Cloverdale board revisits former board's decision

Friday, September 7, 2007

CLOVERDALE - The officers of the Cloverdale Board of Zoning Appeals were barely five minutes in their positions Thursday night before they were forced to deal with a wrecker service owner's request to review a previous board's ruling that he was in violation of town ordinance.

In their first meeting of the year, the members of the new board choose Dave Lyon as their president, Terry Puffer as vice president and Cathy Reeves as secretary.

Since no officers were in place at the start of the meeting, there was no agenda for the meeting.

When the board asked whether the public had any comments, Jeff Everman, the owner of Discount Tire Company, 1 W. Stardust Road, came forward to ask the board to discuss a pair of April 6, 2006 letters he was issued from the previous zoning board and the ensuing controversy that arose from them.

According to Everman, he was told by the previous board that he was in violation of a town ordinance which required him to receive a special exception in order to operate a wrecker service. That board agreed to grant the exception if Everman made four improvements to his property, including building a separate structure to store his tires and keep them out of the weather.

Everman said he complied with three of the four stipulations and was on his way to finish construction of the $25,000 building when he went in front of the board after his deadline expired and requested an extension. The board denied his extension request, which means Everman has been operating a wrecker service in violation of town ordinance ever since. The town has taken no steps to reprimand or fine him in the past, and they made no such moves to do so Thursday night.

The new board members, Thursday night, agreed they were unsure whether they had the authority to either extend the exemption or review the previous board's interpretation of the law.

In related matters, the board heard from Jim Steele, owner of Steele's Auto and Wrecker Service, 201 Main St., who argued that since Everman missed the deadline for constructing the tire shed, they should not reconsider his petition.

He also questioned why nothing had been done to stop Everman from operating his wrecker service.

Steele said he had to deal with several requirements from the Board of Zoning Appeals when he opened his own wrecker service in 1989, as well, and it would be unfair if the board was lenient with Everman's business.

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