A contingent of city officials completed a ride-around through a couple of the city’s wards to view for themselves some of the concerns that residents have with the state of some properties in their neighborhoods.
Henderson Mayor Eddie Ellington told John C. Rose on Monday’s segment of The Local Skinny! that he was among those who hopped in cars and cruised some of the city’s streets in Wards 3 and 4. Code enforcement, he said, must be “at the forefront of our mission.”
Ride-arounds are just one way for city officials to get firsthand accounts of how properties are being maintained – or not maintained, as the case may be.
“I’ve been through these wards myself,” Ellington said, “to see what people are faced with. Just to see it firsthand, we’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said.
The mayor recalled a recent chat he had with a resident, who invited him off her porch to take a short walk.
“We walked down the street and around the corner,” he said, and what he saw was not good.
“A lot of it was gut-wrenching and disappointing,” he said of pockets of neighborhoods that are not maintained properly.
Some folks have beautiful yards and porches, yet “two houses down, they’re falling in, cars in the yard, abandoned.” City residents don’t deserve that kind of inattention, he said.
Others who participated in the ride-around included City Manager Terrell Blackmon, Police Chief Marcus Barrow, Recreation and Parks Director Kendrick Vann and City Attorney Rix Edwards.
The next ride-around will cover Wards 1 and 2, he said. It’s a good way for the city’s residents to be assured that their concerns are being heard and addressed.
“I just want the residents to keep the faith. We’re moving and we’re looking forward to a bright future,” Ellington said.
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