Benton City Police officers are jumping into one of their busiest times of the year: mowing season.
The department was tasked about five years ago with carrying out the citation process for the city’s property maintenance code. The ordinance calls for properties in city limits to keep safe, sanitary conditions, which includes proper lawn care. BPD Chief Tracy Watwood said it’s a necessary standard, but also keeps his officers on the go.
“This time of year we’re very busy,” Watwood said. “It seems like grass takes most of our time right now. … We look for tall grass, but there’s a combination of things. Old swimming pools that haven’t been used in three or four or five years and you know, mosquitoes are bad, we will address that with our city ordinance. Anything that we can do to try to make the neighborhood look better, that’s our goal.”
BPD approaches it like a science. Sgt. Stephen Sanderson, who coordinates property maintenance efforts in the department, said the city is essentially divided into seven zones, one for each of the seven officers on staff. Officers patrol their designated zone, and in addition keep watch on properties in that area for violations of the ordinance. Officers also respond to citizen concerns. The most common citation stemming from both officer observation and resident calls, he said, is lawn overgrowth.
“Our biggest concern of course is grass,” Sanderson said. “Every now and then we’ll get abandoned vehicle complaints … so we cite for those a lot. Those are probably our biggest two.”
It could end up a costly affair should a property owner choose not to comply with the ordinance, too. Sanderson said once an officer deems a property in violation of the code, he or she will place a large orange tag on a stake driven into the yard with the exact date, type and location of the violation on the premises. For lawn overgrowth, anything more than 10 inches tall is deemed a violation, according to the ordinance. The property owner then has seven days to correct the situation before incurring a citation and $50 fine. After a time, Sanderson said, the city can elect to go in and mow the property, for an additional fee.
“It puts us in a tough spot, because that is your property,” he said. “That’s your house, your property. You somewhat should have say over it. But still you’re living in a city with restrictions and ordinances, and you’ve got to abide by those.”
Still, he said officers were well aware that situations could occur that would hamper a homeowner’s ability to keep their property manicured for a time. The city, he said, was accommodating to those circumstances. However, residents facing unexpected issues that would prevent them from being able to get to their lawn quickly should take steps to contact the department first.
“If they contact us and say, you know, ‘hey, I just had surgery,’ or ‘hey, I’ve got a broken leg right now,’ or whatever, you know we’ll work with them on getting it mowed,” Sanderson said. “Try to give them extra time. If they need to hire it out, then they have to hire it out. But hiring it out is usually cheaper than going our route with fines and having it mowed through the city. … We try to work with anybody that will work with us, but there’s a certain few that we cite every year. We cite them all year, every year. … The bad part is, a lien gets filed on that property if they don’t pay the fines and stuff. They might not be out of pocket any money right now, but when they go to sell later there’s going to be liens on their property.”
The effort serves to keep hazards, such as vermin or snakes from becoming an issue for nearby neighbors, he said. Maintaining property values for those neighbors – as well as the homeowner – was also at heart.
“If you make your neighbor’s property value go down, you know there’s a violation there, and you probably need to address it,” Sanderson said. “You know that’s the main thing is we want the city to look good. The city’s come a long way in the last couple years, we’ve got all these new businesses coming in, and a lot of that’s to do with ordinance violations (reigned in). … So, you know it does help.”
Ultimately, Watwood said the goal was not to draw revenues from fines but to keep the city clean and looking nice.
“When a neighborhood starts getting cluttered up, you know, and there’s a lot of stuff in the driveway or in the yards, that makes everybody’s property just look bad in the neighborhood,” Watwood said. “So we try to civilly help neighbors get along by encouraging everyone to clean up their property.”
Residents may obtain a copy of the property maintenance ordinance in full at Benton Police Department in City Hall. Those with concerns about a neighboring property or the ordinance should contact BPD at 270-527-3126.