T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Shadyside mayor Mike Meintel announced the Don Wilson Best Front Yard Award competition in hopes to have residents take pride in their properties.

SHADYSIDE — The village is looking to reward the resident with the nicest front yard.

Last month, council passed a nuisance property ordinance in an effort to clean up the village.

During Monday’s village council meeting, Mayor Mike Meintel announced the Don Wilson Best Front Yard Award competition in hopes of encouraging residents to take pride in their properties.

“It’s about taking pride in your front yard. We used to come through Shadyside back in the day, and it was beautiful. The front yards were beautiful. So that’s what we’re trying to get back to,” Meintel said.

During the last week of April, Meintel and two council members will drive around the village to determine the winner. The winner will receive the Don Wilson Best Front Yard Award plaque, which was made by incarcerated individuals at Belmont Correctional Institution.

He added that April is not the only opportunity to win the award. Six monthly competitions spanning April through September will recognize the best yard each month with a plaque.

Meintel said the award is named after resident Don Wilson, who has died. He said that when Wilson was alive, his yard was immaculate, so he thought it would be an appropriate way to honor his friend.

Council member John Longwell said he has received numerous compliments about the recently adopted ordinance.

“There are many properties that have already cleaned up, which I want to thank the owners of properties that have already complied,” Longwell said. “There are many properties that haven’t even got a letter yet that are cleaning up. And if you look at social media, you’ll see how busy the junk dealers have been every day, which is good to see. I rode around with different folks here at the table, and there’s a couple of times where I just took a deep breath and thought, man, this is bigger than what I thought. There’s that many properties that we find, especially in the back alleys and such, but we’re going to get there. And again, I want to thank all the property owners that are complying so far.”

He added that the first round of letters informing property owners of violations went out a month ago.

If a resident receives a letter from the village and does not comply within 10 days, a $100-per-day fine will be imposed until the property is cleaned up.

“Residents are very thankful, especially neighbors. [Code enforcer] Joe [Klug] and I have been out for hours riding around. There was one gentleman in a narrow alley, and he came out to take his trash out, and we were taking pictures of another property, and he just said, ‘Thank you for what you guys are doing.’ We also saw some other properties were getting cleaned up,” Longwell said.

Meintel then said it has been brought to his attention by numerous residents that older children and teens are causing trouble through fighting or cursing at Noah’s Playground.

“We’ve been getting several complaints over there from parents. In the old days, when the courts were open, it was just teenage boys and teenage girls over there playing. What happened on the playground stayed on the playground, but now you get another dynamic where you have young kids with their parents now that are there so things that happen on the playground, parents are taking issues with the cursing in front of the kids, and etc.,” Meintel said. “We had one kid threatening to shoot other kids. We had a fight where a 17-year-old pushed an 11-year-old. So we’re taking action and just getting back to old-fashioned policing, where our police officers are going to be present there a couple times a shift.”

He added that the decision to increase police presence at the playground is not meant to instill fear but the opposite.

“If you ever look at old-fashioned policing, the police officers used to walk the beat. They knew everybody in the community. But in this day and age, a lot of kids are scared of police officers because of what you see in the big cities and things like that,” Meintel said. “This here just helps us to establish relationships with the youth in this village and the residents in this village. That’s how you get things done.”

He added that he does not want to create a police state but to build relationships and make the village safer for everyone in the community.