She lost the house. But the city still wants her to pay for those high weeds or go to jail

[TexasTowelie]

ALTON • The city of Alton wants to lock up a former city resident if she doesn’t pay her tickets for failure to maintain the property she abandoned years ago.

Shawna Nelson used to own a home on East Ninth Street. When her teenage daughter was expecting a baby in 2010, Nelson abandoned the house because she couldn’t make several repairs it needed to be safe for her new granddaughter.

Madison County demolished the house in 2012, purchased the property out of foreclosure in 2014 and sold it to another Alton resident. Now it’s an empty lot.

Today, Nelson, 54, owes the city of Alton more than $1,300 for a series of tickets she was issued in 2011 and 2012, most of them for junk or high weeds on the property after she had moved out.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/she-lost-the-house-but-the-city-still-wants-her/article_daf40f2e-15ad-545e-b0a4-e2eba550034c.html

[DetlefK]

1. In other words: She ran away to avoid paying bills, but her plan didn't work out.

[Sherman A1]

2. Just a note here

Alton is actually in Illinois. It is very much a within the sphere of the Metro St. Louis area, but just across the Mississippi. Around St. Louis and particularly St. Louis County the myriad of municipalities can often be maddening for even residents to figure out sometimes.

[TexasTowelie]

3. Ah, thanks.

Fortunately the only large municipality in or around Texas that is near a border area is Texarkana. I'm going to need to do a better job of checking the map when I gather news from newspapers that lie on the border--I almost always check when I get articles from the Kansas City Star.

[Sherman A1]

4. Not a big thing, St. Louis is a bit goofy

in more ways than one.