By Adam Harringa and Matt Peterson

A property owner in Lansing Township is surprised the city of Austin removed junk from his property on Wednesday, as he had been making progress to clean it up, he said. City officials say otherwise.

Meshetnaglee ScabbyRobeParnett, 23, said he had been talking to Austin City Council Jeremy Carolan and Mayor Tom Stiehm about improvements he had made to his property in the 1400 block of 28th Avenue Northeast. Stiehm and Carolan said they spoke with Meshetnaglee and his parents, Minocrook and Kathy, who own Two Bears Trading Post and Spirit Bear Academy in Oak Park Mall. Stiehm then referred the family to Craig Hoium, the city’s community development director.

“I have been talking to them for awhile, but it doesn’t seem like they’ve been doing much,” Stiehm said. “I have been trying to work with them.”

But Meshetnaglee says they have been making steady progress and updating the city weekly, and officials had assured him they would be fine.

According to Hoium, the issue has been ongoing.

The city originally received a complaint about the property’s appearance in January 2013. While any homeowner of unkempt property is subject to misdemeanor charges under city ordinance, the city instead conducted an inspection and sent the owner a letter on Feb. 1 in which the homeowner was given 10 days to resolve the problem.

A follow-up inspection was completed on Feb. 11. However, Hoium said, the owner was then given until June to resolve the problem.

If an owner doesn’t resolve the issue, it’s placed on the City Council’s agenda for discussion. Hoium said the issue could have been brought to the city council after a Feb. 11 inspection but was delayed until June.

“We gave them four months,” Hoium said.

After the June council meeting, the city agreed to give the owner more time to clean the property and would do follow-up evaluations. The city evaluated the property on July 8 and saw progress, Hoium said. However, progress apparently slowed on July 22 and halted by Aug. 5. Then more time passed.

“A month ago we talked to the property owner,” Hoium said. “I told him, ‘You’ve got a week to get it cleaned up. If it’s not cleaned up, the city staff will be out there to do it.’ A month went by with no evidence, so we cleaned it up [on Wednesday].”

Kathy and Minocrook were arrested Wednesday for interfering when the city engineering department removed the property. According to the police report, officers and city employees tried to explain the legal process. However, a tense situation reportedly became heated and resulted in inappropriate comments, and police arrested Kathy and Minocrook to allow the city to do its job.

However, the family said they didn’t make any threats or inappropriate comments, and only blocked the driveway with a truck and then said they were going to get a lawyer. They said Minocrook was arrested first, and when Kathy tried to move the truck, she was arrested, too.

Meshetnaglee said city officials took, among other things, a boat, the shell of a car, metal, a cement pipe, firewood, a holding tank, and Native American pieces like tepees and sweat lodge stones, as the family is Native American.

Hoium said the city likely wouldn’t have moved stones, and the firewood was mostly mangled brush piles from a June 2009 tornado, not neatly stacked firewood.

“There was a total of, between brush and junk, nine [dump]truckloads hauled off the property,” Hoium said.

He added, “I think the city made the effort to try to give the property owner a chance to resolve the matter by himself. It was close to a year. We try to work with the property owners, and in this case, we weren’t able to.”

Meshetnaglee will be charged for the city’s time and junk removal, though the bill hasn’t been calculated yet.

“This is getting ridiculous now,” Meshetnaglee said. “I could lose the house I grew up in because I don’t know how I’m going to pay for this.”