Springfield aldermen are fed up with tall grass and garbage. And so Ward 10 Ald.

Ralph “Bounty Hunter” Hanauer is working on an ordinance that would hit scofflaw property owners and perhaps tenants with fines for not keeping lawns and garbage in check. “I’ve been on a tear and sending in properties (to code enforcement) with grass that’s knee high,” Hanauer declared at this week’s city council gathering. “I don’t care who’s responsible for it, it needs to get done. I just had a case where the landlord’s responsible for it, they’re mowing it once a month. That’s not acceptable.” The problem, aldermen say, is that scofflaws, when caught, correct problems once administrative court dates arrive and so incur no fines. That needs to change, thundered Ward 1 Chuck “Warpath” Redpath, who professed outrage at a property in his ward where garbage piles up to the point that a neighbor can’t sleep with her window open. “We need to have a better system to the point where we put some serious fines on these people and they can’t get out of these fines just because they clean it up,” Redpath told colleagues. “We need to zap these people. We need to get tougher.” Ward 7 Ald. Joe “Also Hates Garbage” McMenamin reminded colleagues that the council four years ago passed a three-strikes ordinance that mandates fines for property owners hit with three code violations within two years. He also said that notices of code violations now are sent to property owners as opposed to tenants. “I think we need a better way to enforce it,” McMenamin said. “Ultimately, we need to get these code violations online so the neighborhood associations can track them.”