ity engineer Suzanne Loomis and city manager Bob Myers rolled out a broad and ambitious city beautification plan that would do everything from raise utility rates to pay for free bulky item trash pickup, to establish a land bank for the city to manage nuisance properties it’s foreclosed on, after owners are unable to pay the city’s clean up fees.

“We wanted to see what your take was, before we spent so much time on those changes,” Loomis said to the Newton City Commission at its Jan 22 work session. The city had 1,077 property compliance issues in 2019, with 27 percent being nuisances, 24 percent being pruning, 19 percent being weeds and 10 percent being off-street parking, 10 percent inoperable vehicles and 10 percent in a miscellaneous category.

Loomis said the city could also organize various volunteer groups to help improve and work on run-down properties. Both Commissioners Barth Hague and Commissioner Glen Davis said they’d like to see the costs associated with all of the plans.

(Read more: Newton Now)