 
Eric
Member
Username: Eric
Post Number: 982
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 11:23 am: |    |
It's about time city takes a harder line against these people and start to garnish wages.
Detroit finds blight fight hard to win
City prosecutes more cases, but collecting fines difficult
David Josar / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- A special agency created by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick nearly three years ago as part of his attack on blight has collected 18 percent of the $26 million in fines it has issued, and half of those who are ticketed don't even bother to show up for their hearings.
Furthermore, tickets for rundown property and illegal dumping sometimes are issued to the wrong people, who then have to fight City Hall to get the mistake corrected.
Nonetheless, supporters say, the Department of Administrative Hearings, commonly called blight court, is gaining on the problem of illegal dumping and dilapidated properties, and is far superior to the system in the old days, when code violators were taken to 36th District Court.
"In one day, we can go after as many people as it would take us an entire month in 36th District Court," said Amru Meah, the city's director of building and safety engineering, whose enforcement officers and inspectors write many of the tickets. "This gives us a powerful tool."
Ahmed Mohammed isn't convinced.
Mohammad was ticketed for overgrown weeds on his property on West Davison. Armed with photographs and copies of deeds, a frustrated Mohammed recently explained to the judge that the rundown property was his neighbor's -- not his. The judge looked at his documents, asked the enforcement officer a few questions she couldn't answer, and announced the case would be taken under advisement. A month later, it was dismissed.
At least Mohammed showed up. Of the 12 other people due in blight court that morning, eight never showed and default judgments worth $20,000 were entered against them. Of the four who did show, two of the tickets eventually were dismissed.
City vows to do better
No-shows, no-pays and misdirected tickets are common, according to Irvin Corey Jr., the City Council's fiscal analyst.
His report in May found that the blight court costs more to run than had been expected, but it collects less and has had a hard time retaining administrative hearing officers to act as judges, even at $400 a day.
Of the $26 million in fines levied since 2005, $4.67 million has been collected. Half of the people cited never respond to tickets; the 33,000 tickets written and processed each year are less than the original goal of 75,000.
Last year, the blight court overspent its $1.3 million budget by $435,000.
While the court levies fines, the city is responsible for collecting them, and it's promising to do better. For the first time in Detroit, Treasurer Jeffrey W. Beasley last week took action to garnish paychecks and seize assets of a dozen or so chronic violators -- most of them landlords -- who owe the city more than $10,000 each for unpaid tickets.
In the first week of November, the city sent demand letters to about 45,000 people who owe money. As a result, Beasley said, about 3,200 people have made arrangements to pay their fines. The amount of added revenue was not available last week.
The next step, also a new direction for the city, is to report the unpaid bills to credit rating agencies and eventually garnish wages and bank accounts.
"It's taken us some time, but we're getting to the point where if you have money you can pay us, we will get it," said Beasley. "Too long, people didn't think they had to pay because nothing would happen if they didn't."
The current low collection rate isn't a good measure of how well the Department of Administrative Hearings operates, Director Medina D. Noor said.
Ticket numbers up
"We are handling more tickets than before. That means we're getting to more people than ever before," she said. "Under the old system, most of these people would never even be cited for a hearing."
Noor concedes that tickets are regularly dismissed because, although enforcement officers have correct addresses, it can be uncertain who the true owners are, because property may change hands, and new deeds identifying the new owner may not be filed with the county.
Last year, Heather Hurley, a Wayne State University graduate student and downtown bartender, found herself, like Mohammed, on the wrong end of a blight court action.
Hurley bought a small home on Trumbull near the Woodbridge Historic District. She cleaned up the overgrown yard, perked up her front porch with a swing and plants and hung colorful curtains in the windows.
Then Hurley got hit with a $1,000 citation for blight.
"The process is mind-boggling," she said.
Hurley was ticketed for an abandoned boat and other debris that were on lots adjacent to her property. Although the citation was eventually dismissed, Hurley took off work to get the citation cleared up. "Nothing made any sense," she said.
Ironically, the properties with the overgrown weeds were city-owned, and after Hurley appeared in court, the city showed up to tidy up.
City officials note that despite its deficiencies, the blight court is a dramatically better way to handle property code violations than its predecessor, 36th District Court, was.
The district judge assigned to the city's code violations was able to hear a maximum of 800 a year, because criminal cases received priority.
Recent changes in state law allow the decision of a blight court judge to be enough to green-light the demolition of an abandoned building, instead of the lengthier process of public hearings that it replaced.
'The tool we could use'
"This is the tool we could use," said Meah of the Building and Safety Department.
Enforcement officer David Moore said he believes the court -- and his job -- are making a difference.
On a recent Thursday morning, Moore was patrolling in the 15000 block of Dexter in northeast Detroit, between the Lodge and the University District.
A caller to the city's 311 complaint line had reported illegal dumping a few days earlier, and the property was put on Moore's to-do list for the day.
Pulling up in a white Ford F-150 emblazoned with a city of Detroit seal, Moore jumped out and started photographing the smashed TV, an assortment of ratty stuffed animals, a broken couch and the remains of an entertainment center.
He poked around looking for any sort of document -- a telephone bill, a pay stub, a property lease -- that could link the debris to its dumper. Finding none, Moore wrote a citation to the owner of the vacant lots -- information he culled from Wayne County Register of Deed records -- and posted it on the property.
In a day or two, employees of the city's Department of Public Works would clean up the trash and bill the owner for the work.
"We have to get their attention," Moore said
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.d ll/article?AID=/20071112/METRO 01/711120408 |
Johnlodge
Member
Username: Johnlodge
Post Number: 3560
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 11:34 am: | |
""It's taken us some time, but we're getting to the point where if you have money you can pay us, we will get it," said Beasley. "
I like this, it insinuates they won't be going after people who are barely getting by as it is, so much as people who are being willfully negligent with their property, and have the means not to be. |
E_hemingway
Member
Username: E_hemingway
Post Number: 1397
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 11:43 am: | |
It looks like a good step or two in the right direction. If you look at the graphic in the story, it points out how the number of violations issued has risen sharply each year. That's encouraging. This can be a much more powerful tool if they can improve on the collection, follow-up cleanup and ability to ticket the right people. |
Johnlodge
Member
Username: Johnlodge
Post Number: 3561
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 11:47 am: | |
What they need to do is make a high-profile example of somebody. right now, looking at that graph, people are clearly not taking this seriously. |
Dougw
Member
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 1988
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 11:59 am: | |
Garnishing wages sounds like a much more effective tool than placing liens on the property (which I think is what they've done in the past). In many cases, the property owner has given up on the property and may eventually let it go into foreclosure or tax foreclosure, so they won't care how many liens are placed on the property. |
Diehard
Member
Username: Diehard
Post Number: 191
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 2:15 pm: | |
What I don't get is, what if I wake up one day and there are a bunch of tires dumped in my front yard? How does that work? Do I end up getting cited for something that was not my fault?
That picture looks like the "eviction sale" you see so often in the 'hood. I always wondered about those too - is it the landlord's problem to deal with if the tenant just walks away and leaves all their stuff sitting in the yard? |
Iheartthed
Member
Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 2161
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 2:20 pm: | |
quote:How does that work? Do I end up getting cited for something that was not my fault?
That's how it works here in NYC. The onus is on the property owner to keep the property clean. |
Diehard
Member
Username: Diehard
Post Number: 193
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 2:33 pm: | |
If that's the case, the city better start by garnishing its own wages. Most of the "dumping grounds" I've seen are abandoned (city-owned, by default) lots.
Or maybe they could make it legal to shoot illegal dumpers. Now THAT would send a message. |
Johnlodge
Member
Username: Johnlodge
Post Number: 3571
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 3:04 pm: | |
" is it the landlord's problem to deal with if the tenant just walks away and leaves all their stuff sitting in the yard?"
I believe so, that's why there are security deposits. |
Iheartthed
Member
Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 2163
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 3:07 pm: | |
quote:If that's the case, the city better start by garnishing its own wages. Most of the "dumping grounds" I've seen are abandoned (city-owned, by default) lots.
Or maybe they could make it legal to shoot illegal dumpers. Now THAT would send a message.
Not really. Littering and dumping is still illegal. Yeah, they should be doing a better job of cleaning, but they also have stiff penalties for those they catch doing it. So if you can prove someone is dumping onto your property, you can have them prosecuted... but you'll probably still have to foot the clean-up bill, at least initially. |
Diehard
Member
Username: Diehard
Post Number: 194
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 5:06 pm: | |
My point is that they'd be going after the victim (the property owner), not the criminals who dumped their garbage there. It's doubtful that property owners choose to store garbage on their own land, right? |
Johnlodge
Member
Username: Johnlodge
Post Number: 3578
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 5:10 pm: | |
Speaking honestly, if someone dumped garbage on your lawn and you had no way of figuring out who did it, that would suck, but wouldn't you still clean it up? I find cans and stuff on my lawn by the sidewalk sometimes. I'm not going to wait around for the culprit or the city to come by and pick it up. Sometimes things aren't fair, but it's no excuse.
Also, I think people would be less likely to dump on your property if they didn't see that five other people already have. Clean it up. |
Diehard
Member
Username: Diehard
Post Number: 195
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 6:56 pm: | |
Of course I would. I pick up trash from my lawn all the time. I'm thinking more of someone who owns a lot/house but doesn't live there or get around to check on it every day - if someone dumps a truckload of tires there, is that their fault? Should they have to pay a fine if they didn't even know it had happened? |
Diehard
Member
Username: Diehard
Post Number: 196
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 6:59 pm: | |
Honestly, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate to an extent here. I dislike slumlords and illegal dumping as much as anyone. I'm just pointing out, as the article did, it's not always a don't-give-a-crap slumlord who's to blame. |
Monahan568
Member
Username: Monahan568
Post Number: 246
Registered: 04-2004
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 7:07 pm: | |
what if you own an apartment building and one of the tenants buys a new couch that tenant does not have a car and is unable to dispose of the new couch at the city dump. they simlpy put the couch in the ally parking lot ect. the city sees the coach and gives the building owner a ticket is this fair? |
401don
Member
Username: 401don
Post Number: 11
Registered: 11-2007
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 7:18 pm: | |
Instead of dumping tires everywhere, hopefully we'll reach the tipping point whereby the recycled rubber is worth enough to have free drop-off locations, then the recyclers might even go around picking them up. Where I live the garages charge a disposal fee and it encourages idiots to throw their old tires in the trunk and then dump them. |
Johnlodge
Member
Username: Johnlodge
Post Number: 3585
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 7:36 pm: | |
As for landlords, you have to think of them as business owners. All sorts of stupid things can happen at your business. People can spray paint the side of your building, people can litter all over it. But in the end, barring something insurance will pay for, the business owner has to clean it up.
quote:I'm thinking more of someone who owns a lot/house but doesn't live there or get around to check on it every day - if someone dumps a truckload of tires there, is that their fault? Should they have to pay a fine if they didn't even know it had happened?
No, it isn't their fault. But isn't that a big problem throughout Detroit? People who own lots or buildings and don't live there or check on them every day, and the places contributing to blight? I realize it isn't fair, but they still must be held accountable for the state of their property.
What the city can do is have more bulk pick up days that are well advertised, where just about any hunk of junk you put on the corner will be collected. But outside of that, it cannot be their responsibility to worry about your property. If you can FIND the guys who dumped, great, fine them and make them work community service cleaning lots. But you won't often find them. |
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