A new initiative from the City of Russellville will focus on cleaning up the city with increased enforcement of ordinances that prohibit nuisances within the city.
The “Take Pride Initiative” is a joint effort among the Russellville mayor and city council, the Russellville Fire Department and the Russellville Police Department. City officials acknowledged that enforcement of nuisance violations, from weed growth to abandoned vehicles, has not been at a sufficient level in past years.
“We're trying to clean our city up,” said Councilman Arthur Elliott, who organized the joint effort. “We're getting this task force together to look at issues from dilapidated buildings to properties needing cleaning up. I feel we've been lax for a while in this area. It's a tough fix but it can be done. We're going to accept the challenge and do it,” he added.
Elliott, along with Mayor David Grissom, Russellville Police Chief Chris Hargett, Captain Mike Prince, Russellville Fire Chief Joe Mansell and Fire Marshal Justin Green met Tuesday afternoon to announce the initiative in an effort to make the public aware of the increased efforts to clean up the city.
“We want to come up with a plan to take care of this. The mayor and council get complaints every day. People in Russellville are just tired of it,” Elliott said. “The most important part is teaching people who don't know the codes and ordinances what they contain. Then if they don't comply, we'll have no choice to but fine them.”
Mansell said he regularly receives complaints about compliance issues from residents who do their part to keep the city clean.
“People don't move into our city to lose property value. They shouldn't have to worry about what their neighbor is doing because we have people in place to handle this,” Mansell said.
Those people include Green, who enforces the fire code and life safety code sections, Bill Fuller, who handles building code violations, and RPD Officer Brian Shackelford, who enforces compliance issues for the city. In order to streamline efforts and make it easier for citizens to file complaints, all complaints may be initiated with the Russellville Police Department at 256-332-2230. The complaint will be sent to the appropriate official for investigation.
Russellville Ordinance 2001-107 defines a nuisance as: “Anything that unlawfully causes hurt, inconvenience or damage; that class of wrongs that arises from the unreasonable, unwarrantable or unlawful use by a person of his own property, either real or personal, or from his own improper, indecent, unsightly, or unlawful personal conduct, working an obstruction of or injury to the right of another or of the public, and producing material annoyance, inconvenience, discomfort or hurt to another person or to the general public; anything which is injurious to health, or is indecent or offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property of another.”
Elliott said most complaints deal with overgrown lawns and or weeds, junked or abandoned vehicles, livestock or excessive litter or debris located on property.Officials want the public to know the ordinances will be enforced as to all citizens, regardless of who owns a specific property.
"We do every district the same. We don't just pick one area. The compliance officer goes by districts,” Hargett said. “If he's in District One this week, he'll move to District Two the next week. We want to be as fair as possible. He's not told he can't do this or that.”
Penalties for violations under the city ordinance are punishable by a term in the municipal jail of up to 30 days and/or a fine not to exceed $200 for a first offense, $300 for a second offense and $500 for each offense thereafter.
Alleged violators have the right to be notified in writing of the offense and are to be given 20 working days to correct the violation. If not corrected after that time, the compliance officer will make a complaint to a magistrate for issuance of a warrant of arrest for the offender.Additional ordinances make it illegal to abandon vehicles on streets or highways within Russellville city limits or to allow such vehicles to remain on private property for more than 72 hours.As part of the new initiative, Green, Shackelford and Fuller will work together at least two days a week to resolve pending complaints.
“I think with the three of them working together twice a week, that will be an effective solution with good results,” Elliott said.
Hargett said he would consult with the city attorney and council to consider possibly strengthening penalties for repeat offenders of these ordinances.
Grissom said it's not a matter of strong arming the public. In fact, he often works to diffuse complaints even before they are officially filed.
“I had a call recently about an overgrown lot the person wanted turned over to the compliance officer. The caller told me the property owner's name and I called this gentleman and told him we'd received a call at city hall,” Grissom said. “I asked him to help solve the problem. The lot was cut that day and hasn't been a problem since. I think we can take a lot of these situations and at least one councilman will know the owner of the property and a lot of time a phone call can go a long way.”
Mansell said he's been encouraged by the mayor and council's resolve to solve what has been a long-term problem in Russellville.
“The mayor and council want things done fair right across the board. Some things may have been let go for a while, but from my standpoint as a department head as well as Chief Hargett's standpoint, we're going to clean up fair and equal. It doesn't matter if you're the richest person in town or the poorest person in town,” Mansell said.
