Enough with the Trash Talk | Eastern North Carolina Now

    For the past two months, I have organized some major trash clean-ups of particularly trash-strewn areas of the City of Washington in an effort to clean up our city to attract new businesses, improve the quality of life of residents and to set an example for others of civic responsibility. To the credit of Washington Mayor Donald Sadler and several council members, they have lent a helping hand by providing trash bags and manpower from the Public Works department. For this assistance I am certainly grateful.

    But, temporary trash cleanups are not enough to solve the ongoing trash problem many sectors of the city experience. I took it upon myself to write an ordinance to address the issue which if adopted by the City Council would present owners of properties littered with debris on the front and sides of their properties visible from the street 10 days to clean the debris or face penalties of $100 a day. Provision was made for a waiver of this penalty by the mayor if it was determined a good faith effort by the landowners had taken place, and just as importantly the City Council would be empowered to delegate the ability to issue the letters to any city employee it designated. It Seemed and still seems like a logical and feasible means to ensure that the city is cleaned up quickly and remains clean.

    However, after initial support, I was informed that we already have a nuisance ordinance in place to address this issue. This would naturally beg the question, as it did for me, why then is it not being enforced. The answer I have been given is that we have only one code enforcement agent for the entire city and therefore we don't have the manpower to address the situation adequately. I was further informed that the city was in the process of hiring two more code enforcement agents.

    There are three major problems with this. Firstly, as my ordinance would have allowed if adopted, the City Council would have been empowered to designate any city employee it chose (for example any Public Works employee) to draft a letter which could then simply be signed off on by the code enforcement agent. This renders the idea of the lack of manpower as moot. Secondly, the city is notorious slow in its recruitment of new employees and is already operating in a deficit that is forcing it to raid the Utility Budget, so hiring new code enforcement agents will not occur for quite some time. And thirdly, many of the trashed properties are owned by city employees which creates a massive conflict of interest.

    We should expect better of our city if we want to clean it up to attract new high-tech and high-paying jobs to the area. No business wants to locate in filth. I urge citizens to let the city know they are upset with the state of trash in our city and demand enforcement of our laws and barring that adopt an ordinance along the lines of which I suggested.

     Ceres for Washington NC City Council | Putting Taxpayers FIRST!