Prattville residents say code enforcement removed property without warning, billed cleanup

Multiple Prattville residents pressed the City Council Tuesday evening over what they said was code enforcement gone too far, after city crews removed property from private homes without, they said, clear warning and then billed them for the cleanup. For Lori Herring, a Prattville resident and board member with Eagle Forum of Alabama, the dispute centered on a $560 bill and a back porch she said was never mentioned in the city’s notice.

Herring told council members that the city first contacted her about a car parked in her driveway and left a packet on her front door. After her son towed the car, she said a code enforcement officer came by to confirm it was gone, and she believed the matter had ended. Several weeks later, she said, city workers returned and removed items from the back porch area of her home. Because the yard was fenced, she said the porch and backyard were not visible from the street. She said the items included antiques, cake-decorating equipment she uses for family and friends, belongings from her late father and newer items she had bought while organizing the space.

Herring said the notice she received referenced the car but never mentioned the porch contents, and she argued that she was never told the items would be treated as rubbish or taken before the council. Mayor Bill Gillespie Jr. said the city believed notice had been provided, but the council appeared to acknowledge at least tentatively that the written notice did not mention the porch belongings.

The dispute sits inside a broader enforcement system already on the books in Prattville. The city says its code enforcement inspector is responsible for enforcing ordinances passed by the council that abate nuisances affecting health, safety and welfare. An ordinance adopted April 2, 2024, and approved by Gillespie Jr. and Council President Lora Lee Boone, amended Chapter 46, Section 46-4, to make it unlawful to keep garbage, rubbish, waste, offensive materials or other refuse in a way that becomes offensive or harmful to health or likely to cause disease. It also authorizes code enforcement inspection of premises. The ordinance carves out an exception for materials stacked neatly off the ground and actively used in an ongoing construction, remodeling or rebuilding project.

Prattville’s sanitation rules, tightened again when amended solid-waste ordinances passed Oct. 1, 2024, distinguish between bulk waste and rubbish. Bulk waste includes large appliances, mattresses, furniture, bicycles, do-it-yourself construction debris and other bulky items. Curbside pickup of excess trash or bulky items requires a fee, paid in advance and scheduled through the Sanitation Department. The city’s code also says certain violations can carry fines from $1 to $500, plus possible imprisonment or hard labor of up to six months.

Prattville has used nuisance abatements before, with council resolutions authorizing the city to clear overgrown grass, weeds, garbage and rubbish at private properties and charge the costs back to owners. That makes Herring’s case more than a single cleanup dispute: it is a test of how the city warns residents, what it can remove, and how far its billing authority reaches once code enforcement decides a property is a nuisance.