Slow Progress in cleaning up Astoria's Flavel Properties

Astoria city officials say progress will be slow in making improvements to the vacant Flavel properties in the downtown area.  City council member Arlene LaMear expressed dismay at the lack of progress and asked for an update.

City Development Director Brett Estes said community development staff have been working with City Attorney Blair Henningsgaard to move on the next step of enforcement actions, potentially citations, regarding the derelict building ordinance.  He cautioned that to go through the process will at a minimum -  take time, and that possible litigation could be expensive for the city. 

“One of the major problems is financing.  If we want to go in and foreclose on some of the liens that we already have, we could do that right now, but we would be in the midst of a relatively expensive legal proceeding is my guess, if she tried to fight it. Just because it takes time, you have to advertise the public sale, we’d have to have the sheriff conduct the sale.  There’s an elaborate procedure for conducting liens, and at that point really all we would accomplish is getting Mary Louise Flavel out of the chain of title. There are still a number of claimants in that chain of title.” 

Henningsgaard suggested before engaging in litigation, to try more citations, with the idea of getting some voluntary action.  Council member LaMear and Mayor Van Dusen recommended the city manager come back to the next council meeting with an option to escalate enforcement of the derelict building ordinance.