BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 Several neighbors of a property on Eaton Avenue spoke out about ongoing trash issues during Tuesday night\u2019s Bethlehem City Council meeting.<\/p>\n
Residents said they have been working for months to get the property cleared of trash that is attracting animals and insects and is blowing into others\u2019 yards.<\/p>\n
One resident called the \u201ctrash pile\u201d \u201cdiscouraging, disgusting and off-putting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor J. William Reynolds said the city has been working with the homeowner to resolve the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe easiest thing to do is to convince them to clean it up now,\u201d Reynolds said.<\/p>\n
Laura Collins, the city\u2019s director of community and economic development, said the city\u2019s recourse for problem properties is through the magistrate. After verbal warnings and an inspection, cases are referred to the magisterial court. Fines may follow, but cases can be delayed and collection rates are low.<\/p>\n
Officials said Tuesday they are working with the local magistrate to ensure the issue is addressed as a \u201cpriority.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officials said the city receives up to 700 trash complaints annually.<\/p>\n
The property owner was not present on Tuesday for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 Several neighbors of a property on Eaton Avenue spoke out about ongoing trash issues during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,164,155,154,39808,70052,19560],"class_list":["post-185004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-city-council","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-eaton-avenue","tag-magistrate","tag-trash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}