College Station trash can violators to get fee on utility bill

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Joe Southern

College Station will no longer issue tickets to people who leave their garbage cans out on the curb longer than the allotted time.

Instead, they will attach a $25.50 fee to utility bills. What was supposed to be a simple procedural change turned into a lengthy debate at Thursday night's city council meeting. The item was on the council's consent agenda for quick passage, but Mayor John Nichols wanted to get clarification on it. After some discussion, it was pulled for a separate vote.

"It's just an added tool in the code enforcement toolbox," said Tommy Shilling, code enforcement supervisor. "As of right now, our operating procedure is to make contact with each of these customer-owners and management companies to remove the cans 12 hours after collection. Right now, we're doing a summons request because it's a criminal violation. It's starting to bog down the court system, the legal system and code enforcement. We would still make contact, still educate, and we would just assess a $25.50 fee instead of bogging down those systems."

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"So code enforcement will handle this with the warnings and then use this as kind of the final option?" Nichols asked.

Shilling confirmed that assessing the fee to the bill is a last resort if the responsible person refuses to comply.

"We'll also work with sanitation, just to make sure the education is out," Shilling said. "We're going to work with utilities. They'll put an insert in the bill, letting them know if this is approved, we're going to start the process."

Nichols asked how they came up with the fee amount. Shilling said that is what is used in the Northgate District and he wanted it to be citywide to be fair and simple.

Councilmember Bob Yancy said he was concerned about residents who can't retrieve their trash cans within the 12-hour time.

"What I'm concerned about is the single mom, or the recently graduated student that works a night schedule or whatever, and they can't necessarily get it moved in until they get off from work," he said.

"No, no, that's a great point. So that's why it's going to be last resort," Shilling said. "We're still going to educate; we're still going to contact the tenants, find out what's going on. So if you're night nurse and you can't move it, we're not going to go out there and just automatically issue a fee. We'll give them a little bit of time to come into compliance."

After an extended debate, the council started to bog down in procedure. The motion to approve the change to the ordinance was amended to change 12 hours to 24 hours at Yancy's request. The council voted to approve the amendment to the motion and then voted 5-1 in favor of the motion.

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