Commissioner Nicole Mobley looks through the agenda after talking about the problem the town has had with companies failing to cleaning up their mess, and keeping the town clean in general.
Alyssa Bergey | Sampson Independent
TURKEY — An on-going problem with trash being left around the town was discussed during the Turkey Board of Commissioners meeting last week.
And it was all brought up after the code enforcement officer, Tony Porter, talked about the code violations he had seen around town, one being limbs and debris left in people’s yards. Discussion about the violation made Travis Anders, the water production supervisor, recall limbs left behind when Duke Energy was trimming tree limbs.
“Duke had some of their contractors come out and clean vegetation, tree limbs and stuff off of the power lines,” Anderson explained. “I know that me and Ms. Teresa (the town clerk) talked about asking when they were going to come back and clean up their debris. And they still haven’t cleaned it up. There are several spots like that.”
He mentioned one of the main spots was near the end of Carroll Street, and another spot was by the town center when heading toward Warsaw.
“(The contractors) cut them up nice and small where they lay down, but they haven’t come back and picked them up, and they didn’t mulch them up,” Anderson said.
Town Clerk Teresa Frack told the board members that she would reach out to the company to see about clean up.
Later in the meeting, it was brought up again that Duke Energy was not the only company to leave behind their trash when working in Turkey.
Commissioner Nicole Mobley talked about people in the town cleaning up the trash left in the town.
“There were a couple of young men that went all the way from Hudson Street down to Clifton Street. And we cleaned up. We had a clean sweep. We tried to pick up trash and debris and anything we could to make our town look a little better,” she said. “I think we need to try, as a community, to keep our streets a little cleaner. They picked up 15 trash bags.”
She emphasized that the 15 bags of trash were only picked up on Highway 24 from Hudson Street down to Clifton Street.
But then, after saying the people in the town needed to make sure trash was being picked up, she talked about the railroad.
“The railroad has not come through and picked up their debris from when they put these pilings down. There’s little wood pieces, there’s metal pieces, there’s signs down. All this needs to be cleaned up by the railroad,” Mobley asserted.
She said they were not able to be cleaned up by the two men because the pieces were too heavy.
“And just like these people did not come back to pick up their trees and debris, the railroad didn’t come back to pick up theirs either. And we’ve got to put our foot down and tell them it’s their mess and they need to come back and clean it up,” she said.
The board agreed to try to reach out to the contractors who came in for the railroad project to get the pieces left behind cleaned up.
You can reach Alyssa Bergey at 910-249-4617. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.