Waterloo Times

The Evansdale City Council recently held a public hearing on a local business, Iowa Metal Recycling, that has been the subject of citizen complaints.

The business is owned by husband and wife team Trent and Kristen Thompkins, and the main complaint is that metal piles have started to poke out the 8-foot fence line, which is against city code.

"We had multiple complaints from different citizens and just people coming through town asking questions about it," city building inspector Steve Santomauro said. "So what I did was I just checked our ordinance to see what it is for commercial, and that's when I found out the ordinance states that it has to be kept below your fence. And you can have an 8-foot high fence, but it states we're not supposed to be able to see it above the fence line. And I made a copy of it and I sent it to you."

The owners explained that they had moved their drop-off pile closer to the front of their property by the road to prevent people from dropping off unsorted materials into already sorted piles. They were very willing to lower the piles and move them to a different area on their property if the council felt that would improve the situation.

Everyone agreed that the fence line rule meant their piles could be equal to eye level at the 8-foot fence line. The council issued a 45-day period for improvement and asked the owners to come back at that point to reassess how the improvements were working. They were very grateful for the business’ cooperation and service to the community.