THE Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has so far removed more than 100 vehicles in its campaign to rid Georgetown of derelict vehicles left on Council’s reserves.

Town Clerk Royston King made the announcement recently at a City Hall press conference where he also pointed out that the owners of such vehicles must now pay to claim those vehicles which are being stored at the municipality’s Princes Street location.  The fees, King noted, are based on the operational costs for the removal of such vehicles.

“Apart from making the city look ugly, these [vehicles] are used as seclusion zones for criminal elements, dwelling places for [junkies]; garbage-dumping and dangerous reptiles. It is quite wrong for individuals to leave their vehicles in public places and other thoroughfares,” King pointed out.  He said all such spaces are collectively owned by citizens, therefore no one has the right to appropriate them for private use and enterprise without compensating citizens who are denied their use.

“We are very firm on reclaiming the city’s parapets and reserves from individuals who were not given permission by the Council to use them,” King stressed.  On a similar note, the town clerk urged property owners to secure the integrity of their houses, buildings and yards. “We have many absentee landlords. Their buildings are in a ruinous condition posing a danger to life and limb, harbouring criminal elements and destitute individuals.

Yards are taken over with undergrowths, bushes, long grasses and again, people use these places as dumping grounds.” King observed that some of these derelict buildings are fire hazards and are completely unsightly. “It is not neighbourly for property owners to behave in this manner. We have started to clean some of these premises and attach the cost to the accounts of those owners who are demonstrating a worrying level of carelessness.”

King said he has since asked the Council’s lawyers to research an approach to allow the municipality the leverage to sell such properties to recover money used to tidy up or demolish them.

Wanton dumping on empty lots 
Meanwhile, the M&CC is cognisant of the serious consequences associated with wanton dumping of garbage on empty lots and has already initiated an audit to determine just how many empty lots are in Georgetown, so that they can work with the owners to keep them clean.

Worrying, however, is the fact that should the M&CC come across a disputed lot that happens to be in court, there is little it can do to address the problems there. “If the owners are not coming forward, we would have to take that responsibility because we want to secure the integrity of the environment and also the health of our citizens.

In some cases, the owners even ask us to help and we would. If it’s a court matter, though, where the land is in dispute, it will be difficult and take us a long time to address,” Public Relations Officer Debra Lewis had told the Chronicle recently. Acting Chief Environmental Health Officer Yonette Smith had also lamented such dumping.

Apart from the unsightliness that the practice creates, Smith spoke about leachate, which is a toxic liquid that emanates from the garbage and can consequently contaminate the groundwater supply of residents. “When the garbage trucks pick up your garbage, you would notice there’s a liquid that comes out of it that we call leachate.

It’s a toxic substance that is left in the ground when persons dump garbage and it can contaminate our water supply,” she expressed. Furthermore, the site becomes an ideal environment for insects and rodents.“We ask persons not to dump their garbage like this, because apart from polluting the groundwater, there are insects and rodents that can end up in your home and they also can get persons sick.”

On this note, Lewis offered that after a time, rodents would tend to migrate from the vacant lots and begin invading the homes of residents in search of food. “Rats spread leptospirosis and they urinate on your stuff. Although only a section of your bread may be bitten, the entire loaf could contain urine because wherever the rats eat, they urinate. “You also have reptiles living in those lots because that’s a good hideout and dwelling place for them and they crawl out at nights looking for food and can harm persons passing by,” Lewis further pointed out.