CAMERON— In what’s being called a “multi-front” approach to try and get a stretch of East Cameron Avenue cleaned up, the Milam County Prosecutor’s office has obtained an indictment and a county commissioners resolution directed at its owner within a five-day period.
Kyle Nuttall, assistant district attorney, said on Thursday a grand jury indicted Ira Richard Thrasher Jr., 43, of Rockdale, for illegal dumping.
Monday, on a unanimous vote, commissioners approved sending a letter to Thrasher, owner of the property at 1300 and 1328 East Cameron (US 79) giving him 30 days “clean up all litter” or face being charged with a Class C misdemeanor offense.
“The grand jury indictment is a felony,” Nuttall said. “The commissioners’ action includes the stipulation that if appropriate action is not taken, the court will remove and dispose of the litter and assess all costs against the property owner.”
“This would be done by taking out a lien plus 10 percent, to cover the costs to the county,” Nut-tall said. “We would go out for bids on the cleanup project.”
‘FRONTS’—Those aren’t the only “fronts” in the longtime situation that are being taken by the county in cooperation with the City of Rockdale, according to the prosecutor’s office.
There are also a number of “maintaining a junkyard” cases, with Thrasher as a defendant, some which have already been adjudicated, according to Nuttall.
Last year, before a jury, he was found guilty of six charges of maintaining a junkyard and fined.
On March 19, Thrasher was found guilty in a bench trial in Rockdale Municipal Court of 13 more cases of the same offense, and was fined $43,400, with other costs bringing the total to $47,612, according to court records.
Thrasher appealed that conviction to Milam County and it is scheduled to appear on the docket Friday, according to Nuttall, who is prosecuting for the state.
CLEANUP— “The objective of all of these cases is to get that place cleaned up,” Nuttall said. “As I’m sure Rockdale people know, it has been that way for years.”
“That’s what we want, too, to get it cleaned up,” City Manager Chris Whittaker said.
Whittaker said through the years the city has raised numerous legal issues and has also notified the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) about fears of substances leaking from vehicles into the ground in the area.
Nuttall cited the state’s Health & Safety Code during his presentation to commissioners on Monday.
He said the code contained a provision addressing “an accumulation of litter” piling up and said the definition of litter included “scrap metal, scrap parts and scrap wood.”
On March 3, 2017, an adjacent house burned and two firefighter were injured while fighting the blaze.
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