A Lyons citizen says he wants the city to rectify a situation he claims was done without his knowledge. Tuesday night Johnny Griggers came to the monthly workshop and said the city made a ditch on his property 3 times wider than it was before, and he wants it fixed.

Griggers said he wasn't home when the work was done and no one from the city mentioned it to him. He said if the ditch had not been dug out, he could construct two more apartments on the land but couldn't as the situation currently is.

City Manager Jason Hall defended the city saying they were only doing as asked.Hall said it was a matter of his "word against Johnny's," but said Griggers did ask that something be done because snakes were getting to be a problem for his tenants and he could no longer keep the ditch maintained himself.

Griggers said inmates used to clean out the ditch but he couldn’t remember how long ago it was, but Mayor Willis NeSmith, whose land adjoins Griggers, had a precise timeline. According to the Mayor, that occurred about 20 years ago, and went on to say that when the latest work was done by the city, he instructed the City Manager NOT to do any work on his property because he didn't want anyone to misconstrue that the city was doing work on private property, specifically his.

Councilman Larry Griggers, who is Johnny Griggers' brother, said there were two issues at stake: First, something had to be done about the flow of rain water in the area, and secondly, work was done on a private citizen's property without his knowledge and the city needs to "make him whole."

Since Tuesday night’s meeting was a workshop and not a regular monthly meeting, no voting could be done on how to proceed, but it was agreed by Council that before too much can be done it had to be determined if the land in question is considered wetlands. Griggers seemed to be satisfied that the city would take his comments into consideration and thanked the council for their concern.