AUSTINTOWN — A special meeting today of the Austintown trustees is mostly about high grass.

Zoning Inspector Darren Crivelli said he has at least 20 nuisance items on his list that need attention before the board’s next regular meeting May 5. So trustees will gather this morning to approve his request to take action on them now.

“If I wait until then, I may have 30 or 40 properties on the list and some of those won’t get cut until the end of May,” he said. “I’m just trying to move up the timeline so we can get started and hopefully get it closer to the second week of May.”

Crivelli said residents are calling regularly with complaints about high grass. The zoning office is responsible for ensuring that the grass is tended and violators are cited if necessary, but it does not happen all at once. The property is put on a list and the actions require board approval before Crivelli can send out letters to those property owners.

For nuisance properties, owners have seven days to correct the problem — four if they are repeat offenders — before the township handles it and places a lien on the property or assesses the cost, at a minimum of $500, to the owner’s annual tax bill.

Nuisance vehicle resolutions come after the zoning inspector already has issued a 20-day warning. Once the resolution is sent out, the owner has 14 days from the date they receive the letter to address the problem, or the township will remove it at the owner’s expense. Crivelli said the township only issues nuisance declarations for about 10 to 12 vehicles per year and usually has to tow one or two.

“Usually when people call, they just say do the best you can,” he said. “But some people want us to do it right now and we just can’t.”

Crivelli said if properties are regularly uncut, the township will assume the burden at the property owner’s expense after the zoning process is completed, but the township will only cut it once a month and residents will have to keep calling to make sure the property remains on the schedule.

Crivelli said the list of nuisance items also includes a house on Birchcrest Drive that will be declared a nuisance for the purpose of seeking a general demolition.

“It’s going to take a while to process that,” he said. “If we’re talking about a demo, we’re probably looking at July.”

Crivelli said the owners of the home in the neighborhood just west of Interstate 11 are recently deceased.

Trustee Robert Santos said the special meeting can only include the items listed on the meeting notice and agenda, so no other matters will be discussed or approved at the meeting.

He said he expects Crivelli will have another list, roughly as long, to submit for the May 5 meeting.

Crivelli announced his plans for retirement last fall and in December trustees hired Dominic Moltchan to replace him. Crivelli has been training Moltchan — who worked previously as the security chief for Hollywood Racino — for the job since then. Moltchan will take over when Crivelli retires at the end of June.