Well … there’s good news, and there’s bad news.

The good news is that officials in both Brookhaven and LincolnCounty have announced some new community appearance work.

In the city, officials are making a concerted effort to get ridof old, abandoned vehicles that litter yards in variousneighborhoods. Occupants of the homes where the unsightly autos arelocated are being notified to remove them. At one particular house,the shells of nine autos and countless useless parts litter thefront lawn.

Once notified, property owners have 10 days to get rid of thecars or the city can remove them. To retrieve the cars, theproperty owner must pay a $50 minimum towing fee, plus a dailyimpoundment charge.

We applaud the city for taking this action, and we hopeofficials stick-to-their-guns on enforcement.

In the county, it was announced last week that efforts tocorrect illegal dumps will continue, thanks to a grant from theMississippi Department of Environmental Quality.

The DEQ awarded a $30,486 grant to the county for its ongoingbattle to stop illegal dumping. Or, looking at it another way,that’s $30,486 to clean up after people who have no respect fortheir community.

The county has been battling illegal dumps for over five yearsand is finally making some progress. Solid Waste Coordinator RonnieDurr said the dumps are not as spread out as they once were, buteach supervisor district still has “hot spots.” Sadly, it’s notuncommon to find old furniture, mattresses and other debris dumpedalongside county roads along with beer and soda cans, dirty diapersand fast food bags.

Oh, the bad news …

The bad news is that employee hours and taxpayer dollars, whichcould easily be used for other projects, are needed to clean up ourcommunity.

The city problem and the county problem are rooted at the sameplace — among those people who don’t have pride in their ownproperty, much less their community.

We’re not foolish enough to think these issues will ever becompletely solved, but we can hope.