Commission passes updated litter resolution to tackle problem properties
Published 5:37 pm Tuesday, October 17, 2017
- Star Photo/Abby Morris-Frye County Attorney Josh Hardin explains some changes to the county's litter resolution during Monday evening's meeting of the Carter County Commission.
Following the adoption of an updated litter resolution on Monday evening by the County Commission, Carter County now has some additional tools to help combat problem properties.
The resolution required a two-thirds majority vote by the commission — which is 16 yes votes — to pass and when the votes had been tallied 20 commissioners voted in favor of adopting the new resolution.
“This is the resolution that allows the county, through the Planning Department, to enforce our litter regulations,” Carter County Attorney Josh Hardin told the Commission during Monday’s meeting.
According to Hardin, the resolution allows the county to define what it feels to be violations of the regulations due to the conditions of someone’s property whether it is garbage, litter, overgrowth or other things deemed to be a nuisance or to affect the public health and welfare of a community.
The new resolution also includes some updates from the previous one by providing the county with additional avenues they can pursue to gain compliance and abate the problem with the property. The old resolution limited the county’s course of action to a lawsuit in the General Sessions Court. The updated resolution includes not only that option but the choice to have a hearing before the Planning Commission or to pursue the matter in Chancery Court where Chancellor John C. Rambo has agreed to hear these cases in an environmental court type setup. The new resolution also opens the door for the county to form an environmental court under the General Sessions jurisdiction in the future.
“It basically expands, streamlines, and modernizes what we have now,” Hardin said.
Carter County Planning Director Chris Schuettler spoke to the Commission and expressed his support for the resolution, which he informed them had been passed unanimously by the Carter County Planning Commission.
“This isn’t something we haphazardly did,” Schuettler said. “We’ve been working on this for about three years.”
One of the major changes, Schuettler said, is to the time frame which county employees follow when working with a property owner to get a problem corrected. Under the current resolution, the process length from contacting the property owner to having a case completed in court can take anywhere from 180 to 400 days, Schuettler said. The new resolution cuts that time down to around 90 days, Schuettler said.
The new resolution also gives Schuettler and his staff more options to enforce the litter regulations.
“This puts a little more teeth into the bite,” Schuettler said.
Commissioner Mike Hill made the motion to approve the resolution, which was seconded by Commissioner Randall Jenkins.
The resolution passed by a vote of 20-1. Commissioner Larry “Doc” Miller cast the sole dissenting vote. Commissioner Cody McQueen was absent from the meeting. Commissioners L.C. Tester and John Lewis had been in attendance at the meeting but left prior to the resolution being brought up.