After more than a month of dispute among city officials, Athens residents got in on some of the trash talk Monday night at Athens City Council.
After more than a month of dispute among city officials, Athens residents got in on some of the trash talk Monday night at Athens City Council.
About a half-dozen residents voiced concerns over the hundreds of warnings city code enforcers issued during the last two weeks in an attempt to evaluate the state of trash storage in the city.
The warnings were Mayor Paul Wiehl’s response to a proposed amendment by Councilwoman Chris Fahl, D-Fourth Ward, which would allow law enforcement officers to cite residents with visible trash cans with fines hiked from $20 to $50.
“It sounds like a lot of folks were certainly shocked and surprised to find what seemed to be a citation,” said Athens Law Director Pat Lang. “ ... I just want to assure to those folks that that’s not the case.”
The warnings, Wiehl said, were intended to educate residents and to provide council with data as to how many people aren’t complying with current trash laws.
Fahl said she thinks city code officers were too strict with the warnings.
“The warnings didn’t necessarily need to go out, they could have just gone out and collected data,” she said.
Bernhard Debatin, a journalism professor at Ohio University was concerned by how strictly the code enforcement office has enforced the trash law.
Councilwoman Michele Papai, D-3rd Ward, who is the mother of Will Drabold, The Post’s campus editor, showed a slideshow of about 20 photos showing households the city had warned, including Debatin’s home. Papai criticized the code enforcement, calling it a game of “Where’s Waldo?”
“What I am concerned about is how the code seems to be interpreted is so broadly that it includes people who really don’t care … but on the other hand we have people who just happen to have their trash cans in their backyard somewhere,” Debatin said.
Kathleen Sullivan, an associate political science professor at OU who studies garbage collection in the Progressive Era, called the enforcement a “spectacle of power” on Wiehl’s part.
But Wiehl defended his position to councilmembers before Sullivan spoke.
“We could put a banner on a Goodyear blimp saying watch your garbage, but a warning’s just as good,” he said.
Councilmembers also passed an amendment to the city’s nuisance party ordinance into law. The change, which will take effect Jan. 1, lowers the violation for an excessively rowdy party from a criminal offense to a civil offense.
Though councilmembers initially hoped to simultaneously hike up the offense’s corresponding fine from $150 to $250, the final version of the ordinance kept the fine at its original amount.
President Pro-tempore Kent Butler, D-1st Ward, also told council that Chipotle sent the city an application for a liquor license, which would allow them to sell liquor until 2:30 a.m. The application is still pending city approval.
Councilmembers ended the meeting with an executive session on pending litigation. Butler declined to comment on the session.
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