SAN ANTONIO – A Bexar County judge on Thursday gave the owner of Ascent Recycling 20 days to clean up his mess.
Interim Director of the Development Services Department Michael Shannon said the city has been working with the Ascent property owner for over a year to get the company in compliance, due to all its health and safety violations, but that Ascent Recycling has not made a lot of progress.
"Unfortunately, the judge did not grant us our motion for contempt and penalties to the owner," Shannon said. "But the good thing is that the judge said that he has to be back in 20 days to keep trying to clean up the property."
Neighbors in the Government Hill area said they were disappointed with the judge's decision to give the property owner more time and that their elderly residents shouldn't have to deal with the rats, trash and dust, not to mention the fire hazard.
"I just felt that there were a lot of lies being told in there," said Rose Hill, president of the Government Hill Neighborhood Association. "Excuse after excuse and for every day that the property is not cleaned up, he's not taken into consideration all the rat infestation and the quality of life that these people would like to have in the neighborhood."
If the property owner is not in compliance in 20 days, Shannon said the judge could find him in contempt and penalize him.