STEUBENVILLE — Council members say they’re already fielding complaints from constituents upset with too-high grass on properties in their neighborhoods and want a way to “more expeditiously” address recurring problems.

Law Director Costa Mastros, however, said city code already spells out the process they must follow to go onto private property to cut grass — posting a notice on the property and when the owner doesn’t respond, sending them a letter, waiting five days and then cut it.

Mastros said there are no shortcuts.

“There are processes in place to expedite them. We just have to use the process,” he said. “You can’t put it on repeat in the sense of sending them a letter, we cut it and then three weeks later we go back and cut it again because it got too high again. You can’t do that. You have to repeat the process all over again.”

Councilwoman Heather Hoover, chair of council’s Pride Committee, said some property owners are perennial offenders, and they’d like to find a way to make them meet their responsibilities as landowners. She said one way to do that might be to “explore the options of earmarking specific funds to help combat the areas that are eyesores each year.”

“These are properties (with) owners … who live out-of-state and have allowed these properties to fall to the wayside,” she said after the meeting. “(They’re) continuously and repeatedly reported to city officials and although the proper steps are taken to send citations and notifications informing the owners of (the) violations, they often remain uncut or only cut once, maybe twice through the season.”

Hoover said it’s “extremely disheartening” for residents who’ve lived in a specific neighborhood all their lives and who take care of their properties to have to live next door or across the street from an eyesore.”

“As noted during tonight’s meeting, our first steps would be to generate a list of properties, seek out their ownership,” Hoover said, pointing out community service workers working off fines “cannot handle the amount of properties that we may have.”

“So, our next step could be to explore the cost of having an outside grass cutting service price these out for us so that we can determine if it would be cost effective for the city to take on.”

Councilman at large Joel Walker said it’s clear they “need to figure something out to get and keep the grass cut.”

“I don’t know if we can, but (I’d still like) the ordinance to be changed so the process is easier and quicker,” Walker added. “If we can cut these properties at least once a month, the neighborhoods would look so much better.”

Councilman Royal Mayo, meanwhile, suggested putting less emphasis on demolishing dilapidated properties and more on finding buyers willing to roll up their sleeves and bring them up to code.

Mayo, meanwhile, asked that someone be sent to Sunset Boulevard “by the old surgery center” where a deer had died after being hit by a car to wash away whatever residue is causing a stench to hang over the area.

City Manager Jim Mavromatis said he’ll arrange for City Engineer Mike Dolak to attend next week’s meeting to explain the rationale for choosing one-sided roadside signs proclaiming Seventh Street from North End Park to Market Street to be “Martin Luther King Jr.” parkway rather than the overhead signs in the intersections that Mayo and Councilman Dave Albaugh said they’d expected.

Mayor Jerry Barilla said the street department told them the signs they’d requested were “commemorative signs, not street signs” and ordered accordingly.

“I can tell you we had several discussions about how we could do it legally,” Mavromatis said.

Mayo also was upset that the signs had been put in place without fanfare, reminding council that they’d been asked to give the MLK sign committee a heads up so they could arrange a formal unveiling.

Council, meanwhile, passed emergency legislation authorizing Mavromatis to contract with Ohio Regional Development Corporation for administration services for the city’s 2025 Community Housing Impact and Preservation Program application and waiving the remaining undeferred among of the a CHIP Housing Rehabilitation mortgage for a homeowner who is unable to fulfill the requirements due to severe health issues.

First reading also was given to an ordinance that would authorize Mavromatis to do what is necessary to implement the downtown central business district safety upgrades, which involves removing outdated traffic signals at up to 12 intersections downtown.