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City is ‘selective and vindictive’ as gas line ruptured: Property owner claims

Jul 17, 2018 | 5:00 PM

The owner of several residential properties in Prince Albert claims the city is being “selective and vindictive” in the way they treat certain people.

Josh Morrow spoke to paNOW and claimed the city was over-zealous in coming onto a vacant lot of his in the West Flat last week to cut his grass and weeds. The mower then ruptured a natural gas line.

“This is primarily a safety issue,” Morrow said. “You can’t just fly onto somebody’s land unannounced and start mowing it when you have no idea what’s on that property. Do your due diligence and speak to the landowner instead of ripping in there with a young summer student and putting him at risk.”

Morrow said he sprays his lots the same time ever year to address weeds and the city knows how to get hold of him, but they went ahead anyway.

“It’s just one of those vindictive things where they just run and gun and stick you with the bill,” he said. He said there were many other lots in town that were overgrown but had been ignored by the city.

Morrow claimed it was frustrating the city was targeting him despite his efforts to clean up parts of the West Flat.

“This is how wild this is,” he said. “We spent $16,000 to knock down two houses, cleaned the lots up and made them look great and the city is in there mowing the lot just to get that extra few hundred dollars to bill me for,” he said.

paNOW reached out to the city of Prince Albert for comment but they had not responded before the deadline for this story.

 

glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow