City Council discusses litter, animal care center, more

JACKSON, Tenn. — The agenda was full for the Jackson City Council meeting Tuesday morning.

One of the first items brought to the city council was to add a new code regarding litter.

There is currently no city code that deals with litter. The city’s Code Committee analyzed different cities that currently have an anti-litter code in order to draft one of their own.

“We’ve had things that are related to illegal dumping, but really nothing that out some teeth into actual littering. So the code committee worked on these first steps so that we can hold people accountable for littering in our city. That goes into a line with our litter officer. It just gives that next step so there can be some accountability in our environmental court and our city court system,” said Jackson Mayor Scott Conger.

This is mainly going to work off of people submitting complaints of littering with proof of who did it.

It was also said that if you are accusing someone of littering, you will be asked to appear in front of the judge to state your claims.

A contract with an architecture firm was also brought up regarding the Jackson Animal Care Facility.

Conger said the project was not originally fully funded, and when he took office he did not want to begin a project and spend money that was not planned for.

Once the funds were available, the EPA then told them to stop production so they could do some tests.

EPA has now given their clearance.

“We are looking at two or three months, I believe, on the updated A&E drawings. Then we can go to bids. I think start of the year we can have some construction contract in place. Then obviously based on weather, what they have to do outside, and we can start that up in the spring,” Conger said.

An amendment to the zoning ordinance was brought before the council.

This was focusing on houses that may have fences, walls or hedges blocking the view of a road at an intersection.

This would only ban these if they are obstructing the view of a driver.

A few new items were also on the agenda including adding shade areas to the Sportsplex as well as upgrading the outside entrances.

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