Bank of Holly Springs
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Vic Stilwell, Jack Shaffer, and Boyce Delashmit tell supervisors they are fed up with trash and litter on the roads and in the ditches.

County residents angry about trash

Supervisors were raked over the coals in a recent meeting for not working aggressively enough to stop littering of the roadsides and the ditches.

“Trash. Litter. It’s gotten worse,” said Boyce Delashmit of District 5. “I want to know    what you are going to do about it. You have a lucrative job. Do something. Are you not appalled about it? Something can be done about it.”

Delashmit was accompanied by Vic Stilwell and Jack Shaffer of the Waterford area.

Supervisors Ronnie Joe Bennett and George Zinn took the worst of the heat since their districts are so large and it is easier for people to find places to dump household furniture, mattresses, even loads of used tires at illegal dumping areas.

Bennett said a dump on Adam Springs Road off Callicutt Road had been cleaned up and was filled back up with mattresses and furniture before the workers got back.

“We have got to do something about it,” he said.

He explained that people in the far corners of the southern part of the county are used to throwing their junk in the dump and won’t drive all the way to Holly Springs to use the county rubbish pit. He wants dumpsters left in far away areas year-round in District 4 and District 5.

“They got stuff on both sides of the dumpsters,” Stilwell said of the mess that residents are leaving at the dumpsters set out for spring cleanup.

“People down here (districts 4 and 5) have thrown trash forever,” Bennett said. “People in Barton, 80 percent of them, are from Memphis, Tenn., and know better.”

Stilwell said trash has to be picked up repeatedly.

“The dumpsters won’t do it,” he said.

Property values are affected and suppressed in trashy areas, he said. Even a visitor from Arkansas remarked about the level of trash in Marshall County, he said.

Bennett said there is an illegal dump on CCC Road that was cleaned up and people came back and kept dumping.

“My response is clean it up again and again,” Delashmit said. “Y’all said judges just slap the wrists. We’re (the taxpayers are) the boss. Something has got to be done. It’s a culture. There needs to be education in the schools.

“I know tomorrow they will throw it out again. Pick it up, even if you have to raise taxes.”

Stilwell said he hears people say, “Wait. The grass is growing and it’s hiding it. Then here comes the bush hog boy and it scatters it everywhere.”

Shaffer said the trash needs to be picked up routinely.

He asked Bennett if a “no dumping” sign posted did any good.

“It doesn’t do any good,” Bennett said. “They throw trash out and it hits the sign.”

Stilwell added he is sick of seeing deer carcasses thrown out on the roadsides.

Supervisor Charles Terry said citizens do not know better and there is a big litter problem in Holly Springs as well. He suggested forming a “Second Chance” program for those who have been in jail to provide jobs and pick up the trash as well.

“Picking up litter is a full-time, 24-7 project,” Terry said. “That’s on the table but to implement it, we have to have the funds. They are going to be dependent on somebody, if they don’t get a job. We don’t have the manpower. We are working on separate housing for prisoners (state inmates who can participate in the county work release program).”

Stilwell suggested people be given an opportunity to work on trash pickup before they lock them up. He recommended adding an extra dollar to the solid waste collection fee to pay salaries.

Board attorney Kent Smith clarified that the household solid waste collection program is on a separate contract and the county is not in the garbage business anymore.

He also asserted that the laws in Jackson should be more punitive for violators.

“I’ll personally write a letter to the judges and ask them to be as strict as they can,” he said. “There is going to be an election next year and judges may want to take a stand.”

Zinn said a lot of trash in his district is tires – those around houses and those apparently dumped illegally by the trailer loads from what he thinks are out-of-county businesses.

Stilwell said there were four tires, couches, boxsprings, and a chest of drawers at the dumpster in Waterford.

Bennett said a lot of time people can’t get their stuff picked up high enough to throw into dumpsters and leave it beside the dumpster for county workers to pick up.

Supervisor Keith Taylor said some districts have many more rural roads and those who litter often live on these roads.

“We are catching a lot of folks dumping, he said. “Employees are packing the dumpsters every morning to get the most out of a trip to the landfill.”

He said the board of supervisors spends about $60,000 a year for the two cleanups - spring and fall. The cost to empty a rolloff is over $300 a trip. The county bought a knuckle boom truck and has an employee picking up trash four days a week, he said.

Delashmit added that deer season is the worst time to see hunters throwing stuff from their vehicles.

Taylor said some roads are having community trash pickups and the county comes behind them to get the bags quickly. Judges are doing better at leveling fines when people are caught on camera throwing junk out at illegal dumps.

Delashmit said judges should sentence the offenders to pick up trash off roadsides for a week.

Taylor said the county’s summer youth workers often are assigned to pick up trash.

“What I am saying is it is a countywide problem,” he said.

Terry assured the guests that their complaints and suggestions were not falling on deaf ears.

Zoning director Ken Jones said he can force convenience stores to clean up trash around their businesses and on the roadsides. He suggested people snap a picture of a vehicle seen with trash flying out the window. He wants people to notify the county when they see something thrown out.

“It does not get the trash up that is on the road,” Stilwell said.

He mentioned Wilson Golden Road as a good example of litter thrown everywhere.

“What you are saying is a concern,” Terry said. “We’ve got to find a way to finance getting it picked up. We will never totally be able to eradicate litter.”

Delashmit apologized for taking up so much of the board’s time.

“But we are going to be back,” he said. “I know you have a problem with it, but work on it.”

Holly Springs South Reporter

P.O. Box 278
Holly Springs, MS 38635
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