County Cleans 1,200 Yards

Posted on: Jun 30th, 2009 | News and Announcements

After a year of operation, Mobile County has cleaned up more than 1,200 properties under the Junk Control Ordinance. Of those people issued warnings for violations, 87 percent of them voluntarily worked with officers to bring their properties into compliance. ?We have a great team of officers who know how to work with our residents to get rid of blight,? said County Commission president Mike Dean. ?We stayed focused on our mission and got it accomplished without a heavy hand. That?s truly a win-win for all of us.? A review of the numbers from May of 2008 to the present shows that 1,211 warnings have been issued for violations, and 1,055 people have voluntarily complied by cleaning up their properties. The county intentionally designed the ordinance to encourage cooperation with the public. According to the ordinance, county environmental officers ?shall have the discretion to attempt to resolve violations through conference and advice, to issue a warning with no civil penalty?? Once an environmental officer issues a warning, the owner has 14 days to clean it up or to make a good faith effort to do so. As long as progress can be documented by the officer, no citation is issued to the property owner. Otherwise, the officer may issue a citation, with fines, every 14 days until the property is cleaned up. From the beginning, commissioners told the public that officers would use their powers of enforcement with discretion to gain compliance. Doug Hathcock, the county?s environmental specialist, explained that the ?folks in the field really try to work with people,? often for many months, as they progressively de-clutter the yards and properties that are in violation of the law. ?The big thing is to keep checking back,? he said about the process. ?The officers watch them for progress.? While a large majority complied with officers, 13 percent of violators failed to make a good faith effort at cleaning up. For them, fines accrued at a rate of $150 per citation, potentially every 15 days if they continued to be out of compliance, up to $5,000. For the 13-month period, there were 59 citations issued, some of them multiple citations to the same person. Of those 59, there were 21 citations appealed to a Board of Review. Of those, 10 violators paid fines, 37 have fines outstanding, and 12 came into compliance and their cases were dismissed. ###