City of San Angelo Lenient on Tall Grass Ordinance Enforcement for Now

As heavy rains have been absent for the past couple of weeks, citizens living in San Angelo, the city government, and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) are struggling to mow tall grass and weeds on their land.

Compliance Division

For some, more work has yet to be done. The city’s Compliance Division has been busily issuing notices demanding for citizens to cut their overly tall grass.

City ordinance dictates that any grass or weeds over 12 inches on a citizen’s property must be cut. The ordinance requires citizens to cut the grass within seven days. However, Neighborhood Services Assistant Director James Flores said that his inspectors are lenient concerning the issue as of late.

“Hey, let’s work with the citizen, Flores said. “Let’s give them ample time. We have been blessed with rain, back-to-back rain, so the minute we cut it, it’s back up. I mean, 12 inches is not that tall.”

According to Flores, the focus of the compliance division has been on houses with grass rising a few feet tall that have ignored notices for 20 to 30 days. In such situations, notices will be replaced with citations. Cited citizens have the option to allow the city to remedy the situation at their expense or to take the case to municipal court.

“At the end of the day, the beauty of the court system is you get to tell the judge your story, we get to tell him ours, and he determines whether or not you’re right or wrong,” Flores said. “So it takes it out of our hands.”

The reason for this ordinance is because tall grass and weeds have the potential to harbor varmints. Furthermore, unreasonably tall grass can pose a hazard to children playing in the front yard or to neighbors attempting to back out of their driveway. ‘

“Tall grass and weeds do cause wrecks,” Flores said. “Your neighbor’s yard is 3 feet tall, you’re sitting in your car, you’re trying to back out of your driveway. You could get hit because you didn’t see the car coming up the street. That’s a view obstruction. That’s a safety hindrance.”

If grass reaches four feet or more, a state safety, health, and welfare imposition allows the city to mow without the residents’ knowledge and bill them for it later.

Flores acknowledged that the city has been behind on cutting their grass the past couple of weeks. He said that the city simply owns a good deal of land and that they have been affected by rains as well.

"I was complaining last week at city hall that we had some tall grass and weeds and we need to address them, and they’re addressed,” Flores said.  “And that’s right there at City Hall so I could imagine we’d miss some places.”

Flores made the argument that grass on city-owned land does not reach the heights as some on private property. Furthermore, most of the grass in lands owned by the city already have been cut at this point.

Over the past few weeks, Flores estimated that nine out of ten of the calls his department receives complaining of tall grass actually pertain to land that isn’t city property. These include state right-of-ways that are maintained by TxDOT.

In the end, Flores expressed thankfulness for the rain the area has received. Weeds are simply a side effect that must be addressed in a timely manner.

City Maintenance Division

According to Operations director Shane Kelton, TxDOT and the city have informally discussed the possibility of the city taking over maintenance of state right-of-ways in San Angelo.

“[We’re in] just very informal discussions about the inner workings of how it all works from their standpoint vs. our standpoint and what our abilities are,” Kelton said. “What we can do and what we can’t do, things like that.”

Kelton described the task of maintaining state right-of-ways as “quite substantial.” Therefore, at the moment, the city does not have enough manpower or equipment to maintain grass and pickup trash on these roads. According to Kelton, the city is challenged to maintain their existing land with the amount of workers on staff as it is.

“We’re running fairly lean,” Kelton said. “From the traditional parks standpoint, those guys are fairly far behind on what they need from an overall maintenance standpoint to keep up with the expected mowing cycles and all the different maintenance functions that they do.”

Kelton attributed this understaffing issue due to the oil boom that started two years ago. The labor force left their jobs across all divisions of city maintenance. As of late, however, the city has been receiving more applicants from those who lost their job during the current slowdown in the oil field. Despite this, the city is still too shorthanded to deal with overly tall grass as quickly as Kelton would like.

“We’re getting there and maybe we’re not as far behind as TxDOT was with their mowing patterns, Kelton said. “We were definitely further behind than we wanted to be but we are starting to catch up now.”

Until talks between TxDOT and the city progress, it remains to be seen whether the city will assume responsibility for the state right-of-ways in San Angelo.