Town Council Meeting — Nov. 14

Town Building Inspector Ben Nascenzi is scheduled to give an update to the Johnston Town Council on recent work at the Apple Valley Citgo Food Mart on Greenville Avenue at tonight's scheduled meeting.

The public session is set to begin at 7 p.m. at the . A copy of the agenda for tonight's meeting is attached to this article.

At issue is whether the gas station's owner, Mohammed Amer, has complied with town orders to replace a fence he took down last year, leading neighbors to complain; plant new grass in a 10-ft. buffer zone on the property; and move a guardrail that had been in the buffer area.

After Nascenzi threatened to shut down the business in August, Amer secured a restraining order against the town. During the council's Oct. 11 meeting, Nascenzi said Amer had begun taking steps to address the town's concerns — but had not fully resolved the issues.

Amer had spread loam over the buffer area, for example — but no grass had taken root by October, Nascenzi told the council.

"The only thing that hasn't grown there is the grass," Nascenzi explained, adding that Amer had otherwise met most of the town's requests.

"He's put up the fence complete; he's scallopped the edges according to what I had told him to do; he doesn't violate the corner visibility; he's put up all the Arborvitaes; he removed the old guard rail, and he's put up a new guardrail on the outside of the 10-ft. mark," Nascenzi told the council.

Council Vice President Stephanie Manzi, though, noted that only the stakes for a guardrail had been installed — and told Amer that without grass growing in the buffer zone, he hadn't met the council's conditions.

"I'm not a landscaper, but that looks like dirt," Manzi told Amer. "There's still no guardrail up — there are poles, but there's no guardrail, and I don't see grass, I see dirt."

Amer presented the council with a Sept. 17 contract for a company to spread grass seed on the buffer zone, but Manzi said she felt it had taken too long for Amer to get to that point.

"That wasn't that long ago, considering we had you in here Aug. 1 for the fifth time," Manzi explained, before she made a motion, approved 5-0 by the council, to continue the hearing until tonight's session.

Watch JohnstonPatch for coverage from tonight's meeting.