West Memphis battles tall grass all summer long

West Memphis battles tall grass all summer long

City continues to look for solutions to unkempt properties as owners neglect required maintenance

news@theeveningtimes.com

The city had lots and lots of tall grass and unkempt yards this year. As October traditional marks the end of the mowing season, West Memphis Code Enforcement Officer Mike Antel said a record number of yards were cited for overgrowth and mowed by the city. The Public Works committee heard the October report and tossed around ideas to make improvements for next year.

“Our last grass sweep was the largest ever,” said Antel.

City Planner Paul Luker told the city council subcommittee that the budget was exhausted and that expenses for mowing were ultimately supplemented from other parts of the Planning and Development Department budget.

“We’ve cut over 900 lots this year,” said Luker. “We issued 2,400 letters. We’ve spent all the money and then some out of the budget. I had to borrow from some other line items to finish this sweep out.”

The original budget was stretched beyond the $39,000 allotted. Most typical residential yards cost the city $50 per mowing.

Larger lots and neglected commercial properties come at a higher expense.

The street department helped minimize the cost by tackling some of the bigger jobs like the site of the razed Mayfair apartment complex. Total expenses stood at $50,000 at the end of September.

Every year there are more condemned properties and neglected lots but the mowing budget has remained level. The cutting expenses are all billed but hard to recoup. When money comes in it flows to the general fund not back into the mowing fund.

“That’s a lot of money to cut other people’s grass,” said Public Works Chairman, Councilor Ramona Taylor.

“On a good year we may get half of it back,” said Luker. “ It goes back into the general fund, not back into our budget.”

Luker said the street department contribution is immeasurable.

“The number of lots is substantially higher because of the number of lots they handle,” said Luker.

“They’ve been cutting for us all year, like the trailer park priorities and the old Mayfair. They cut some of the bigger fields. These fields the street department makes are more than the $50, they are $200-$500 lots. There contribution is huge.”

It’s a balancing act to make the budgeted money go as far as we can,“ said Luker. “If we price it below $50 we become everybody’s lawn mowing service.”

“We need to make it a little more painful for the property owner,” said Taylor.

“That’s the way it should be,” said Councilor James Pulliaum. “We are not in the cutting business. We need to make the fees a deterrent. We’ve got to have something in place.”

Luker appeared earlier in the season and presented a proposal to do more mowing in house mowing and have less of it contracted out. He had assessed the cost of purchasing a truck, utility trailer, mowers and weed eaters and staffing it with a crew. The city planner re-focused the public works committee on the plan and asked for the results of the committees consideration.

“We were asked to put together a proposal to do more of them in house,” said Luker.

“We kind of just let it die,” said Taylor. “The initial cost was higher than we thought, but after hearing all this today, I think it is worth revisiting.”

Luker pressed for any solution. He wanted to cleanup the overgrown yards and satisfy city residents.

“Even with all the hard work this year, it hasn’t stopped all the phone calls with complaints about grass – I understand that,” said Luker. “To get to where we are trying to get to we need to do something else. If we cut as often as it needs we’d be out of money early. If we had our own crews cutting all the time and charge by square foot and went by that, then we’d cut everything that needed to be cut.”

Bottom line is a clean well kept city involves more than mowing.

“We all agree we need to figure out the best way to clean-up neighborhoods,” said Taylor. “Keep West Memphis Beautiful has worked hard. The street department

chipped in, but we

don’t really seem to be making headway. It is more than grass. It’s cars that don’t run parked in front of houses. It’s tire disposal. If we are going to make West Memphis beautiful we need strategies.

Taylor felt time was of the essence to make an improved plan, but the committee took no action on wither strategy discussed.

Both Pulliaum’s idea of more heavy handed fines and Luker’s suggestion to charge by the square foot were side stepped by the entire committee.

“This is the time of year to be talking about it because we are coming into the budget process time of the year,” said Taylor.

By John Rech