Clark County sues property owner after years of complaints

The county sues owners of nuisance properties once or twice a year, said Kevin Pridemore, lead code enforcement coordinator at the county’s Department of Community Development.

“The owners who get into penalties are the ones who ignore us, or just choose not to comply with county code” on things such as junker vehicles and visible waste, Pridemore said. “Thankfully, we don’t get too many properties like this one.”

He noted that code enforcement officers worked with the residents of the Camas property for more than a year, during which time it could have been described as a minimal nuisance.

Following the June 2016 inspection, county staff spent two and half months working with the property owner, or rather a representative of the owner, to bring everything into compliance, but multiple violations remained.

The county was forced to issue a notice and order for the following violations: the illegal occupancy of a travel trailer; and the accumulation of more than two cubic yards of waste, rubbish and trash.

The lawsuit claims that a representative of Levison’s called code enforcement in September 2016 and reported they were working on fixing one of the issues — removing the trailer. However, during another inspection a few weeks later, an official noted another five inoperable vehicles had appeared.

Fast forward about a year from the initial inspection, and the county was patiently continuing its work. On June 21, 2017, the officers were promised that four of six abandoned vehicles would be removed, according to the lawsuit.

Six weeks later, two of the cars were gone. And two more had been brought onto the property.

This pattern continued until last month, when the county decided enough was enough.

“It got to the point where not only was it not getting better, it was getting worse,” Pridemore said. “We don’t make this decision lightly. We don’t get a lot of time with the prosecuting attorney’s office, so we have to be selective.”

The lawsuit names Levison as the defendant — the property owner responsible for cleaning up the mess — but public records obtained from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office indicate she may have limited power over what’s happening there.

The sheriff’s office provided six police reports, dating back to August 2015, four of which involve Levison’s grandson, Brandon Egland. It declined to release another report because it involved a minor.

Court records show Egland has multiple convictions in the county. The police reports suggest he lives in a house on the property with Levison and his mother, Connie Merritt. Attempts to reach the family were unsuccessful.

The incidents that resulted in full police reports are only a fraction of those involving the property in some way. Sgt. Brent Waddell said in an email that deputies have been dispatched to the address 41 times since January 2017.

For her part, Merritt appears to have been struggling to follow the orders of code enforcement. A report from March reads, “Connie (Merritt) said there have been numerous vehicles left on their large property by unknown people, and they’re trying to clean it up.”

Records from Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency, the county’s 911 dispatch center, returned a total of 59 calls involving the Camas property.

The calls include noise complaints, reports of thefts and assaults, and the deployment of fire engines due to illegal burns of trash. They also include calls in which social workers wanting to check in on Levison requested deputies to accompany them onto the property.

In February 2017, an Adult Protective Services worker requested an officer because she believed Egland was recently released from prison and he would be in the house. In December of that year, another worker received reports that Levison was holed up with no electricity, and people were on the property using drugs, according to the CRESA reports.

Neighbors repeatedly reported to police what they believed to be stolen vehicles on the property. A Mazda in August 2017. Later that month, a beat-up sedan with no license plates partially blocked Northeast 37th Avenue for several days. In March, a green Lexus showed up sometime overnight.

People who lived in the area, on the same avenue and on the road below it, declined to speak on the record. No one said they have felt threatened by anyone at the Levison property, but they shared stories of others being harassed.

They were mostly tired of burning trash, late night noise and an ever-changing cast of characters.

As of June 1, liens totaling $222,900 have accrued on the property for failing to comply with the notices and orders of code enforcement.

Put simply, the lawsuit demands the owner to clean up their mess. That includes taking out all the trash, removing all the inoperable vehicles and demolishing unpermitted, makeshift buildings.

The county is also seeking an order that would prevent the future buildup of the aforementioned features.

According to the lawsuit, the county is doubtful even this last ditch effort will move the residents to act. So it’s asking the court to issue a warrant that would allow the sheriff’s office to assist workers who’d “abate the nuisances.”

“We look at the impact to the neighborhood, and that impact got a lot more extreme over the past six months,” Pridemore said. “We’re not in the business of cleaning up properties ourselves, but if we have a judge giving us the authority, then we’ll go do that.”

Court records show Levison was handed the complaint on June 11, which started the 20-day period she had to respond before a default judgement would be handed down. She had not responded as of July 18.