There’s a litter problem in Jackson along with the problem of illegal dumping.
Love Your Block, Keep Jackson Beautiful and the Jackson City Council are teaming up with the hopes of bringing the community together to combat the problems.
Danielle Wade, director of Keep Jackson Beautiful, and Love Your Block director Elvia Trejo, presented a plan for the coming weeks for events to combat litter in different parks of Jackson.
The plan is for personnel from both departments to meet with members of the City Council on specific Saturdays or on Tuesdays or Thursdays to be determined later to bring people together to pick up litter on streets in each council member’s respective district.
Love Your Block and Keep Jackson Beautiful will provide clean-up supplies, and the hope is the council can motivate their constituents to get out and help get their part of the city presentable for visitors.
J.P Stovall has scheduled Nov. 9 for his district. Johnny Dodd has scheduled Oct. 21, and Frank McMeen has scheduled Nov. 4.
Richard Donnell already had one in his district in May.
“It was a good day because we had a lot of people come out and help pick up litter, but there’s still a lot to be done,” Donnell said.
Donnell has been adamant in recent days about picking up litter, especially in his district.
“Some people are treating District 4 as if it’s a dumping ground, but it’s my goal to make sure people know it’s not,” Donnell said.
The City Council approved Tuesday morning to put cameras up in various places around the city that are high areas for illegal dumping.
Donnell brought a plan to agenda review asking if it was possible when bulk waste or trash is left over when someone vacates a rental home for the City to simply pick the garbage up and dispose of it.
“The way it works now is if trash like that gets reported, we send a letter, and then we send another letter and another,” Donnell said. “And then if we continue to not get anything done, then we just go pick it up anyway.
“So if we’re going to pick it up anyway, we might as well go ahead and pick it up in the beginning so the neighbors around that lot or home “
That idea was one of a few Donnell spoke about combined at agenda review and during a meeting after City Council on Tuesday.
Others included putting up permanent dumpsters similar to the occasional monitored one-day dump sites that have been placed in the past.
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news
