The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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April 14, 2008

It's a mess, and nobody's cleaning up

County junk ordinances largely unenforced

By Dan Nienaber

MANKATO — There was a time when the old creamery in Garden City was a quaint-looking building that added to the charm of the small town that is home to the Blue Earth County Fair, an annual blue grass festival and other events that use the wooded banks of the Watonwan River as a backdrop.

That changed a decade ago. Now, when people turn east off Highway 169 and start the short drive through town to the fairgrounds and Shady Oaks Campground, they pass what Garden City Township supervisors say is closer to a junkyard than a historic building.

They blame the mess on the building’s owner, 38-year-old James Carl Nielsen. He’s owned the building since 1998 — also the first year Veryl Morrell, Blue Earth County land use administrator, was called to the property to investigate a complaint of too much junk on the property.

Nielsen and his family couldn’t be reached for comment.

The reason the property is still a mess 10 years later, the township supervisors add, is lack of enforcement of county land-use regulations by the court system. And the Nielsen property is only one of many similar eyesores scattered throughout the county.



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