Milwaukee City Wire

Milwaukee County Parks Executive Director Guy Smith argues that desperate times call for desperate measures in seeking to rid the county of the littering and illegal dumping issues that have plagued the community for years.

"I would say over the last year or six months especially it’s gotten a lot worse," Smith told WISN.com. "And it's really taking away our staff time from prepping ball diamonds to mowing, and frankly it’s costing the taxpayers a lot of money."

By Smith’s estimation, there are now in the neighborhood of two dozen parks across the county that crews have to monitor and clean daily.

"We've had issues where contractors have dumped all their materials there. We’ve had issues where people who are moving out of their home, moving out of their apartment dumping stuff," he said. "But we’ve had issues where we can’t handle it ourselves because there’s potentially medical waste or potentially other contamination, so we’ve had to hire contractors to do that work."

While one job recently cost the county $21,000, Smith adds that doesn’t tell the whole story.

"That doesn’t include some of the staff time that went into that," he said. "We've been definitely short-staffed this year, and so it’s one of those things where it takes them away from other tasks."

In the end, Smith argues the cost is computed in more ways than just dollars and cents.

"Parks are a quality of life,” he added. “We all really crave that, and so when someone blemishes that it blemishes your experience. We need to be stewards of our parks and that takes all of us in the community."

As it is, violators can receive a fine of up to $5,000 for illegal dumping, and Milwaukee County Parks officials are already searching for volunteers to help with clean-up efforts following the July 4, holiday.