District 8 Commissioner Brandon Garrett pressed City Administrator Odie Donald at an Aug. 11 committee meeting about the need for better grounds maintenance at city recreation areas.
In particular, Garrett as concerned about keeping the grass mowed on city property
During Wednesday’s engineering services committee meeting, Garrett said that on his daily commute, which takes him across the county, he sees overgrown medians and high grass on city owned land from the start of his drive to the end.
Garrett provided pictures he had taken from across the area, including Riverwalk where he found the fountain at James Brown Boulevard inoperable due to leaking issues, broken and missing bricks lining flower beds and other flower beds overcome with weeds.
Photo courtesy of Brandon Garrett 
Photo courtesy of Brandon Garrett
“The Army TechNet convention is coming next week, and this is what they are going to see when they arrive,” Garret said.
The TechNet convention, which starts on Monday, will draw an estimated 2,100 attendees.
Other commissioners said they were getting calls from constituents from all over the city.
According to District 1 Commissioner Jordan Johnson people have gotten in touch with him, after having no luck calling 311 to complain about overgrown, city-owned, lots and that even with a commissioner involved, it took nearly six months to get lawnmowers to the various sites.
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District 3 Commissioner Catherine Smith-McKnight produced photographs that were sent to her by a constituent showing the conditions of the three city-owned cemeteries. The photos showed high grass, multiple fire ant beds and weeds so thico they cover grave markers and make them non-legible.
A once stately wrought iron fence at Magnolia Cemetery now hangs haphazardly from neglect.
“The entire area is an eyesore. People visiting their loved one’s graves shouldn’t have to wade through knee deep grass and have to dodge ant beds. It’s embarrassing, and it’s unacceptable,” McKnight said.
Meanwhile, local businessman and downtown resident, Mike Guthrie, sent photos of the levee near his home that has recently been mowed by a city work crew. The photo shows where large swaths of land were completely missed by the crew, making the area look almost worse than if it had not been cut at all.
According to Guthrie, his homeowners association, sends its own crews out to clean up after the city leaves to try and make the botched job look better.
“Whoever the city subs the lawn maintenance out to on Sandbar Ferry Road around the 520 intersection….. they kick ass. The levee crew…. might as well let Helen Keller cut it,” Guthrie said.
Therein lies the problem, according to Garrett. Multiple city departments as well as private contractors are used throughout the city, and there is no mechanism in place to make sure the work is getting done. Garrett says that the environmental services, parks and recreation, central services, engineering and utilities departments are all responsible to different maintenance areas as well as privately owned contractors.
According to Garrett, the city departments can’t seem to keep track of who is responsible for what, and he added that at least one private contractor has walked off the job, meaning the contract had to be put back out for bid while weeds around the municipal building were, and are, literally growing out into the street.
“No one wants to take ownership, the way it stands now. They all just point fingers at each other,” Garrett said.
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At first, in the committee meeting, Donald tried to blame the land mismanagement blame on the COVID-19 pandemic, but Garrett asked him point-blank what his administrator’s office was planning to do about the matter and to fix a problem that has been decades in the making.
Donald responded that he intended to create a centralized authority to handle groundskeeping city-wide; however, that the process can’t happen until fiscal year 2022.
District 10 Commissioner John Clarke says he wasn’t pleased with Donald’s response.
“It’s just one more attempt to grow the city government instead of cutting the city’s grass,” Clarke said.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Reporter of The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com.
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