LAUREL, Miss. (WDAM) -In recent years, Laurel Mayor Johnny Magee has pushed to make the city correspond with its namesake, the City Beautiful.
One way the city is trying to do this is through a streamlined process of cleaning up dilapidated properties.
“When you have a city that is called the City Beautiful, then you don’t want to see everywhere you drive, properties that have not been lived in fifteen, twenty years that are just rotten,” said Magee.
The process involves sending out a letter with a 30-day notice about a property that needs maintenance, but Ward 2 Councilman Kevin Kelly said the city will work with its residents.
“There are some extenuating circumstances where that be financial, weather (or) sickness, and, so we’re able to give a two-week, three-week (or) four-week extension to that, but then if it doesn’t, then the city would take over and either demolish the property or they would clean it through the Parks and Recreation Department,” said Kelly.
Some properties may be an eyesore, but the biggest reason is due to safety. Kelly said kids may sneak into a run-down property, and it could become a liability.
“We have to have one of our engineers go and look at it to make sure, ‘hey, this is unsalvageable,’ because you’d have to take out the entire floor, or the roof and those kinds of things,” Kelly said.
Councilman Kelly said the council members are in agreement and want to keep this process going to make the City Beautiful even better.
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