LIBERTY — With time passing since his initial appearance, a Logan Arms Drive resident attended Monday’s trustees meeting to discuss an abandoned commercial property that he previously suggested presents a desolate view of the community.

Steve Stoyak, who has brought the Tibbetts Wick Road gas station property to officials’ attention starting in April, said there has been “little, if no, action” regarding it — adding that the property’s state has instead worsened.

Stoyak asked trustees if they planned to mandate the township’s new zoning inspector, Melissa Ritchie-Murphy, to enforce its property maintenance code to demolish the gas station.

Murphy was hired at a Sept. 8 trustees meeting to replace Jim Rodway, who retired Aug. 31.

“If you look at our maintenance code, I think it’s clear that the gas station is in violation, and I think we need to enforce that maintenance code,” trustee Arnie Clebone said. “And we do have a new zoning person, I think she’s going to be very, very good, and I hope she’ll be on it and we’ll see some action.”

Clebone said the township can’t require the property owners to tear the gas station down, but they can require the gas station’s repair.

BELMONT AVENUE

Regarding the Belmont Avenue beautification project, Stoyak said he agreed that as a township property owner, he had the right to do everything legal within the confines of it, but it didn’t mean he could infringe on his neighbors’ property rights.

Stoyak said he thinks about the person who spends $300,000 on a house in Liberty only to find, six months later, the guy two doors down from him has four or five abandoned cars in the front yard and trash all over the place.

“How does that relate to Belmont Avenue? You can do all the planning and studying you want to, in regard to the beautification of Belmont Avenue,” Stoyak said. “Unless we have property code enforcement in Liberty Township, it will always look like it does now — you got abandoned buildings, you have trash, you have boarded up buildings, you have properties that aren’t in compliance with the code.”