Dennis Duross holds the Lexington, KY, city council and administration in as high regard as I do the Manteca, CA, city council and administration. On his blog, Pigs in the Parlor, he reports on the November 24th Lexington planning commission meeting in which the item of rental licensing and housing code enforcement is briefly discussed and happily deep-sixed by a quorum (after taking a couple passes at the proper rules of order.)
Here is Lexington's administration's squirrely assessment of their code enforcement limitations. Note their craven excuses and the simpering, insouciant, quibbling that citizens aren't following the laws the council adopted for them. After avowing that pro-active enforcement is impossible, they proceed to impeach their own fall back "Plan B."
"Selective Enforcement:
Because our inspections are carried out by a limited number of inspectors and without charge, there’s no way for enforcement efforts to grow as problems grow."
"Voluntary Compliance:
... our safety [ed. or zoning] laws may as well not exist at all. In other words, our laws can be subverted by the very people that those laws intend to hold accountable..."
Duh! Does any of this sound familiar? These self-condemning words are almost verbatim those that have issued from spokesmouths and meetings in the City of Manteca. As the Lexington observer put it, "Who writes this crap in the first place? Do we or do we not have a Law Department in this city? Ditto Planning?"
A paraphrase befitting Manteca would read, "Do we, or do we not, have a competent City Attorney? Ditto a potent Director of Community Development with cease and desist powers for unpermitted land uses? And what of those *&M$ in code enforcement?!"
I believe, sadly, that incompetence and impotence inundate Manteca's police, code enforcement, community development, and legal departments.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Sadly we have too many incompetent idiots in office and they affect those in the administration who do the work.
Willie is out of ideas and he along with all the other council members tend to take all the best ideas of those running against them every election and then make a very public noticeable declaration during council meetings, "hey everyone! look what I have come up with, let's find out more about it because I thought of it." Be careful what you print, they will steal it.
Ben Cantu is acting like a socialist and tax and spend liberal and wants to bring welfare housing to this city and have us pay for it. These two don't have my vote and many others I'm sure.
There's only one person I know of who will get the job done and he's been running several times, God bless him for his non-ending attack. The real problem is the citizens who seem to be dumb-asses and do nothing but complain and never get behind any good candidate.
You and Samuel Anderson will be good on this council and for our city. It's time to end more than 8 years a piece on the council.
I have noticed the public self-adulation in many city council meetings. It really does not matter to me WHERE the good ideas come from. If incumbents "steal" good ideas and turn them into effective ACTIONS, then the public debate accomplished the goal of good governance (probability less than 5%.) Of course, you and I both know that personnel turnover is almost always required to effect a change in policy direction (probability greater than 95%.)
Post a Comment