Commissioners discuss illegal dumping

Milam County Commissioners took up the topic of illegal dumping in the county during a meeting May 10.

Commissioners approved a proposed contract with McCreary, Veselka, Bragg, and Allen to take over the legal legwork for cleaning up trashed properties around the county.

The law firm currently works on delinquent tax collections for the county. The approved contract proposal pays the firm 20 percent of collected taxes instead of the usual 15 percent. The contract will not cost the county any additional funds and will free up the county attorney from dealing with the legal work.

County Judge Steve Young updated commissioners on the illegal dumping problem in the county saying that there are currently two properties the county is proceedings with to get cleaned up on FM 487 and CR 145.

“We have a lot of these properties throughout the county,” Young said. “We are required to give the landowner 30 days notice to clean it up. If we don’t hear from them then we can take necessary action to clean it up.”

He said that typically these situations involve someone who is really doing wrong.

“We can then clean it up and assess a lean on the property and assess the cost of clean up against the person,” he said. “That is exactly what we did with Thrasher.”

Young said the county has a big problem with people illegally dumping tires and this will give them a way to get all this cleaned up.

Young also updated the commissioners on the Milam County Annex renovations saying the county is waiting on approval from the EDA of the hiring of Ebco to do the work. 

In other business commissioners also: approved an interlocal agreement between Milam County Precincts 3 and 4 and the City of Rockdale regarding road maintenance; approved an application for grant funding for the Milam County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Interdiction Unit for the purchase of interdiction vehicles; heard that the Medical Task Force met last week and chose Collier Perry as their chairman; approved utility installations and a five-year contract for postage machines in the county clerk’s office.