11/24/03  Code Enforcement Scandal

What a shocker that some Code Enforcement Department inspectors are fudging on their work!

If you haven't checked it out yet, Dylan Cave has a great new web site, www.isthisdallas.com.  He will be posting pictures of stuff you and I see daily, but just doesn't register on the people who are in charge of maintaining our city.

During the council campaign when I was in vain trudging through District 6 neighborhoods, a lack of code enforcement was the NUMBER 1 concern of most people I met.  Whether it in was my Walnut Hill neighborhood or Arcadia Park or the neighborhoods just North of Ft. Worth Ave., people are fed up with the lack of code enforcement or unfair and uneven enforcement.

In Arcadia Park, a couple told me a Code Enforcement inspector lives in their area who had a rubber tarp over his un-repaired roof.  They rightly asserted they could not get away with doing the same thing at their house.  They also showed me where another city employee lived who had several cars in his yard and on the street at all times because he runs a used car dealership from his home.  When anyone complained to the city about either City Hall worker's non-compliance, that person suddenly became the focus of very strict code enforcement scrutiny.

During the council campaign, a homeowner on a street in my neighborhood called to tell me about her problem with a house across her alley where they had people living in an unfinished storage shed behind the primary residence.  There were wires running from the house to the shed that was clearly a fire hazard.  She was equally concerned about the number of people she saw coming and going.  But, she was more concerned about what's happening to our single family neighborhood.

Many of our single family homes are being used like apartment houses.  Frequently, 4 or 5 pickup trucks or other vehicles are parked in front of those houses.  Of course, some of those 4 or 5 trucks wind up in front of other people's homes.  Some streets are so clogged with cars parked on either side, I don't know if a fire truck could even get through.  Two cars cannot drive down the street simultaneously from opposite directions without one pulling over to let the other pass.

Sound like your neighborhood? 

When my neighbor called Code Enforcement to report what she was witnessing, she was pretty much warned that bad things sometimes happen to nosey people.

Another neighbor on my street reported a code enforcement inspector sleeping in a car in the alley for several hours on several different days.  He, too, got a veiled threat from the Code Enforcement staff person he talked with who flatly denied my neighbor could be telling the truth.  Just a few weeks later, the inspector for our area started ticketing the neighbor for all sorts of violations -- like high grass in the alley outside his fence and even gave him a ticket for having pecan tree branches stacked inside the back yard fence. 

You can't see over a 6 ft high fence from the alley to observe anything stacked inside someone's back yard. 

I mentioned this story to another code inspector who called about something she had read on DallasArena.com.  She was appalled and said inspectors are not allowed to climb up on the side of their car or truck or scale a fence to look into someone's yard.  She said there might be an exception in the case of some foul odor or a specific complaint from a neighbor, but certainly not for a stack of pecan tree limbs.  We both wondered how that could be different from stacking fire wood.  My neighbor saved the pecan tree branches for outdoor cooking.

No doubt you have a dozen or so of your own experiences.  If you live in one part of East Dallas, you might be thinking about rental properties belonging to an elected official.  If one of his political cronies on the council were not protecting him, any one of those dumps would be condemned and cited as unfit for human habitation 

Anyone driving through the city knows there is a problem.

Just from your car window, there are visible violations at many apartment complexes.  Unfinished paint jobs, broken windows, torn or non-existent window coverings.  God knows what else is wrong on the inside!  The inspector assigned to that area should know -- but either doesn't bother inspecting or ignores the problem.  Whether the neglect is out of laziness or payoff, the negative consequence to nearby single-family neighborhoods is the same.

Roxan and Randy Staff stay after City Hall about non-complying businesses in the Bachman-NW Highway area.  There are scores of businesses with one type of permit to do business from the city but operating something else.  Sometimes they are doing what their certificate of occupancy (CO) permits, but operating another type of business for which they have no permit, as well.  Randy recently submitted a list of problem businesses to Councilman Salazar and the Mayor.  Our new manager for this area got a very thorough report back to them, but there was a problem with the response relating to some specific businesses.

Rather than inspect the businesses to confirm about the non-complying uses, the inspector focused on TABC license matters.  Regardless of their status with the TABC, if a business owner has a permit for a restaurant but is operating a dance hall, that is an ILLEGAL OPERATION. 

We have a sex swap club with a license for a dance hall operating within 1000 feet of another sex club on Composite (just South of Walnut Hill).  That club would not qualify for a Sexually Oriented Business license at that site because City Code prohibits sex clubs from being within 1000 feet of another.  Someone forgot to tell Le Barre and those several other sex clubs on NW Highway West of Stemmons about the 1000 feet rule.  Apparently, the building inspector nor Code Enforcement know about the rule either.

Code Enforcement -- the lack of it and even false reports and charges by inspectors -- is just symptomatic of what's wrong in this town.

It started in the 80's, during the days of former councilman Craig Holcomb, councilwoman Diane Ragsdale and that convicted and confessed bribe taker Al "Lemna" Lipscomb.  A bunch of Holcomb's friends in East Dallas wanted Code Enforcement to leave them and their old houses in East Dallas alone.  Diane Ragsdale demanded and got a moratorium on housing demolition by Urban Rehabilitation because a bunch of her friends were losing their slum rent properties to the city's wrecking ball.  The houses were barely standing and were in such disrepair that it would have cost less to rebuild them than to fix them.

Abandoned, dilapidated houses are killers for poor neighborhoods.

Just like the smoke and mirror budgets of the 80's that moved street and infrastructure repair and maintenance out of the budget into bond projects, the damage done to both Code Enforcement and Urban Rehabilitation Departments is just killing us today.

It's very frustrating to watch the Mayor out there chasing those big ticket deals, when we elected her because she promised smooth streets, green parks and fair pay for our police and firefighters.  Still, you can hardly blame her for switching her focus. 

Finding a place to house the street bums, raising over $100 million to throw at the Trinity Bondoogle or even funding a stadium for Grandpa Jones and his hoodlum team members must seem very possible as compared to righting the sinking ship that is City Hall.

A friend of mine says Mayor Miller's just re-arranging the chairs on the Titanic.
 

For that matter, is the County Treasurer or the Appraisal District paying attention?  These churches have a lot of land and property not taxed by our local taxing entities.  This might just be where we find the $$ to balance the budget.
 

	Preachers are supposed to teach young people the difference between right and wrong to discourage them from doing wrong.
	Preachers are not supposed to teach their congregation how to violate tax laws, both federal and local.

So, here we go into the holiday season.  We are supposed to be feeling thankful and loving toward our fellow man.  Well, here goes!

I am very thankful we have a new Director of Code Enforcement who actually expects her staff to do their job and to do it honestly and fairly.

I am very thankful that a bunch of preachers who exploit their positions for political power have exposed themselves as tax evaders and frauds.

I am very hopeful that not too long after the first of the year, more heads at City Hall will roll.

Have you got some hopes and thanks?