City left with some tough tall grass decisions
Published 12:03 am Sunday, June 5, 2011
NATCHEZ — The City of Natchez has a new decision to make since the Mississippi Department of Transportation cut the number of yearly grass cuttings along state roadways in the city from six to three.
Leaders know their options — increased costs, tall grass or dead greenery, and maybe one last attempt at begging MDOT to reconsider.
MDOT District Engineer Albert White said most other cities have always received three cuttings a year, and if the grass is cut more often, the cities do it themselves.
There’s no money budgeted for extra cuttings, he said.
“We have our budget for maintenance which we’ve split up enough to cover all of the state routes,” White said. “There aren’t more than three cuttings on any state routes.”
Since Natchez was accustomed to more cuttings, the city now has to cope with tall, unsightly grass or come up with another way to cut it, Mayor Jake Middleton said.
City Engineer David Gardner said MDOT will either send crews to do the three cuttings per year or give the city that money — just under $10,000 —to do it themselves.
The reimbursement has fluctuated, as in 2004, MDOT paid the city right at $47,000 for six cuttings per year, Gardner said.
“We got out of that contract because (Natchez) public works said it was costing more than that to cut (the grass),” he said.
“The city only has three grass cutters right now, and we’re cutting 106 miles of streets. To have to pull those men to cut the highway medians means that we have to hire more people.”
Another option, spraying Natchez medians with herbicide might be the best fit for the budget, Gardner said, even if it will kill the grass along with the weeds.
Planting Bermuda grass would be beneficial in the long run, both aesthetically and financially, he said.
“I don’t particularly like to (spray everything),” he said. “In the long term what you want to do is try to kill all of the weeds and just leave the Bermuda grass.”
Since it grows slowly, having Bermuda grass would mean paying for fewer cuttings per year.
“I’m not saying we’re going to spray it, I’m just saying it’s an option,” Gardner said.
But as summer sets in and grass and weeds grow taller, residents are taking note.
Natchez resident Sterling Dossett said the medians have always been poorly kept, but lately they’ve gotten worse.
“I’m kind of upset with MDOT (because) they came through and installed all of this landscaping and then left it to die,” he said.
While Dossett acknowledges that the state of the economy means budgetary cuts from all sides, he said he does see problems with MDOT not finishing what they started.
“(MDOT needs) to have the budget in mind for when they install stuff as far as maintenance goes,” he said.
City leaders haven’t set a timeline for their next move, Gardner said, and MDOT hasn’t given a schedule of its three cuttings.
However, Gardner added, MDOT has already cut the city’s grass two of its three allotted times for this year.
Dossett said with no help from MDOT, Natchez business owners — and the community itself — should be willing to take the burden of the upkeep upon themselves.
“Since we are in tough times and the governments are having to cut programs out, I think private businesses should try to show a little civic pride to help enhance the community,” he said.
At least one Natchez business has been doing that for years.
East Automotive General Manager Carl Rogel said his business pays an outside contractor to keep the medians in front of his John R. Junkin business cut.
“It’s a disgusting disgrace that (the city) lets the medians look like garbage,” he said. “It’s always been bad, but now they’re just not going to keep up with it.”
Dossett said it doesn’t make sense for businesses not to follow East Automotive’s example.
“It would be just as easy for (businesses facing a stretch of median) to just cross the street and mow,” he said. “East (Automotive has taken an initiative to keep their stretch up. The mall could do the one in front of it, La Fiesta could do the one in front of it, and so on.”
That’s a model that has worked in Brookhaven, where MDOT only cuts twice a year, director of Public Works Steve Moreton said.
Most storeowners and businesses cut their own grass and have for years, he said, because it makes their businesses look better.
Gardner said he would love for Natchez businesses to cut their grass themselves, but it’s not something the city can count on.
Moreover, due to Natchez’s touristy nature, he said, it merits more of MDOT’s attention.
“Natchez is the most unique town in the district,” Gardner said. “Maybe I’m biased because I’m from Natchez, but I think it deserves extra credit.”
Moreton said he disagrees.
“I’m envious, and I don’t feel like it’s fair,” he said. “I don’t know how (Natchez) got that many (cuttings) in the first place.”
Regardless, Gardner said, MDOT should not budget the same amount of money for grass cutting along its Natchez roadways as it does for other cities, because MDOT planted shrubs and plants in Natchez that it didn’t plant elsewhere.
“(There’s a lot of) shrubbery, light poles — a lot of obstructions that run the cost of the grass cutting up,” he said. “You can’t cut grass in Natchez, Mississippi, for the same price, on average, of the whole district.”
Gardner said the bottom line is the city wants MDOT to cut the grass more than MDOT is willing to cut it.
“It’s MDOT’s grass, it’s their responsibility to cut it,” he said.
Previously, MDOT believed they were cutting 140 acres, but in reality, they were only cutting about 75, Middleton said.
Since engineers at MDOT thought they were cutting nearly double what they actually were, there’s no reason Natchez shouldn’t get the same amount of cuttings for the same price, because cutting 75 acres six times is approximately the same as cutting 140 acres three times, Middleton said.
“It’s interesting to me that they thought they were cutting 140 acres, and I asked them to re-evaluate because I knew it wasn’t that much acreage,” he said.
MDOT recently realized they were only cutting 75 acres locally, White said.
“The number (of acres) originally used was based off of some numbers from years ago before (some of the) construction in the city began,” he said. “Two or three weeks ago we re-evaluated and got a different number of acreage, which is what we base our costs off of.”