Despite complaints, weeds and decay go wild across Augusta
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - We learned a couple of weeks ago that grass trimmings and piles of weeds are the No. 1 complaint from Augusta neighbors to the city.
It’s still a problem.
The overgrowth across the city is a sore sight for anyone who drives or walks by.
For Butch Palmer and Megan Alig, they see it daily when they go to work.
Both work in Harrisburg and have watched the grass grow, the sidewalks crack, the abandoned homes around them go dirty.
Property taxes go up, but the service satisfaction goes down each year, it seems.
“My property taxes are going up, and I’m not getting first-class service, but I’m paying first-class rates,” said Palmer.
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In return for the green leaving his wallet, he is seeing a little too much green.
“They have all these community cleanups and it’s foolish to me because people come back behind and trash it,” said Palmer. “They need to be fined.”
There is a $1,000 fine for littering and dumping, but from the looks it doesn’t seem to deter the people causing the problems.
“I maintain my lots. If we don’t, we’ll get a letter from Richmond County,” said Palmer. “But when the shoe goes on the other foot its just not fair play.”
Alig said: “I’ve been calling 311 to come back here and clean this up about once every couple of months.”
She is not the only one. We requested 311 complaints for Battle Row, Eve Street, Barnes Lane and Crawford Avenue – three random streets in Harrisburg – and more than 300 documents came back.
“On top of COVID and being a chef and dealing with all of that and then you have to come down and deal with this, I don’t even want to come to work anymore,” Alig said.
Now she is working to find a solution for her and her neighbors.
“I don’t even live here so I can imagine what it smells like for neighbors,” said Alig. “I wouldn’t let my dog live here.”
They said they’d made “countless” calls to Augusta 311 to have someone come down and clean up the area.
They said no one comes down or they do come down and nothing gets cleaned.
The common theme of them all is “lack of maintenance, overgrown grass.”
We’ve reported the city is looking at solutions to the overgrowth and ways to maintain it, but Palmer and Alig aren’t holding their breaths.
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