• By GREG GARLAND
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jul 17, 2009 - Page: 4B

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The city-parish has begun training workers in procedures for a new “litter court” program that is designed to crack down on problems of litter and blight.

Irma Plummer, assistant chief administrative officer to Mayor-President Kip Holden, said 15 workers are getting training on documenting blight with photographs and in generating warning letters and hearing notices to send to property owners .

The Metro Council voted in June to create a litter court program to hear cases of city and parish residents whose yards are overgrown with weeds or are cluttered with trash.

The litter court will operate one morning each week in the Metro Council chambers, with an administrative hearing officer deciding cases. It was designed to be similar to the city-parish’s red light camera enforcement program.

Plummer said in a news release that a mock litter court session will be held on Tuesday in the Metro Council chambers as a dry run to test out the system.

She said the new enforcement program officially kicks off on Aug. 1, and the first actual cases are expected to be heard on Sept. 17.

The cases to be heard include those involving junk, trash and debris; yards overgrown with weeds; illegal signs; garbage cans left on the side of the road for extended periods; and swimming pools that aren’t secured behind fences or are in disrepair and filled with stagnant, untreated water, Plummer said.

Violators face possible fines of $117, plus $50 in court costs if they fail to correct the violation within 15 days of receiving a warning letter.

The new system also gives city-parish workers the right to clean up an uncooperative property owner’s parcel and add the costs to the owner’s annual tax bill.

Plummer has said she expects nearly half the people who get warning letters would  take care of the problem within 15 days.

The enforcement program is being managed by American Traffic Solutions, the company that has the contract to operate the city-parish’s red-light monitoring system.