Harvard Yard buried in blight

Harvard Yard buried in blight

County officials seeking solution to trash, derelict property owners

news@theeveningtimes.com

Crittenden County may push Sunset to require trash pickup in Harvard Yard.

County Judge Woody Wheeless said the county has already hauled off 14 Dumpsters full of trash in Harvard Yard so far this year, but trash is still out of control.

“We’ve spent our whole budget on Harvard Yard,” Wheeless told the Quorum Court. “And it looks like we are not even making a dent.”

Justice Stacy Allen, who brought the issue up at this month’s Quorum Court meeting, said the county needs to take legal action against those homeowners whose property is full of garbage.

“It’s ridiculous out there,” Allen said. “It looks like a landfill. We need to start holding the landowners responsible.”

Wheeless said aside from making the Dumpsters available, the county has also torn down houses in that subdivision and has sent letters to property owners.

“We are tearing down houses and putting liens on property,” Wheeless said.

“But there is still nobody responsible for mowing it.” Justice Lisa O’Neal, who chairs the clean-up committee, said a lot of the property owners are from out-of-state and don’t care about the property.

“A lot of them belong to people in places like Pennsylvania where a family member might have left it to them,” O’Neal said.

“They don’t care that there are liens on them.”

“We’ve sent certified letters and they just come back to us,” Wheeless added.

Wheeless said several private companies have picked up trash at Harvard Yard in the past, but have stopped because of nonpayment for the service.

“There is a company — Dedman’s —that was doing it,” Wheeless said. “But they just about abandoned the whole subdivision because nobody was paying their bill. And I can’t tell you how many times I have sent the claw truck down there to pickup truckloads of trash.”

O’Neal and Wheeless said they would like to see trash pick up added to resident’s water bills.

Harvard Yard gets its water from Sunset, but Marion does the billing for Sunset and would have to add it as a separate line item on customer’s bills.

“It’s a more complicated process than it sounds,” O’Neal said. “But we are headed in that direction.”

Justice Vickie Robertson said she likes the idea of

making it a part of the water bill because that would give the city a mechanism for cutting off service

for non-payment.

“If regular pick up is part of your water bill, most people have to maintain water service,” Robertson said.

In the meantime, Wheeless said code enforcement is making a new list of the worst properties and the county will be sending out more letters and putting more liens on property.

“It’s all rental property,” Wheeless said. “The Dumpsters we put there are getting full. But you can’t even tell it has made a dent.”

By Mark Randall