the city, which has decided to tear his house down.
Randy Nielsen for the city and Michael G. Byrne for Flinchum worked with judge James Drew to arrange the stay of proceedings. Drew indicated he would select a judge soon – likely not from Mason City – to preside over a full hearing, which has not yet been scheduled. Lawyers for both camps will continue to make and build their cases, as well as gather information, until the full hearing. The city cannot proceed to demolish Flinchum’s house until a judge makes a decision.
Flinchum hired a lawyer to defend himself against an aggressive move by the city council where it decided this summer that his house should be demolished. The city, however, had no report from an engineer stating the house was “structurally unsafe”, as city councilman Scott Tornquist had told a group of Mason City citizens, and can produce no evidence that an official inspection of the house was ever made. In fact, documents do not show that city officials have ever been inside Flinchum’s house.
In the city’s own words in documents submitted to NIT, the entire reasoning behind the demolition of the house states “Due to calls from neighbors about the condition of the property, the past history of nuisance calls and lack of response from Mr. Flinchum and because the property was not being used as a residence we proceeded with a Letter of Intent to Condemn.” (Read more here.)
McKinness Excavating was the low bidder for the demolition project, at a cost of $11,000 to taxpayers.
[poll random]
does this really meant he city knows they dont have a leg to stand on??
The only ones making money on this is the damn lawyers.. Another poor decision by our city council costing us all money. It would have been cheaper to help him move out.
or buy him out and then resell the property or allow him to sell it so he can move out of town.
They find it easy to screw over old people that can’t shoot straight – we need to chip in and buy them a laser for their old military 45 –
@badpontiac-I am a old guy and I could shoot your eye out with my Gold Cup 45 at 30 yards. Just because he is older doesn’t mean he can’t shoot.
30 yards? The eye of a hurricane maybe. We thought you were full of it. Thanks for providing evidence.
@Anonymous-Would you like to find out?
@Anonymous-Come on TROLL. Do you want a demonstration or are you just going to run off you big troll mouth. Put your real name and address on here and I will get in touch with you. Is this all you can do is troll around shooting off your mouth??
I’m not the one who has anything to prove. I believe you were the one shooting your mouth off.
@Anonymous-Still the card carrying coward aren’t you TROLL. You shoot off your troll mouth but are not willing to back up what you say. Keep on hiding but someday you will slip and the world will find out who you are. We already know you are stupid and a coward.
Come to worth county – we still do not have an animal shelter after 10 years – we just shoot stray dogs and cats – funny though we spend 15.9 percent of our property taxes on T.I.F. programs but none for humanity or cruelty to animals?