Ward 2 Councilwoman Deborah Delgado is bringing to the city’s attention issues with what she says is a lack of code enforcement, especially when it comes to blight and other infractions not being addressed throughout the city’s wards.
At a recent work session of Hattiesburg City Council, Delgado said the city needs to shore up its ability to go out and clean up properties that are in violation of the city’s code, in particular the inability of the city to enforce removing garbage cans from the curb after trash runs.
“I’m going to say that these garbage cans, on greater than 70 percent of the streets in some parts of my ward, stay out all the time,” she said. “We have had an ordinance forever saying that you’re supposed to bring your garbage can in, and if you don’t there’s a fine, and there’s nobody enforcing that.
“I’ve had that conversation with my code enforcement officer, I’ve had it with Public Works, I’ve had it down the line. When I’m going down the street, and almost every home on that street has that garbage can out, that takes away from the appearance of the neighborhood, the quality of life for the people who live in that neighborhood.”
Delgado said there are certain individuals that do take the responsibility to remove the cans, but the city has not taken the initiative to improve the landscape of the city. As an example, when the city was putting in its Safe Routes to School, workers would build sidewalks that kept children from walking in the street on their way to school.
However, the children still had to step out into the street to avoid garbage cans that were straddling the sidewalk.
“We’re still not enforcing it,” Delgado said. “There is a great need for code enforcement when it comes to the need for removal of garbage cans, and I think that the Public Works Department should have a code enforcement officer or two.
“We’ve got so many other things that our code enforcement officers are having to deal with, and it is taking quite a bit of my time as a councilperson dealing with these things. I have to schedule time to deal with matters of code enforcement, and when I do, I take pictures and send them in to Public Works as well.”
Some time ago, the city pursued the idea of having an environmental court for the purpose of trying to better police code enforcement. However, Delgado said she has not found the idea as effective as she thought it would be.
“I was always concerned about choosing to give a landowner a ticket, and then bringing another owner before the city council for something that could be fixable, especially when it came to cars and lot cleanup, and even demolitions,” she said. “But this idea of taking it before the environmental court – and every time I’ve called on particular properties, there has been a continuation that has been a grant of an additional amount of time (to address the issue).”
“In some cases, it’s just way too many, and I mean as many as seven or eight different court appearances to get something done. And then, for the most part, you don’t really get it done; the person is assessed a fine.”
However, many people are not able to pay those fines – or simply neglect to pay them – and when they do pay them, they’re paying them to what Delgado called “the detriment of their family.”
“It seems to me that when we had cases brought before the council and a determination was made that there would be a resolution, then we had a process by which that resolution was turned over to our Code Enforcement Department that had a cleanup operation going on,” Delgado said. “At that time, they would go out and take care of what the situation was and assess it to the person’s property taxes, according to the statute.
“And we aren’t doing that. I heard (a department head) say that they had presented 103 cases over the past year before the council for resolution – we used to present 100 cases in one setting, depending on what the need was.”
Delgado said while the Public Works Department will generally address certain issues, code enforcement is lacking in that aspect because many of the properties in her ward stay in dilapidated shape.
“If we’re not enforcing our own rules about making our communities clean and safe – because a clean community is a safe community – then we’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing as a city,” she said. “I think that this matter of the environmental court sounds good, and some communities may have better outcomes than we do.
“But the outcomes that I’m experiencing in Ward 2 are not worth the investment that we have made in this matter. I just think that we need to choose one remedy.
“(That may be) bringing them before the council and coming up with funding or methods by which we can go out and encourage the owners to clean them up. Or we clean them up and we put that bill on their taxes if they don’t take care of it. I’m fed up with it, seriously.”
