Municipal Cooperation Needed on Illegal Dumping in Parks

Illegal dumping in county parks. Photos by Milwaukee County Parks.

Milwaukee County Sup. Shawn Rolland recently proposed raising the fine for illegal dumping in county parks to $5,000. Now some of his colleagues think it should be higher, but they’ll likely need cooperation from the county’s 19 municipalities, including the City of Milwaukee and 18 suburbs.

During a meeting of the board’s Committee on Parks and Culture, supervisors considered pushing the increase further, to $10,000. Sup. Sheldon Wasserman, chair of the committee, suggested the higher fine because he thought $5,000 still wouldn’t be enough to deter some of the larger companies — like local contractors or landlords — from dumping in the parks.

But raising the fine further wasn’t the only concern supervisors had Tuesday. Like many things the county engages in, there are authorities — legally speaking — that supersede them. In this case, the state statute that allows the county to impose such a fine also grants municipalities precedence when setting them.

The county could write someone a $10,000 ticket for illegal dumping, but that ticket could be challenged if the local municipal ordinance sets the fine lower, Assistant Corporation Cousnel James Davies told supervisors.

Rolland’s original proposal sought to make the county’s new fine $5,000. This would bring it in line with the City of Milwaukee. But a $10,000 fine might mean residents of the city could successfully challenge their ticket.

The ordinance could be written to set the ordinance at no less than $1,000 and no more than $10,000, Davies said. The ability to apply discretion in the fine would mean a contractor dumping loads of debris would not pay the same fine as an individual dumping their old couch in the park.

“An ordinance like this would be unlikely to be challenged,” Davies said.

Rolland told his colleagues on the committee that he would support amendments to his resolution creating a sliding scale for the fines, but said he thought the minimum fines should be set at $5,000.

Illegal dumping has been a problem in the parks system for many years, and it has proven challenging to address. With 15,000 acres of parkland, the understaffed parks department is not able to police and prevent such dumping.

Currently, the fine for dumping in a park is $200. The point of raising the fine is to make it financially painful for dumpers that are caught, potentially deterring future dumping. Parks and supervisors are primarily concerned with large-scale dumping.

“Again, there’s a difference between littering and illegal dumping, where the severity of what we’re talking about here is significant,” Rolland said.

Sup. Steve Taylor suggested supervisors would likely find support among the local municipalities for working collaboratively on dumping fines across the county.

“I think this is where we need to work with our local elected officials in every municipality to get on the same page on how to prevent this because, nobody is winning except for the lazy people that are dumping this crap,” Taylor said.

Acting County Corporation Counsel Scott Brown told supervisors his office would provide a more comprehensive report on potential fine increases and the controlling state statutes at a later date, and the committee voted to hold onto the resolution until then.

Supervisors will hear the report in September as the board does not meet in August.