Warm temperatures and excessive rainfall came earlier this year, which had the Russellville City Council discussing the growing problem of unkempt yards at Monday night’s meeting.

Councilman William Nale brought up the issue during the work session and said the council needed to make sure someone was spending a dedicated amount of time keeping an eye on the grass levels, the junk in residents’ yards and the litter problem.

“We have got to have somebody working compliance,” Nale said. “All of us ran on wanting to get everything cleaned up, but we’re losing a battle. When I drive through District 2 I just see a problem that is getting out of hand and something has to be done because it’s like this everywhere.”

Nale said the problem isn’t only grass that has grown too high.

“It’s everything – grass, old cars, junk, litter. It’s all a problem,” he said.

Russellville Police Chief Chris Hargett said patrol officers are working on compliance issues as best they can between regular calls.

The RPD hasn’t been able to have a full-time compliance or litter officer since those positions had to be cut three years ago.

“There are some days when we have more time to work on compliance, and then there are days like today where we had so many regular calls coming in that people were having to wait,” Hargett said. “It’s just not something we can work on full time right now.”

Nale said he agreed the police department’s priority should be to keep up with their regular calls, but the issue of compliance remained.

“We just need somebody who can go out and write the citations,” he said.

Councilmen Jeff Masterson and David Grissom both said compliance issues should definitely be addressed, but they were concerned about city property that would be in violation.

“I haven’t seen as many issues in my district, but there is some city-owned property that is grown up that I’ve gotten complaints about,” Grissom said. “I think we need to clean our own house first before we start trying to make everyone else clean theirs.”

“Everybody needs to have to go by the same rules,” Masterson added. “When you try to get one person to clean up their yard, they always come back and say ‘so-and-so doesn’t have to clean up theirs, so why should I clean up mine.’ If one person has to clean up, they should all have to clean up.”

Mayor Troy Oliver and the council members decided to hire Charles Dale on a part-time basis starting Tuesday to identify properties that aren’t in compliance. Dale previously served as the compliance officer last year.

In other business, the council:

• Approved a $315 appropriation to the Russellville City Schools

• Renewed the computer firewall with In-Line Solutions

• Approved the contract with Mid-America Roofing to repair the roof on the police department and municipal court

• Approved changer order #1 on the Airport Grant project increasing the contract with Columbus Fence by $1,085.50

• Approved a five percent pay raise for Capt. Mike Prince for obtaining a Public Safety Leadership and Management certificate

• Approved the purchase of additional software for the electronic fingerprinting system for the police department with the $8,950 to come from the driving school fund

• Approved the resolution authorizing the purchase of weather radios

• Elected Councilman Lanny Hubbard and Mayor Troy Oliver to attend the Alabama League of Municipalities convention