Susanvilles Path Forward: Addressing the Saint Francis Fire Aftermath

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We had a chance to sit down with Susanville City Manager, Dan Newton,  to get an update on the St. Francis file.

Dan Newton:  The Saint Francis fire, which resulted in the the damage to the building, left initially, front wall of the building was a safety hazard that we had to address immediately. So we already did work what we call through a summary abatement process for the Saint Saint Francis. We hired a contractor to remove that front wall on an emergency basis. The Susanville Planning Commission took up the item, basically issued an abatement order to the property owner and that was done on December 10th. The property owner was notified that the building site needed to be cleaned up. The owner needed to submit a plan to clean up the site and renovate the building. The owner did not comply with that order, and did not meet the requirements of the notice. Planning commission issued the abatement order. The owner had 20 days to appeal  which he did not.  So now the city is able to move forward with taking care of that site. We have to do it at our cost. So we’re going to be using the city’s funds and hopefully we’ll be able to recuperate all or a portion of what it’s going to cost to abate. The first step we have to go through is to do a hazardous materials assessment to find out what’s there in the building, and where we can take it? Can we take it to our local landfill, to have transport it. It’s difficult to come up with a good estimate not knowing what is the building waste going to be and how are we going to dispose of it. If everything goes okay, like say for example there isn’t significant quantity of hazardous materials there in the building that we’re going to have to deal with, it should go fairly quickly. So we’re thinking best case scenario probably three to six months. Utopia had insurance, so they were able to move really quickly. The city’s process, you know we have to give the the property owner their due process in the system and so that took additional time. But we’re we’re at the point where we can move forward.