The city if Selma’s Code Enforcement Department is planning on being stricter when it comes to people putting trash and garbage by the street to be picked up.

Steven Hendrieth, the interim director of Code Enforcement, said there has been a problem recently with people putting their trash by the road too far in advance of their pick-up day or right after their pick-up day.

“We’ve kind of had problems with Public Works going around and picking it up and then later on that day or the next day it is right back out there,” Hendrieth said. “It kind of makes things look bad, so we’re trying to eliminate that kind of problem.”

Code Enforcement sent out a public service announcement earlier this week that said “late violators will be held accountable.”

Hendrieth said people that continuously violate city code will be warned and eventually cited if they continue to put trash by the road too early or too late.

“We thought it would be good and it would help public works,” Hendrieth said. “We’re just trying to eliminate a whole lot of different problems.”

Hendrieth said public works will play a big role in helping code enforcement officers determine who is violating the code continuously.

“They are out riding every day, so they know which areas they have already picked up and the know which days they pick up on,” Hendrieth said. “Maybe when they ride through, and they see somewhere they have already picked up and there is another big pile down there, they can notify code enforcement.”

Hendrieth said code enforcement officers would be responsible for taking those observations from public works and warning people and eventually citing them if they keep ignoring city code. He said it will be left up to the discretion of the officer to cite the resident or not.

“We don’t want people putting it out a week before your pick-up day,” he said. “We understand people do yardwork on the weekends, so it may have to sit out there for three or four days, but basically we’re really targeting household garbage from people that don’t have trash cans, and they’re throwing trash out onto the streets.”

Hendrieth did not know how much the fine would be or exact pick-up dates for each ward.

He said if anyone has questions about when their pick-up day is or what is allowed to be put by the street, they can call public works at (334) 874-2170.