COUNTY MAY NEED IDEAS ON TRASH ABATEMENT

The Cape Girardeau County Commission's aspirations for a nuisance-abatement ordinance in unincorporated areas have been put aside because it appears the county doesn't have a good way to regulate roadside dumps and other problems without countywide planning and zoning.

The commission last winter discussed the possibility of enacting an ordinance to help rid the county of junk cars and other trash.

The commission went so far as to review a draft of a proposed nuisance law before asking animal-control officer Jack Piepenbrok to look into adopting it. But Piepenbrok concluded it would be difficult for the county to enforce a nuisance law without planning and zoning regulations.

The county had countywide planning at one time, but voters shut it down.

And last November, voters soundly rejected a proposal that again would have led to enactment of countywide planning and zoning regulations.

Piepenbrok will search through state statutes to see if there are existing laws the county could use to address junk cars, trash and other nuisances.

The presiding commissioner, Gerald Jones, said there is no rush to get anything done, although a fellow commissioner, Larry Bock, says he is besieged by telephone calls from people complaining about junk. Piepenbrok says it could be months before he reaches any conclusions on what the county should do.

The matter sparked the attention of a former candidate for commissioner, Douglas Flannery of Whitewater, Mo., probably the county's most adamant opponent of planning and zoning. In a letter to the editor following a story that a nuisance law would not be adopted, Flannery said that during public meetings last year on planning and zoning, copies of Missouri Department of Natural Resources regulations addressing trash were made available as an alternative to planning and zoning, "but no one would listen."

Flannery said in the letter that he has done extensive research on the matter, and he offered to work with county officials on a nuisance-abatement ordinance.

If, as Flannery says, no one listened before, county officials should lend him their ears now. The information he has could prove useful if the county is to do anything about cleaning up trash, and the county hasn't done anything toward that end yet.