Proposed changes to the Garbage and Rubbish Ordinance have cleared all the procedural hurdles it needs to be adopted this week, but the councilwoman who introduced and authored the legislation has said that might not happen.
Athens City Councilwoman Chris Fahl said her ordinance to curb “unsightly” trash visible from Athens streets isn’t written as clear as it could be — leaving too much up to code enforcement to interpret. Therefore she will likely ask for further amendments during council’s Monday evening meeting.
That might lead to it being adopted at a later date.
The move will come “after discussions with the city administration and the baseline data collected (from the code office after issuing warnings),” according to an email Fahl wrote to The Post last week.
Code enforcement last month issued an average of 100 warnings a day, vowing to do sweep of the entire city.
Fahl has on multiple occasions openly expressed her disapproval for the code office’s conduct, and questions how the office will enforce her hand-crafted law.
“Code office went from not enforcing the law to uber enforcement,” she said. “Enforcement of laws takes a rational approach guided by the law and the spirit of the law.”
Facing backlash from citizens, Fahl said she sees “concerns from citizens as more a critique on the spat of warnings the code office gave out,” but not on the law itself.
Fahl, D-4th Ward, has worked on her proposed changes to the city’s Garbage and Rubbish Ordinance throughout Ohio University’s fall semester, Council
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despite criticism from constituents and other city officials — including Mayor Paul Wiehl.
At the Monday meeting at the City Building, 8 E. Washington St., changes to the Garbage and Rubbish Ordinance are set to see a third, and possibly final reading. Fahl’s ordinance says that in the case of corner lots and through lots, trash can’t be seen from the street on which the house is addressed.
If passed, the new legislation could be enforced starting Jan. 1.
The proposed changes have sparked a lively conversation at almost every Monday night meeting since the beginning of September.
Wiehl said in September he’d veto the ordinance should council pass it.
For him, though, it wasn’t a question of whether or not the law was good or necessary, but how to go about enforcing it.
The law is an issue of “out-of-sight versus unsightly,” he said, adding that “out-of-sight” was easy to enforce, but “unsightly” was a whole other matter.
“It’s like ‘That’s nice, but how do we enforce that?’” Wiehl said at his press conference last week.
On the subject of the code offices rash of warnings, Wiehl said “hopefully council took some note of it.”
An ordinance passed at council’s Oct. 20 meeting has already raised the fine from $20 to $50 for the first offense.
Aside from the trash law, council members will be have a first reading Monday of a new ordinance that would prohibit the use of tobacco products — from cigarettes to e-cigs to chewing tobacco — in public recreational areas. This would include parks, the civic center and other sporting arenas, as well as their parking lots.
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