Jacinto City Council hears Jamail of Keep City Clean committee

Front right: Mayor Ana Diaz / Back left to right: City Manager Lon Squyres, Councilwoman Carmela Garcia, Councilmen Greg Robinson & Allen Lee. The wording on the signs; English: We Pick Up Trash, Junk, Limbs and Other Items on Saturdays. Spanish: Recogemos basura, chatarra, ramas de arboles y otros artículos los sábados. (Photo by Allan Jamail)
Front right: Mayor Ana Diaz / Back left to right: City Manager Lon Squyres, Councilwoman Carmela Garcia, Councilmen Greg Robinson & Allen Lee. The wording on the signs; English: We Pick Up Trash, Junk, Limbs and Other Items on Saturdays. Spanish: Recogemos basura, chatarra, ramas de arboles y otros artículos los sábados. (Photo by Allan Jamail)
Front right: Mayor Ana Diaz / Back left to right: City Manager Lon Squyres, Councilwoman Carmela Garcia, Councilmen Greg Robinson & Allen Lee. The wording on the signs; English: We Pick Up Trash, Junk, Limbs and Other Items on Saturdays. Spanish: Recogemos basura, chatarra, ramas de arboles y otros artículos los sábados. (Photo by Allan Jamail)

Jacinto City, TX — The Mayor and Council at the regular Council Meeting on June
11, 2015, displayed new signs for heavy trash pickup with the hope it will encourage citizens to clean up their property.

Mayor Ana Diaz only eight months into her first term as Mayor in May of 2013 made it her goal to return the city’s health conditions back to the former days of better kept homes and yards. She said she was concerned with the unusual large amount of public nuisances throughout the city.

Since then Mayor Diaz recently asked for the city to have signs made to display throughout the city informing the citizens that each Saturday they could put on the curbside large items like furniture, building materials, building rubbish, old vessels capable of holding water, refrigerators, ovens and most anything else except tires. Tires will only be picked up twice each year and the city will put the dates of the free Tire Roundup in the city’s quarterly newsletter.

The city picks up trash, kitchen garbage, tree limbs and brush twice each week. Tree limbs and brush is picked up without extra charges but only if they’re tied and bundled small enough for easily lifting to place in the waste trash truck.

The city is enforcing health laws such as leaving a garbage container on the curbside after 8 PM on the day the garbage was collected. It’s also unlawful for property owners or occupants of any structure or property to utilize the premises for the open storage of any abandoned motor vehicle, icebox, refrigerator, stove, glass, building material, building rubbish or similar items.

In the past few months a new effort for the enforcement of the requirement to have dogs and cats vaccinated to prevent rabies has increased with over 400 pets being brought into compliance.

Citizens can report violations in their neighborhood and problems with mosquitoes by calling city hall at 713-674-8424 or Public Works 713-4537411.

At a previously council meeting Allan Jamail, a former Councilman and Mayor who in 1973 founded the Keep Jacinto City Clean Committee (KJCCC) said he and his wife Linda and the committee members would be working with the city to help improve the unhealthy conditions.

In April Jamail introduced to Mayor Diaz a resolution that the City Attorney Jim DeFoyd prepared designating annually the 2nd week of April as Keep Jacinto City Clean Week. Mayor Diaz placed it on the Council’s agenda where it received unanimous approval.

The Council approved the first reading of a new city ordinance regulating the residency requirements for sex offenders. If a person is required to register on the Texas Department of Public Safety’s sex offender database it’s unlawful for that person and or a property owner to allow a sex offender to establish residency within two thousand (2,000) feet of any premise where children commonly gather. Citizens can use the following web site to locate the registered sex offenders in their neighborhood.

The Council issued a request for qualifications for an architectural firm to design a new police station. The city’s police station over fifty (50) years old has had two fires recently and has had numerous roof and structural problems.

Mayor Ana Diaz said she wants the city to have two (2) community wide garage sale days’ this year, the dates and details will be decided later.

City Manager Lon Squyres reported Fire Chief Rebecca Mier has recently been certified as a Code Enforcement Officer and she’ll supplement the code enforcement efforts in the city.