Keep Levelland Beautiful held their regular committee meeting on Monday to cover some recent achievements, as well as plan for the future of the group as they prepare for the Community Wide Clean Up coming in April.
Code Enforcement Officer Eli Colunga provided the committee with a report for the current affairs of his department with the city. Compared to 2021, January saw an increase in city ordinance violations the Code Enforcement dept. handles.
Whereas in ’21 there were only 17 offenses, this year saw that number increase to 52, with the largest jump being in property maintenance from 6 last year to 38 this year.
Additionally, as the City ramps up their efforts to rid themselves of dilapidated structures and return older properties to the tax roll, Texas Communities Group (TCG) has been instrumental.
This group assists the City in advertising their dilapidated properties in online auction with the hopes of turning a profit, and in 2022 they did just that. 13 properties were sold in this manner last year, bringing in $55K in profit for the City.
On the horizon, Eli expects to present multiple properties to the Planning and Zoning Commission later this month in the hopes that they will recommend demolition to the City Council, furthering the cleanup around town.
Earlier in February, Keep Levelland Beautiful performed half time entertainment for the SPC Texans Basketball game through their use of “Darrell The Barrel”, a mascot to help encourage the safe disposal of litter. Feb. 6th saw the group on the court holding a “Trick Shot” competition, in which students and participants tried to create the most creative shot with a piece of litter into the barrel, which was placed at half court. This also was an opportunity to announce to all in attendance that the Community Wide Cleanup, one of KLB’s biggest events for the year, will be held April 1st.
This event will now be held side by side with the Mainstreet Program for The City of Levelland, as they pledge to clean up downtown, and the Chamber will also host an electronic recycling event at their office in conjunction.
Additionally the KLB Photo Contest will be starting up again on March 1st this year, which the committee was delighted to report has seen a surge of interest in the past few years.
Held twice a year, the contest is a chance for citizens to flex their creative muscles to showcase the beauty the South Plains have to offer.
Plans for additional training, as well as ideas and brainstorming for future events filled the last portion of the meeting before the committee adjourned.