After hearing a complaint last month about various supplies and materials stored at the Warren County Fairgrounds, the issue came up again at last week’s Warrenton Board of Aldermen meeting, where city officials said they were unsure if the fairgrounds were violating city code.

Although an update from the Warren County Fair Association on cleanup of the fairgrounds was originally on the board’s Nov. 3 agenda, it was removed prior to the meeting at the association’s request, Mayor Eric Schleuter said.

Local resident Reva Mays, however, who previously spoke at the board’s Oct. 20 meeting and lives in the Orange Blossom Estates subdivision adjacent to the fairgrounds, addressed the aldermen again during public comment at last week’s meeting.

“I’ve been doing some researching of the code, and especially the category that the fairgrounds fit into,” Mays said. Based on her reading of the city’s Outdoor Public Recreation (OPR) zoning regulations, she said, open storage of the items at the fairgrounds, such as chain link fencing, concrete blocks, culverts, telephone poles, various construction material and piles of gravel, should not be allowed.

“And the city codes state where it is and is not allowed, so I wanted to bring that to your attention, because in my view, they don’t have any grounds for leaving all that stuff out in the open, and I would very much appreciate your help in getting it moved,” Mays said. “I mean, I don’t understand why they would be any different from having to comply with the codes of the city than anybody else.”

Aside from Mays, Alderwoman Christine Wait, who said last month that Mays was “not the only one who’s complaining” about the state of the fairgrounds, said Nov. 3 that she had also been taking a closer look at the city code as it relates to OPR zoning.

Section A of the OPR regulations “does specifically say that these areas are to ‘be developed with appropriate landscaping and screening requirements,’” Wait said. She added that she was reading the city code as published on the website ecode360.com, and she was not sure if it was up to date.

“I know we talked about this before as far as people being grandfathered in on certain businesses and certain things, and I don’t know, I just want a little bit of clarity on that, if you guys know if it’s OK for them to not have screening as specified on the ordinance there, the OPR,” Wait said.

City Administrator Brandie Walters said she did not know the answer to Wait’s question. Mayor Eric Schleuter said last month that he didn’t think the fairgrounds were violating any city ordinance if the items they were storing were on pallets and in use, as Warren County Fair Association President Paul Owenby said they were. Schleuter said Nov. 3, however, that he didn’t know if the version of the city code that Wait was looking at included the most recent updates.

“I’m not sure when that was adopted into it, the online code,” Schleuter said.

Wait said the city should look into the issue, and Schleuter said city staff would do so.

Aside from section A of the OPR regulations that Wait quoted, those regulations as published on ecode360.com also include sections about potential issues including odor and noise, as well as a section N that deals with further specifics of screening requirements.

“All outside trash containers, HVAC units, electric, telephone, gas meters, satellite dishes and rooftop mechanical apparatus shall be thoroughly screened with appropriate materials or landscaping to conceal the visibility of the object,” according to the online city code. “Outside trash containers are to be screened with material matching or compatible with buildings or structures.”