Hometown News: » Community Pride Week set for Woodruff


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When Do You Take Your Christmas Tree Down? Christmas Day After Christmas New Years It Stays Up All Year View Results

Community Pride Week set for Woodruff

By CHRIS SHIPMAN
Hometown News

Next week, April 20-25, is Community Pride Week in Woodruff. The city is providing volunteers with safety vests, gloves, pick-up sticks, and trash bags. Containers will be placed at four locations on April 17: the Rescue 17 building on Hayne Street, the Abney Mill office, the old Street Department Building on Wofford Street, and the old Enro Shirt Building. Building Inspector Mike Doles said the containers should be out until Monday, April 27.
Residents of Woodruff can bring whatever they have in the house to throw away, Doles said, except tires, liquid paint, white goods or hazardous materials. He is also looking for volunteers to man the containers to keep prohibited items out.
The weekend leading up to Community Pride Week, April 17 and 18, the city will participate in a Zero Tolerance Weekend in conjunction with Palmetto Pride. City officers will be checking trucks for unsecured loads and other infractions. Littering carries a fine of $1092.
The money for the containers is coming from the city’s code enforcement budget. Doles said his goal is to lead by example and get people to take pride in their city. Next year, he wants to get Woodruff designated as a “Keep South Carolina Beautiful” city and to use this year’s event as an example for pursuing community pride grants of up to $25,000. “It starts with being conscientious about our laws and showing that we care enough to make sure things are clean,” he said.
The city has trash pick-up, Dole said, but with just two or three men, the job can be overwhelming. “If we can get people in the habit of picking up after themselves, it will keep the city clean, promote a sense of pride in the community, promote economic development, and get other people coming in,” he said.
“Hopefully we’ll get a lot of activity,” he added. “I’m coming out in force with my wife and grandchildren.”
Along with the anti-litter campaign, the city has also stepped up enforcement of the Property Maintenance Code and has implemented the Rental Property Registration program. “The city is getting back on its feet,” Doles said. “Things are changing.”
The city has demolished six condemned houses so far, he said. And people have started to clean up their properties. Absentee owners continue to be a problem, he said, but even those properties are being taken care of. A house was recently condemned which was owned by an out-of-state bank. The bank told Doles that it had been trying to get rid of the house but couldn’t find a buyer. Doles helped find a buyer for the property. The new owner plans to upgrade the property. Now instead of a blighted, vacant lot which the city will have to maintain, it will be part of the city’s property tax base.
For the last six months, he said the city has tried to ease into enforcement but that it will start tightening up. “We can’t have this blight,” he said. He operates with the “broken window theory” in mind, he said. If people allow their homes to fall into disrepair, neighbors are less likely to care about the appearance of their own, he said. But, if one neighbor starts fixing his house, the others will most likely follow suit. So, he said, he’s been working in clusters around town, sending letters and posting notices. Neighbors take notice, he said, and start to work on their own houses without the city having to get involved. He’s hoping before long, the clusters will come together.
Cooperation has also been high with the Rental Property Registration program, he said. So far more than 300 properties have been listed. Exterior inspections of the properties are under way, and interior inspections should start in February 2010.
In order to improve the image of the city, the city has to take the lead, he said. The motto is “we’re working in Woodruff,” he said. Someone asked him, “shouldn’t it be ‘we’re working on Woodruff ?’” He said no, the city is taking the lead. If it wants other people to work in Woodruff, it has to put its money where its mouth is. Once people start to take notice, they will want to invest their money in Woodruff as well, he said.

shipman.news@gmail.com

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