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Thursday, September 2, 2010
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Sanitation director asks for new authority
Published January 31, 2009
Albertville’s sanitation department director is asking for more authority to determine whether or not to service businesses and apartment complexes that abuse the collection system.
He also wants to tighten restrictions on the collection of landscaping and construction debris by holding contractors accountable for the messes they leave behind.
Kevin Derrick addressed the two issues during an Albertville City Council work session Monday night.
Derrick presented his recommendations on how he thinks the ordinances should read. The council agreed to follow up by passing along Derrick’s suggestions to city attorney Jimmy Carnes.
Derrick noted a number of complaints, chiefly on Dixie Street, about apartment complexes “that create nothing but a mess” by generating too much garbage, which causes overflow trash cans and litters the area.
“I want the option to say I can’t handle your service ... and allow me to go to the landlord and say I’ve exhausted all my options,” he said.
Derrick mentioned an apartment complex on George Wallace Drive where he asked the property owner to contact a competitor for Dumpster service instead of burdening the sanitation department.
The owner was cooperative, Derrick said, but he wants the authority to force the issue in cases when property owners are not so willing.
As for the contractors, Derrick said he needs an ordinance allowing him to go after contractors to recoup the costs of removing landscaping and construction debris.
He said Monday his department spent six hours at one house removing debris that the contractor should have picked up.
Derrick said the chief culprits are tree services who leave their debris behind.
The ordinance in effect now clearly states fence companies, roofers, nurseries and landscape contractors or anybody doing work on private property must remove all debris resulting from their work.
The ordinance further reads: “The city shall not be responsible for the collecting and hauling of rubbish, trash, limbs, brush or other debris from private property” related to construction. “These materials shall be removed by the owner of the property or the contractor responsible for its accumulation.”
The city, though, cannot effectively enforce the ordinance. The result: The sanitation department eventually removes the debris because it’s such an eyesore, and the city has to charge the property owner $125 for the pickup.
“We generally get the money from the homeowner, but the homeowner is agitated because they didn’t understand it when the contractor did,” Derrick said. “Basically, what the contractor can do is take advantage of homeowners by telling them he’ll put it on the side of the road and the city will pick it up. Once they get their money from the homeowner, they don’t care.
“Right now, I can’t go after the contractor. My only recourse is to pick it up. And if I pick it up for one, I have to pick it up for everybody. I just want a loophole closed.”
Derrick is particularly sympathetic to elderly residents who are exploited.
“The way it’s written now I have to go after the homeowner, and the homeowner should not be always be responsible,” he said.
Derrick’s proposal is to charge guilty contractors with criminal littering, subjecting them to a fine of $500 plus $203 in court costs, and possibly six months in jail. The city also would charge contractors at least $250 for removal of debris under Derrick’s proposal.
Derrick said the extra effort to clean up construction and landscaping debris “is dipping in to my budget and dragging down the system.”
“It’s wasting taxpayers’ money,” he said.
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