The city has cited its first illegal dumping violator in a renewed crackdown on unsightly piles of garbage that appear at Moffett Road’s curbside and in other areas of the city.

A group of citizens appeared before the Ceres City Council on Jan. 14 to urge the city to do something about discarded items being dumped in front of The Parks gated community. The complex is located on Moffett Road north of Mae Hensley Junior High School and down the street from duplex units.

Marlin Sena told the City Council last week that in the two weeks between meetings there were two more trash piles that appeared. The city code enforcement officer investigated and found an discarded letter tracing one of the piles back to a resident of The Parks. Sena said the person would be called before the homeowners association for a hearing to “determine if we need to fine or whatever it takes to stop that.”

City Manager Toby Wells told Sena that the second person responsible for the second dump pile was identified and confronted by the city. The violator was from a resident around the corner on Glasgow Drive and made to clean up the mess left on Moffett. The second pile had been picked up before the Jan. 28 council meeting.

“Hopefully it’ll stay like that,” Sena told the council.

As a follow-up to the suggestion on Jan. 14 that the Parks homeowners association install surveillance cameras in an effort to halt the problem, Sena said his group doesn’t feel it should pay for cameras when the problem is occurring outside the fence on city property. Sena asked if the city would cover half the cost of cameras but Mayor Chris Vierra said the city cannot afford to start a precedent.

“It’s kind of hard to ask somebody on the east side or west side of town to pay for just in front of your area so I hope you do understand that,” said Vierra.

The mayor said the city was making progress and “hopefully we’ll get this under control.”