Copperhill residents pleaded with city officials, at the September 16 Board of Alderman meeting, to reinstate a police department as well as discuss unkempt houses, garbage on the sidewalks, a flooding house, lack of parking and an urgent care center.
Ron O’Neal said, “Me and some of the other business people here want to read you this – We the undersigned property owners, business owners, employees and residents, ask that the Mayor and Council of the City of Copperhill hire a police force for the protection of its people, to protect the safety of its people and businesses and the investments we have made in this city. … The city gives the business owners nothing. They don’t pick the garbage up, they don’t have a police department, and we have all kinds of problems.”
O’Neal gave several examples of those problems. “I’ve got a problem with people messing with my air conditioning behind the Dollar Store, cost me $750. I have people sleeping behind there from time to time.
“I’ve got people digging in the dumpster, I even put cables on the dumpster and they’re still digging in it. … Had some antique glass in the old New York restaurant shot up and broken. … Had a walk-in cooler … set them out back and next morning they’re gone. Had a gas tank down there for the pizza place, they removed the gas tank and somebody else removed the copper lining.”
O’Neal also said he had someone bust a $1,000 window out of JJ’s drive-thru and had someone pull the doors off of the bank building, costing him $6,000. “We have no protection. … We had two hit and runs in the parking lot last week,” he said.
Chris Patterson, owner of Tallent Drugstore, confirmed the hit and runs where someone driving had hit a parked vehicle and not stopped. He said the area behind the drugstore is very dangerous because people race through it attempting to avoid the stop lights.
Lamar O’Neal with Copper City Auto said something has to be done. “Polk County’s not cutting it. If my alarm goes off, it’s an hour before someone gets there. Somebody could be dead before they get there. I understand they got a lot to check.”
Mayor Kathy Stewart said, the police department was completely dissolved due to the fact it cost $9,000 to $10,000 per month. “That was an expense this city could not afford. The revenue didn’t offset the expenses at that time. ... The best we can do at this time is to have the county (Sheriff) come in,” Stewart said.
Residents Nicole Slucher and Bobbi Gettys asked about the people who weren’t paying their city taxes. Slucher said, “Isn’t that part of our revenue that we’re not collecting? … We have four neighbors who haven’t paid taxes in six years. The police told us the city should have evicted them. That’s what the police told us.”
Other residents commented about how certain houses and yards are in disrepair and full of trash. Trash is overflowing into the sidewalks making them unusable, they said. One person who is squatting in a house, according to the resident, and another person living in a car at one of the houses bathes in the river and uses the bathroom in the river. “She’s been nude from the waist up, we’ve caught her nude from the waste down. She uses the bathroom in the river. … It’s getting really bad,” the resident said.
Gettys said, “We’re (Copperhill is) getting a bad reputation.”
City Recorder Suzanne Hughes said she would call Polk County officials to check on the eviction process, and Stewart said they would invite Sheriff Steve Ross to October’s meeting so residents and business owners could speak with him and ask questions.
In other matters, resident Charles “CL” Burnett spoke about water continuing, for three to four years now, to run down the street and into his house. He said, “I’ve been patient and trying to get it done. It’s a city street and everything. I can’t get nobody to do nothing. Something’s gonna have to be done. You say you’re gonna have Jimmy look at this and look at that. But, I’m tired of having Jimmy look at it. I’d like to get something done because it’s coming into my house off of city streets.”
Stewart said the city was now able to purchase “cold patch,” an asphalt repair product made from recycled asphalt, from the County and said they were planning to use that to reroute the water running down the street so it no longer ran into Burnett’s house.
Stewart said the road repairs at the end of Water Street were still underway and cost more than expected at approximately $30,000.
Business owners also spoke about parking in the city. Lamar and Ron O’Neal both said patrons of Buck Bald Brewing park in the Dollar Store and Copper City Auto parking lots and that their customers no longer had a place to park. The parking woes continued when Patterson mentioned parking spaces being reduced when the new urgent care facility opens in the area behind Tallent Drugstore and the post office.
Stewart acknowledged the parking issue, but praised Dr. Richard Tanner for building a 24/7 urgent care center in Copperhill. The project completion date is uncertain.