SAN ANTONIO – It wasn’t her mess, but an East Side retiree said the City of San Antonio told her the dozens of illegally dumped truck tires were still her responsibility to clean up.
But after talking with KSAT, the problem was gone within a matter of hours.
Rita Cordova, 71, doesn’t know when the tires were left in the alley behind her home in the 4900 block of Brenham Drive, but the bright pink notice city code enforcement left on her door was dated Nov. 4.
It warned that alleys must be kept clean and unobstructed, and if Cordova didn’t comply, she would be given an administrative hearing citation and summoned to appear in Municipal Court. A city contractor would clean the alley, the notice said, when Cordova assessed the fees for the abatement.
“I’m just hoping this problem can be resolved without having to go to court,” Cordova said, gently clasping the notice in her fingertips, during a Friday morning interview.
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As mosquitoes buzzed around the water-filled tires, Cordova said she had called 311 and the code enforcement officer whose number was on the violation.
“They said basically the same thing, that from our fence to the middle of the alley, it’s our responsibility to pick up any debris or trash or whatever,” she said of her call with the officer.
Cordova said she tried to explain she hadn’t put the tires there, and she didn’t have the means to remove them.
“‘It doesn’t matter, you’re going to be fined if you don’t get rid of them some way,’” Cordova says she was told.
Cordova said she asked a junk removal company for a quote to remove the tires and was told it would be $40 per tire. KSAT counted 53 tires, most of them large, truck tires, meaning it would cost more than $2,100.
“I don’t have the money,” she said.
KSAT tried to help get rid of at least four tires, loading them into a pickup. But even disposing of those wasn’t straightforward.
At the city’s bulky waste collection site on Rigsby Avenue, less than two miles from Cordova’s Dellview home, staff said they only took car tires. Even then, customers can only bring six at a time.
A tire recycling company outside the city limits agreed to take the four tires free of charge, but said Cordova would need to call their sales representative to get a price for picking up the rest.
As it turned out, Cordova later told KSAT she had called the company and been told it would be $125 per ton of tires, plus a pickup cost. Even that, she said, was too much to swing.
Shortly after KSAT unloaded the four tires, a spokesperson for the city’s Development Services Department, Ximena Copa-Wiggins, returned KSAT’s call.
From the city’s side, she said they don’t know who dumped trash in an alley, and confirmed “pretty much” the neighboring homeowner’s problem if someone illegally dumps a bunch of tires.
“Honestly, it sort of becomes the ‘he said, she said’ right?“ Copa-Wiggins said. ”Where like, you need to clean it; half of the alley is your responsibility, and that’s what the law says. That’s where we’re stuck. We can’t go after anyone; we can’t punish anyone, unless she had video of people actually dumping it, that’s the only way where action can be taken, right or wrong."
But after KSAT’s phone calls, things started to move.
Copa-Wiggins later confirmed the city would clear out the tires, without charging Cordova. By mid-afternoon Friday, the 71-year-old excitedly sent a picture of a clear alleyway.
“They’re all gone !!!” she texted.
Copa-Wiggins told KSAT they “always try to work with our customers and try to find a way to comply.”
If they don’t, drop us a line.
WATCH BELOW: KSAT helps resolve tire dumping issue outside woman’s home
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