MASON CITY – A trial date has been set in a case between the city of Mason City and embattled home owner Phillip Flinchum in his case against the city, which decided last year to tear his house down.
Last September, attorney Randy Nielsen for the city and Michael G. Byrne for Flinchum worked with judge James Drew to arrange a stay of proceedings as legalities were sorted out in his attempt to prevent the demolition. The city had moved to tear down Flinchum’s house, located at 32 6th Northwest. Due to these legal proceedings, the city cannot proceed to demolish Flinchum’s house until a trial is complete.
Flinchum hired a lawyer to defend himself against an aggressive move by the city council where it decided last 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.
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I agree with most of the points below, I drove through this area of town yesterday including North Delaware and the areas around that. There are numerous houses “physically boarded up,” including the house mentioned on North Washington. I am not saying the house in question shouldn’t be taken down, sounds like he has been a pain to the neighbors for a long time, but all of these properties need to be taken care of the same way. An abandoned house that is boarded up should not stand long.
@John-Drive down North Federal and see all the boarded up houses. They let the HUD people in and the homes are destroyed before they can get them out. Tear them all down.
And, with the rationale of neighbors complained and don’t like the way it looks. That reasoning could set a dangerous precedent. There are so many rental properties that look like crap and then there are the ones that have been re-habbed on the outside and are a mess on the inside and landlords get away with that.
This is selective. And, with one Councilperson in the real estate and rental business, She should be abstaining from voting. I also think Lee has rental houses, so he should…
This is another attempt by our City Elite officials to use their power because they can. Yes, I believe Flinchum needs to clean up his property and keep it that way. But, in court, I would like to see the evidence that the City did their due diligence. They have no evidence, no inspection of the inside the house, no engineering report about the house being structurally unsound. There are many crap properties and garages around town. U just can’t single out one property all or none
everything north of State Street could be bulldozed
@MC citizen…use See-Click-Fix on the citys’ website to complain about any problems such as the house on N Washington. They will e-mail you with any solutions…if any…
Mr Flinchum should clean up his property and keep it that way. It is called being a good neighbor. No one has the right to destroy their neighbors lifestyle by being a slob. That being said, the city went at this all wrong. They tried to strong arm the guy instead of following the rules. We have procedures and laws for a reason and even the arrogant mayor and his minions need to follow them.
What about that heap of crap that sits at 410 N Washington? Why is that house still standing? In fact there is a lot of houses that are still standing that shouldn’t be. I hope Mr. Flinchum wins this trial. You cant just remove some ones house just because YOU don’t like the way it looks!