Despite the fall season, lawns still need to be mowed
Published 8:55 am Saturday, October 5, 2019
By Kevin D. Nelson
Austin Parks and Recreation
It’s fall and nearly ready to freeze outside; do I still need to mow my lawn?
In short, yes! Your grass/lawn must be maintained to a height of eight inches or less. If it exceeds eight inches in height, you are in violation of a city ordinance.
What happens if I let my lawn go too long? Is there some type of penalty or citation? Someone may report your violation, and it can cost you. Once you’ve been tagged for this, if you violate again you can be cited again and the city can send out a contracted mower, again at your expense, and the fines will increase.
What about if my lawn, for the most part, has gone dormant, except for those unsightly foxtails? You still need to mow to keep your lawn looking groomed.
Kevin Nelson
What if I don’t own a lawn mower? There are professional lawn care services for hire. It is much cheaper to hire them than it is to pay the administrative fee, related fines, and lawn care provider which the city would contract to address your overgrown lawn.
What if I do not pay the fine, contracted lawn care fee, and administrative fee? It will be assessed to your property taxes.
Why it is that some city properties can get overgrown but mine cannot? The city has a number of parks employees who work with a number of responsibilities, including parks lawn care.
These past two weeks, much of their focus has been on addressing the (tree) clean-up from recent storm damage. The crew began the following morning with removal of (boulevard tree) branches from streets and sidewalks. Once this was completed, they went back around town to remove badly damaged boulevard trees. During such events and extended wet weather, you may notice that ‘parks’ mowing does not appear to be a priority. In fact, there are times when it could be two weeks or more in between mowing of City properties.
The commercial mowers, which the parks department uses are heavy equipment, and staff have buried them up to their axles in wet areas of parks in an effort to keep areas groomed. So, they will mow city properties again as conditions and their schedules allow. There are times when overtime pay is authorized to catch up on tree clean-up or mowing. However, since this means additional unbudgeted taxpayer expense, this is usually avoided.
What about city properties within the floodway or the floodplain? There are properties which are directly adjacent to creeks, ditches, and the river which are mowed only once or twice per year. This is done primarily to keep the brush and ‘volunteer’ trees from getting out of hand. Some would like to see these properties kept groomed like a park, while others believe that the City should reduce the amount of mowing along waterways, as this allows for a natural buffer (to reduce the impact of storm run-off while providing a critical habitat for birds) along these areas whilst reducing mowing expenses.
During a ‘typical’ year, we hope for the majority of mowing needs to be during the summer months, as this is when we have additional (seasonal) help to run the mowers, trimmers, etc. There have been times when (some) lawn equipment has been down (for repairs) or in shortage. Considering that mowing acreage and expectations continue to grow, there has been an additional six-foot mower budgeted for next year.
Council has also approved allowing the base pay for seasonal help to progress further from minimum wage beginning in 2020, so we’ll (hopefully) be well within the competitive market for hiring seasonal help. Thus, provided that we get the needed seasonal help (and the weather cooperates), the city should be able to do an even better job of addressing the city mowing needs going forward. The parks department is, at present time, seeking seasonal hired help to assist with the remainder of this season. Stop down to pick up an application.
Did you know?
One of my favorite parts about my job: parks! Did you know that the word “paradise” in the Bible’s New Testament is translated from the Greek word “paradeisos,” which means “a beautiful park” or a park-like garden? What could possibly be a better place to work?
