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LAKE ELMO CITY COUNCIL MINUTES NOVEMBER 5, 1985 PAGE 5 5. CITY ATTORNEY A. Update on Castle Design Litigation City Attorney Knaak reported that on November 5, 1985 the hearing portion was completed, and he has three weeks to submit briefs and another week for submitting responsive briefs. Optimistically, the case will be considered in February or March of 1986. B. Enforce City Code -Council Position City Attorney Knaak gave his recommendation to proceed under the Code Enforcement provisions. Knaak advised to have the Code Enforcement officer go out onto the property and based on proven facts that if there is an infraction of the code, the impending parties should be cited and handled in Criminal Court. Attorney Paul Wolff, representing Mr. & Mrs. Dave Bonestroo at 8199 Hill Trail, commented that there has been a long-standing complaint on the part of Bonestroo regarding certain code violations at Mr. Dean Johnston's property at 8200 Hill Trail. He noted a letter dated September 6th from the Acting City Adminstrator which referred to an opinion from the City Attorney indicating that the property was in violation of the City Code and for the violations to be brought into compliance by October 15, 1985. Mr. Wolff understands that these violations have not been removed to the satisfaction of the Acting Administrator on September 6th, and they asked that the Council direct the staff to proceed to enforce the ordinances appropriately. The letter does not refer to any opinion from the City Attorney with respect to the other violations that were complained about and those were in respect to landscaping violations. The landscaping that is required by the City Code has never been completed. Mr. Dean Johnston stated that shortly after he got his building permit the Bonestroo septic system failed, and they asked permission to put their building materials on his lot and use this lot as access to their building area. In the process of upgrading their septic system Bonestroo proceeded to strew large rocks that were part of their drainfield over two-thirds of the length of his property line two to three years ago and the rocks are still there. The same people complaining about landscaping are the same people that have damaged the landscape. Mr. Johnston referred to a letter dated October 1, 1984, where the City Weed Inspector viewed this property in September and verified that there are no noxious weeds on the premises. The vegetation on this lot is not in violation of our City ordinances. Mr. Johnston stated that he would be the first one to concede that he does not share the ideas with his neighbors of what appropriate landscaping is and feels that the City should not force him to accept his neighbors point of view. Mr. Johnston has taken the position that he will stop parking his car on the top of the hill and has made application for a variance