By ADAM ATKINSON

North Country This Week

CANTON – Town board members and Canton Code Enforcement Officer Jeffrey Murray are eyeing residential properties where they feel the adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” may have gotten out of hand.

“We have a serious problem with the way some residents are handling their solid waste. Jeff (Murray) has been very busy. There’s been a lot of complaints. He’s responding to them. I just wanted to bring this to the table to document this. It’s a concern and there’s several properties out there that aren’t properly disposing of their waste,” said Town Supervisor Mary Ann Ashley, during the Wednesday, June 12 town board meeting. “Jeff has been dealing with it the best he can but there is a lot.”

Ashley said she was raising the issue with the board to hopefully educate town residents on the problem.

Chapter 31 of the town code “Regulating Outdoor Storage or Deposit of Junk” defines said junk as things like unregistered, or non-running vehicles (like rusty Volares or smashed up Pacers), abandoned mobile homes or recreational vehicles (acerbically referred to as ‘mother-in-law apartments’ in some areas of the North Country); unused appliances turned lawn ornaments like old washers, dryers, stoves, freezers and “keggarators;” barrels, boxes, pallets, furniture like plaid couches, and any unsightly object like garbage, trash, rubbish or rags.

A $250 fine can be leveled for those not in compliance with how they handle this “junk.”

The code can be read in detail online at https://bit.ly/2IBel2g.

“Is it waste, or just junk?” asked Town Councilman Bob Washo during discussion of the matter.

“Both,” said Murray. “They don’t care.”

“I just want to clarify, because it’s not just waste,” said Washo.

“It’s not just cars,” said Murray.

“Household?” asked Ashley.

“Everything,” said Murray. “Some people just don’t get rid of anything, they stack it out back and just keep it.”

“And its not just town outside (the village),” Ashley said.

“No, its everywhere,” said Murray.

“Even in the village of Canton there’s been some issues,” Ashley said. “I know you will join me in asking residents to really do what they are supposed to. Because we do have a law and people need to follow it. I know getting rid of things is an expense for some people. But it does create a health hazard in some cases. I continue to be concerned.”

“I guess then my question to Jeff would be are you finding situations where you see a problem or a resident points out a problem that really isn’t covered in this section of the code?” said Town Councilman Tim Danehy. “It seems like this section of the code does a pretty good job of spelling out.”

“The code is absolutely fine,” said Murray. “If we could get everybody to comply with it there would be no issue.”

“There is so many of them out there that I can’t even begin to give you an actual number,” Murray said. “You see a few of them in the village, you see less of them in the village because we get more reports of them, there are smaller pieces of ground, they can’t store as much.”

“But you go out in the country, and I could take you through a hundred of them without any problem. And that’s just a problem across the board,” Murray said. “It was here long ago and I just don’t know exactly how to deal with it. I mean, I can’t write a ticket to everybody because it would just overflow the court systems.”

“As the complaints come in I deal with the complaints. Do I stop at every house? No, I couldn’t do it. If I did that I would not be able to do anything else, so I have to tolerate a certain amount,” said Murray.

“So have you been able to keep up with most of the formal complaints?” Washo asked.

“For the most part, yes,” said Murray.

“Then I would say stick with that,” Washo said.

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” Murray said.

“Is there any way as a municipality, we could aid some of our residents?” asked Town Councilman Phil LaMarche. “What’s the cost benefit analysis of having a municipal dumpster that’s just for steel?”

“You can have it, but it’s going to be the simple fact that they can’t get stuff here,” said Murray. “And you couldn’t put a dumpster big enough to control some of this stuff, you know what I mean. The stuff is there because they’ve been collecting it for years.”

Murray said the only way to do collection would be a regular weekly pickup.

“And, I stopped at one (residence) the other day and he looked right at me and pretty much told me to head down the road,” Murray said, laughing. “And that’s the mindset that you get, because they figure it’s their land they can put what they want on it and this is the mentality we are dealing with.”

“We have a code that deals with this. Enforcement has been lax, to say the least, for many years,” said Town Councilman Tim Danehy. Danehy said all of the board members have heard about issues with accumulations in various private yards from residents. “This is code, it’s law and we should enforce it. No other reason. That’s it. If we’re not going to enforce it, then let’s not have it in law.”

“Well I think some of the problems in the past have been not acting on formal complaints. And I think one difference now is Jeff is acting on formal complaints and that’s a huge step in the right direction,” Washo said.

“I’m all for voluntary compliance,” said Danehy. “People need to be aware that they can't do whatever they want.”

“A lot of people don’t know that it’s part of our code. And there are financial burdens on some people,” Ashley said.

“Let’s do what we can to help out, but stuff has to get cleaned up,” Danehy said.

“But there is a cost,” Ashley said.

The town’s legal counsel Dan Ramsey, from firm Pease and Gustafson, called the Canton court “robust” and said it is equipped to handle the tickets if enforcement of the town’s junk law was accelerated.

“If the town thought the stick as opposed to the carrot was the way to go as far as beefing up enforcement you could easily, easily process those tickets, get people in, threaten them with fines under code if the town thought that was the way it wanted to go,” said Ramsey.

The board took no action on the issue.