The Fisher County Sheriff’s Department began enforcing state health and safety regulations on Monday, tagging vehicles for removal, issuing warnings for trash, and having numerous discussions with potential code violators throughout the cities of Roby and Rotan.
In a press release, Fisher County Sheriff Randy Ford announced that effective Monday, March 7, 2022, the Fisher County Sheriff's Office would begin enforcing Texas Health and Safety Code Sections 343 and 341. The sections deal with a wide swath of offenses from illegal dumping to public nuisance to unsanitary or unsafe structures.
Sheriff Ford explained that typically cities would have their own set of codes and city police officers to enforce them. In lieu of a municipal police force in a city, implementing these state regulations is regulated to the county’s deputies, which gives deputies the authority to enforce the laws.
Although the Safety Codes cover a wide range of issues related to overall city sanitation, Ford explained that the cities have a plan for addressing dilapidated structures, which would be costprohibitive for the county. He said in the weeks ahead, deputies will be looking out for offenses such as garbage, refuse, or excessive debris as well as abandoned or “junked” vehicles.
“It is not the desire of our office to punish anyone but rather to have the landowner, resident, or vehicle owner clean up the trash,” Ford wrote in Monday’s press release, explaining that vehicles and their parts are included in the statutes. “Deputies will therefore begin immediately placing red tags on vehicles that are junk vehicles.”
Within a matter of days, deputies had placed tags on more than a dozen vehicles and had conversations with many others about the need to clean property or remove vehicles. Ford said many people were responsive, but a few were uncooperative.
Within hours and in the days that followed Monday’s Spring Cleanup Operation, social media sites are buzzing with angry property or vehicle owners that have been instructed to mitigate the problem or face escalating consequences. The statutes establish an equally wide range of punishments from a misdemeanor citation up to a state jail felony in some cases.
Ford said the goal is to lend some assistance to the city officials that would not be able to enforce these basic laws otherwise. He added that his hope is people will simply take care of the issues without escalating the offenses. “How is it going to sound? ‘What are you in here for?’ … ‘Um, garbage,” said Ford. “Come on. Just clean up the property a little bit.”
Vehicles found to be in violation can be removed outside of the city extraterritorial jurisdiction or be removed from the property and sold for junk. Violators will have 14 days from the day the vehicle was tagged to act. For any questions pertaining to the cleanup program, contact the Fisher County Sheriff’s Department at 325-776-2273