Illegal dumping is a problem affecting the Macon-Bibb Community and residents want to know what is being done to stop this issue.
Code Enforcement Sworn Specialist Officer Melvin Turner talks about different punishments for people who get caught illegally dumping.
“We can cite them if an egregious dump, we can cite them for it we can charge them for it if it is bad enough we can take them to jail for it,” Turner said.
Officer Turner says that illegal dumping is hard to track down but there are ways the public can help the code enforcement officers.
“If the public says hey I saw a red truck with this tag on it driven by an older white male, we can kinda work with that a little bit but if we just drive by there and see a bunch of trash out there, it’s really hard to find who dumped it. If someone in the public happens to take a snapshot of it or happens to remember a tag number or something like that, that can help us during our investigation,” Turner said.
Macon resident Teressa Walter often calls Code Enforcement about the illegal dumping happening in her neighborhood and she says that they are not keeping up with the calls made by people in the community.
“I called code enforcement plenty of times at the end of the day we need help over there. They might come over there and look and whatever but nobody ever do what they said they supposed to do. Like the house next door to me they said they was gonna tear it down and they haven’t torn it down yet,” Walter said.
Walter also says that officers need to come out more often to catch the perpetrators.
“If they get them out there to do their job and it will be a big help and Sometime they might catch them dumping………..We need someone to patrol day and night because that’s what they do they sneak through the night and dump,” Walter said.
