A portion of a wall at 519/520 N. Main facing Main Street crumbled Sept. 24, and since that time it appears little has been done — but the work to get the sidewalk cleaned up and Main Street fully reopened has progressed.
Albeit, behind the scenes. McElroy has been working to help facilitate work on the building — though her role, and the role of the city, is limited.
“It is a privately owned building. It is not an expense of the city nor is it our jurisdiction other than to oversee code in the building,” Kelly McElroy, assistant city manager said.
“We do have things we could do, they are rather heavy handed. We could pursue that as public nuisance,” added Bob Myers, city manager. “We could use some authority and take some immediate actions, though that would be more in the nature of demolition. I think as long as they are making a reasonable effort to keep moving forward I think it would serve our interests to give them some reasonable latitude. … Right now there is no indication that they are doing anything but trying to move ahead as well as they can.
(Read more: Newton Kansan)