Code Enforcement & Neighborhood Improvement
In neighborhoods all across the city, there are similar stories. A few properties are causing trouble for the rest. For those trouble making properties, a Drazen administration will be trouble.
Each time a police car is dispatched to a particular address, that address is logged in. Upon taking office Mayor Drazen will have the Police Department compile a list of the top 100 properties to which cars have been dispatched in the last year. That list will then be delivered to Code Enforcement, and the Fire Inspector, with directions to give those properties immediate special attention.
If any violations are found, those property owners, whether they occupy, or are absentee, will be held accountable to the fullest extent possible in Housing Court. That way, they will either change the way they operate their properties, or face heavy fines, legal expense, or even jail time, and/or loss of their property.
There will be two principal benefits of such a policy. First, it will tend to ease the burden these problem properties place on our limited law enforcement resources. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it will raise morale of people in the surrounding properties.
Why is that important? People have worked, saved and dreamed, and put those things into their home. To watch that work, savings and those dreams go up in smoke, because problem neighboring properties are destroying value and quiet enjoyment, may be the worst thing a homeowner can face.
Such demoralization adversely affects the whole city, because demoralized homeowners are much less likely to want to improve their properties. That not only hurts the neighborhood’s appearance and quality of life, it has more far reaching consequences for the city overall. By state law, the city’s ability to tax and bond is tied directly to total assessed value, and when properties are not being improved, that limits the city’s options regarding capital projects with citywide benefit, and all its finances.
On the other hand, when people see that problem property owners are being held accountable, and they feel that they have the support of the political leadership, and they believe it understands what they face, morale is lifted. That creates opportunity for the opposite of neighborhood decay to arise. Such opportunities are exactly what is needed to get headed in the right direction in the immediate neighborhood of these problem properties, and the city as a whole.
So what would happen after the top 100 list was through? The next 100 would be compiled, and then get the special attention they deserve from Code Enforcement and the Fire Inspector.
