TYLERTOWN — Anti-littering efforts in Walthall County continued to pick up steam as citizens brought questions, suggestions and completed actions to the board of supervisors Monday.
Debbie Beard Saebo, a Walthall County native who retired as a chemistry professor at Mississippi State University and moved back home recently, spoke to the board about cleanup promotions, inmate service, recycling and more.
She proposed possibly distributing flyers through the mail or placing them on cars parked at Tylertown businesses, though she said she didn’t want the flyers to add to the litter problem.
She also suggested renting a billboard for an anti-littering message.
“There was a picture of a little 4-year-old boy named Ryan Broussard that was posted on the Keep Walthall Beautiful Facebook page,” Saebo said. “He helped pick up litter with his mother Jodi (Martin), and he said, ‘Why do people want to be so trashy?’ I think that and his picture would make a great billboard.”
She noted that a lot of people seem to burn trash in roadside ditches and questioned the legality of that practice. Supervisors said it’s not illegal on its own, but many things often put in trash like glass bottles or tin cans, don’t burn like paper and plastic items and can remain as litter.
As other people asked in previous meetings, Saebo queried whether prisoners could pick up trash along the roads and whether there was a fee to participate in a state inmate litter program.
Sheriff Kyle Breland said there’s no fee involved, but it uses only state inmates to clean state-maintained highways, not county roads.
The Walthall County Jail is not approved to hold state inmates, Breland said, and his department can’t go get state inmates from another facility to work in the county.
“If they won’t let us keep them in the jail, they’re not going to let us watch them outside,” Breland said.
In previous meetings, Breland said he asked deputies whether any would consider serving as a litter enforcement officer, overseeing jail inmates who pick up litter or just writing tickets to offenders. None were interested, he said.
While his department is willing to write tickets and submit offenders to the county justice court, Breland said getting witnesses to appear in court is a problem.
“People will turn people in, but it when it comes to signing an affidavit and testifying in court, they won’t do it.” he said.
Saebo said the organizers and members of the “Keep Walthall Beautiful” Facebook page are considering forming a more formal group that could affiliate with Keep Mississippi Beautiful, but will keep working whether they do that or not.
Janice McKellar with Southwest Mississippi Community College’s Workforce Training Center said she had procured supplies like trash bags, gloves and vests that litter pickers can pick up from Tylertown town hall.
Supervisor Lloyd Bullock said residents along Thornhill Road in his district had picked up 40 bags of litter over the weekend, and board President Larry Montgomery said Lexie residents had gathered 90 bags that he needed to dispose of.
Supervisors said they would continue to work with community efforts to fight litter.
