Training began this week for the City-Parish workers who will enforce Mayor-President Melvin “Kip” Holden’s new program to crack down on litter and blight.

The 15 workers are learning how to handle new special cameras to document blighted property, and how to input the images into a new computer system that will generate warning letters and hearing notices for the responsible property owners.

As part of the training process, City-Parish officials plan to hold a mock litter court on Tuesday, July 22 beginning at 1 p.m. in the Metro Council Chambers on the third floor of the Governmental Building. Inspectors will present photos of alleged litter- and blight-related violations to a hearing officer as sort of a dry run. The new enforcement program officially kicks off on August 1, and the first "real" Litter Court session is slated for September 17th.

Litter and blight were some of the biggest concerns that East Baton Rouge residents registered during the Mayor's listening tour earlier this year. As a result, the Mayor's office has put together a new enforcement program with a tough new ordinance and the high-tech services of American Traffic Solutions, the company under contract to operate the City-Parish’s red-light monitoring system.

ATS already uses video from cameras posted at key intersections to generate violation notices for the owners of vehicles that illegally run red lights. Under the new program, ATS will use photos taken by City-Parish workers to create violation letters and administrative hearing notices. The photos will be taken by special cameras that will display the GPS coordinates to verify the location of the violation and a time-stamp to show when the photo was taken.