Italy's Cleanup Day Locked Families Inside Upchurch Fields. The City Says "No Comment."

On March 14, 2026, the City of Italy held its annual cleanup day at Upchurch Fields, the only real public park in town. The Upchurch family donated the land to the city. For more than a decade, it has been the place where Italy holds National Night Out, Easter egg hunts, IYAA baseball and softball seasons, benefit concerts, and fireworks shows. It is where parents take their kids on weekends. It is the closest thing Italy has to a town square that is not a parking lot.

The cleanup day was scheduled from 8:00 AM until noon. Dumpsters were brought in for residents to use. The flyer, which I have obtained, required a current city water bill and a matching photo ID. Only one truck load per household was allowed. The flyer stated in red text that residents were required to help unload their own vehicle. These are the same residency requirements the city used for cleanup days at Upchurch in 2016. They are reasonable rules. They exist to make sure the dumpsters serve the people who pay for them.

According to residents who were there that morning, the dumpsters were full by mid-morning. The event continued anyway.

What happened over the next several hours is the subject of six interviews I conducted with eyewitnesses, a sitting council member, and on-record community sources. I also received a written response from Mayor Clinton Sulak-Tovar, a blanket "no comment" from City Administrator Keith Whitfield, and more than two weeks of silence from former Mayor Bryant Cockran. I have been sitting on this story since mid-March because other Italy issues demanded immediate attention, including a call to TCEQ about a chemical named BiCARBUS connected to the city's water supply without council approval and a city official reading a false timeline into the public record about a failing Public Works Building. Those stories have been published. This one has been waiting its turn, and the facts have not changed.

A Birthday Party, a Locked Gate, and a Disabled Grandmother

After the cleanup ended, the city locked the gate to Upchurch Fields. A text notification sent to residents said the park would be "closed after 1:00 Sat, Mar 14th and reopening Tues, Mar 17th." That closure covered Saturday afternoon, all of Sunday, and all of Monday. It was spring break weekend.

A resident who lives near the park with clear visibility of the field was at Upchurch that afternoon with his family for a birthday party. A city worker told him that someone would come back at 6:00 PM to unlock the gate so they could leave. That is not what happened. The gate stayed locked. The worker never returned.

The resident's family had an elderly woman with them on a mobility scooter. She could not get out. They had to push her through rough terrain and grass around the fence to reach their vehicle. The resident carried his grill all the way around the park and lifted it over the fence to get it into his truck. He hauled about twenty chairs out the same way.

When I met this resident at the park the following Sunday to discuss the situation, I could still see the tracks in the grass where they had pushed the scooter. I took a video, which is in my possession.

While the gate was locked, a thirteen-year-old child fell from the playground equipment, landed on her back, and had the wind knocked out of her. She was not seriously injured. But the resident raised a point that stuck with me: what if she had been? What if an ambulance needed to get through that gate?

"The thing that angered me was locking that gate with people in there and saying we'll be back and never came back," Karen Maida told me on the record. "The woman basically is disabled."

Council Member Raymond Mosley, now in his fourth term, arrived at Upchurch around 6:15 to 6:30 that evening. A friend had called him and told him the gate was locked. When Raymond got there, he saw the birthday party group, about six or seven young people, walking along the curve of the walking trail toward wherever their cars were parked. They were already packing up. Baseball families had parked at the Catholic church and carried their equipment across to the field. The trash can at the park was full. The birthday party group had tied their trash in a bag and left it next to the can because there was nowhere else to put it.

I asked Raymond on the record whether the cleanup day situation had been discussed at the council level. It had not. He was unaware that the Mayor did not know about the incidents either. The council and the Mayor were operating in silos.

What Was Left Behind

After the cleanup day ended, a resident described seeing a dozer used to smash debris down into the dumpsters. A pile of scrap was left behind on the ground, and the area had not yet been graded. He described nails and boards left in the ground as a hazard for anyone walking barefoot or playing on the field. Italy hosts visiting baseball teams at Upchurch. Those teams would arrive to find debris on the ground and no working bathrooms.

The city eventually borrowed a magnetic nail roller from the lumberyard next door and swept the area on Monday. According to Jose, the city's Public Works employee, the remaining debris was picked up Monday around 11:00 AM. The park was cleaned up and reopened that same day, one day ahead of the posted Tuesday schedule, after public pressure mounted on social media and the resident contacted a Texas Parks and Wildlife warden in Ellis County.

The resident posted about the situation on the Italy Talk Facebook page on March 15. The thread drew significant community engagement. Multiple people confirmed the mess, the locked gate, and the spring break timing. He followed up on March 16 with a post noting that he had coached IYAA and mowed Upchurch field himself, that this year's cleanup was worse than last year, and that the community response had shifted in his favor. "The park was supposed to be closed until now," he wrote. "I stretched my neck out there to get chopped off. Thank you."

"At this point, I don't trust the city to do the right thing," Karen Maida told me. "Now you can quote me on that."

Who Got In and Who Did Not

A resident who lives near the park observed the morning traffic from his home. What they saw was the gate access in the final minutes before noon.

Around 11:40 AM, about twenty minutes before the event was scheduled to end, another resident in a green pickup truck pulled up. Becky Boyd, a city employee who was allegedly standing out at the road controlling access, told him no. The green truck left.

Then, from the opposite direction, a truck allegedly bearing Bryant Cockran's AC company name pulled in. Becky Boyd did not stop it. She waved it right through.

I want to be clear about something. A lot of people in small towns use their company truck as their only vehicle. Showing up in a truck with a business name on it does not mean the load was commercial waste. I am not implying that. I am reporting what was described to me by the people who were there.

Jose, the city's Public Works employee, gave a consistent account. Speaking to Council Member Raymond Mosley, Jose said that after one person was turned away, "the ex-mayor pulled up." According to Jose, Cockran told the workers they had to take whatever was brought before noon, and that the city would get another dumpster and pick it up later. Jose said this was what staff had been told the previous year and the year before. So they let Cockran in and he dumped his things.

Both accounts agree on the central fact: a resident in a green truck was turned away, and shortly after, Cockran was let in without being stopped.

Where the accounts diverge is on what was in the load. One commenter in the Facebook thread reported that her husband saw "trailers full of job trash" including AC units being dumped, and that he waited 45 minutes while they were unloaded. Jose denied that Cockran brought AC units. Jose said one person put a single window unit in a dumpster but that workers caught it and removed it. No photographs of any load exist. I do not know what was in the load, and I am not going to guess.

What I can report is this: the 2026 cleanup day flyer lists seven categories of prohibited items. Tires, oils, freon, propane, wet paints, flat panel and plasma TVs, and hazardous materials. Air conditioning units are not named on the 2026 list. They were explicitly named on the 2016 list and on the 2012 convenience station list. The prohibited items list got shorter between 2016 and 2026. Whether that was deliberate or someone just made a shorter flyer, I do not know. But AC units contain freon, which is on the 2026 list. The historical record shows the city has prohibited AC units at disposal events for at least a decade.

I texted Cockran on March 19 at 9:42 AM. I wrote: "Did you talk to becky about unlocking the gate on the cleanup day? I was told someone got turned away right before you but then she let you in." The message was marked as read immediately. As of today, more than two weeks later, he has not replied.

The Rules on Paper vs. the Rules on the Ground

The cleanup day flyer states three requirements that matter here. First, a current city water bill and photo ID. Second, one truck load per resident. Third, residents are required to help unload their own vehicle.

These are residency requirements. They exist to make sure the dumpsters serve the people who pay for them. The city has been running cleanup days with these rules for at least a decade. Chris Enriquez said that people without a city water bill were turned away at the event.

Cockran is an Italy resident. He may well have been using his company truck to haul personal household waste, which is common in a small town. I am not claiming otherwise. But according to Jose's account through Raymond Mosley, Cockran gave instructions to city workers about what to accept. The flyer says residents must help unload their own vehicle. It does not say residents can direct city workers to handle decisions about what to accept.

The question I keep coming back to is simpler than who had what in their truck. It is about who gets told no and who does not. A resident in a green pickup was turned away. Shortly after, a former mayor was waved through. The people working the gate that morning were city employees. One of them, according to Jose's own account, took instructions from the former mayor about what to accept. That is what was reported to me by two independent sources.

Who Was in Charge?

I emailed Mayor Clinton Sulak-Tovar on March 18 with eight questions about the cleanup day. He responded within 36 minutes. He told me he was not present that day. He was at Trade Days from 8:30 AM until about 3:00 PM, then delivering bakery cakes until about 5:00 PM. When I asked about the trash left behind, the gate not being unlocked, the disabled woman trapped inside, the company truck being given preferential access, and the debris not being cleared, his response to all five of those questions was the same: he was "unaware" of the incidents.

When I asked who currently maintains Upchurch Fields, he said he would have to look into it. He said he personally picks up trash when he walks there. He was open to the idea of monthly bulk pickup as an alternative to cleanup days: "that does seem like it would be a good idea to look into."

I emailed Keith Whitfield, the City Administrator, the same evening with six questions. He was out of town. On March 25, his first day back, he responded at 9:23 AM with five words: "No comment on any item."

That response covered every question I asked. Who was in charge of cleanup day logistics. Who made the decision to lock the gate. Whether he was aware a disabled resident was trapped inside. Who decides which vehicles are allowed in and which are turned away. Whether the city has a maintenance plan for Upchurch Fields. Whether the city considered using the debris storage area behind city hall instead of the park.

No comment on any item.

If that phrasing sounds familiar, it should. On March 26, one day after his cleanup day response, I called Keith to ask about a chemical treatment system, BiCARBUS, that had been connected to Italy's water supply without council approval. His response on that call, which I recorded: "I'm not going to discuss it, Ron." I called TCEQ the next day to ask whether what I was seeing was a legitimate concern. They told me it was. They opened a complaint on their own based on what I described. On April 5, I published an article documenting three primary-source admissions that contradict a timeline Keith read to the council about the Public Works Building. Keith did not prepare that timeline himself. He asked City Secretary Amber Cunningham to put it together for him.

Three different issues. Three refusals to engage. The Mayor says he was not there. The City Administrator says no comment. The former mayor reads the text and goes silent. Nobody was in charge, nobody is responsible, and nobody wants to talk about it.

A Park That Volunteers Built

Upchurch Fields was donated to the city by the Upchurch family. In 2012, the city council dissolved the Italy Parks Commission and created the Italy Parks Board under Ordinance 12-0409-01, placing Upchurch Field under formal city governance alongside Gorman Park, George Scott Memorial Park, and Children's Memorial Park. The city accepted legal responsibility for maintaining the park.

In 2013, the Italy Economic Development Corporation invested more than $44,000 in public sales tax funds to build a concrete walking trail at Upchurch, about half a mile long and seven feet wide. Gerdau Steel donated materials. The Hyles family provided volunteer labor. Mayor James Hobbs and IYAA president Charles Hyles dedicated the trail on November 20, 2013. Former IYAA president and Planning and Zoning commissioner John Droll put it simply in a 2014 candidate questionnaire: "There were many folks who made Upchurch Field what it is. And let's not forget the Upchurch family who made it possible."

Since then, the park has been maintained largely by the people who use it. IYAA parents mowed the fields, welded bleachers, and repaired dugout benches. In 2017, the EDC organized a community volunteer work day at Upchurch because the normal city operations were not keeping up. The volunteers were asked to bring tools for dirt work, power washing, and painting.

Karen Maida documented the same maintenance problem in September 2014, writing under her married name, Karen Mathiowetz, in her "Karen's Korner" column for the Italy Neotribune. She described an open hole at Upchurch adjacent to the walking trail and called it "a serious accident waiting to happen for a child." She asked a question that is still relevant twelve years later: "Can we expect our citizens to obey the ordinances when our city does not?"

The same woman, the same park, the same complaint, twelve years apart.

When I asked the Mayor who maintains Upchurch Fields today, he did not know. He said he picks up trash when he walks there. When I asked Keith Whitfield whether the city has a maintenance plan or assigned staff for the park, he said no comment.

I was also told by residents that the bathrooms at Upchurch have not had reliable access. The Mayor said he believes the restrooms are "functional, but not sure if they are always unlocked." A restroom that is functional but locked is not functional for the people who need to use it. Italy hosts visiting baseball teams from other cities at Upchurch. Those teams arrive to find no working bathrooms and, on the weekend of March 14, trash and debris on the ground.

The city invested public money in this park. It accepted governance responsibility by ordinance. The families who use it maintain it themselves. The city held a cleanup day there, left their trash on the ground, locked the gate with people still inside, and closed the park for the rest of spring break weekend. A disabled woman had to be pushed through rough terrain to get out. Then nobody in city leadership could explain who was in charge or what went wrong.

A Better Way

Multiple residents I spoke with raised the same alternative: monthly bulk pickup service. Quentin Little raised it in the Facebook thread. Karen Maida raised it in her interview. The Mayor said it seemed like "a good idea to look into."

Monthly bulk pickup is not a new concept. When Access Disposal held the city's trash contract in 2017, the agreement already included bulky item pickup by appointment. Residents could call Access directly to arrange collection of large items like couches and tree limbs. The annual cleanup day with dumpsters at the park was not the only option then, and it does not have to be the only option now.

What This Comes Down To

A family went to a public park for a birthday party on a Saturday afternoon during spring break. The city locked them inside. A disabled woman on a mobility scooter had to be pushed through the grass to get out. A thirteen-year-old child fell from playground equipment while the gate was locked, and if that fall had been worse, an ambulance could not have reached her. The city left significant trash on the ground and closed the park for the weekend.

Meanwhile, at the same event that morning, a resident in a green truck was turned away while a former mayor was waved through. The city worker who controlled the gate took instructions from the former mayor about what loads to accept. Nobody in city leadership knew about any of it, or if they did, nobody would say so.

The Mayor was not there. The City Administrator said no comment. The former mayor read my text and never replied.

I have asked every person I can think of to ask. The residents talked to me. The officials did not. That is the story.