 
Jackpot
Member
Username: Jackpot
Post Number: 1
Registered: 02-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 10:28 pm: |    |
A friend of mine received three tickets last week, totaling $3600, because of violations contributing to blight. One was for $2500 because of a heap of woodchips on the sidewalk, another was improper placement of courville container ($100)and the third was a $1000 fine for having a bunch of unorganized junk in the backyard and side of the house. He was assigned a court date and I am looking for any advice about what he should do, as well as, some info about whether or not these fines are usually reduced or dismissed. Thought if I could find anybody who would know the answers, they would probably be one of DetroitYes' very knowledgeable members. |
Rel
Member
Username: Rel
Post Number: 145
Registered: 02-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 10:32 pm: | |
He should consult an attorney.
Also, perhaps if he brings pictures to court, showing the problems have been addressed, perhaps the fines would be reduced or dismissed?
Those sound like steep penalties. Good luck to him/her. |
Andylinn
Member
Username: Andylinn
Post Number: 736
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 11:05 pm: | |
that's horrible. so he gets fined while the owner of every crack house and abandoned building (i'm looking at you Marroun and Illitch) goes unpunished... |
Jtw
Member
Username: Jtw
Post Number: 200
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 11:36 pm: | |
where is his house?
and is that really the whole story? |
Diehard
Member
Username: Diehard
Post Number: 315
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 11:41 pm: | |
Yowzah. I thought those tickets were for the big stuff - like piles of tires and junker cars and whatnot. I know a LOT of people guilty of what you described.
Not that I could be of any help, but good luck. |
Chub
Member
Username: Chub
Post Number: 497
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 11:54 pm: | |
Here's a solution for your friend; clean up their blight. Pretty simple.
I don't feel bad for your friend at all. |
Diehard
Member
Username: Diehard
Post Number: 317
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 12:18 am: | |
btw, everywhere the city has cut down dead ash trees on the right-of-way between the sidewalk and street, there's a big pile of woodchips left. And it's been windy lately. Not having seen the heap of woodchips it's hard to say how blight-y it looked, but just sayin'. |
Evelyn
Member
Username: Evelyn
Post Number: 114
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 1:59 am: | |
Rel's right... call a lawyer. Take pictures (with dates) and clean up the wood and junk. Take pictures of houses nearby (is she/he the only one on the block with junk near their house?)Is there a community/neighborhood association in the area that would know the specific ordinances that affect where he lives?
Good luck. Those are steep fines, and they sound rather unnecessary. |
Ramcharger
Member
Username: Ramcharger
Post Number: 524
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 2:19 am: | |
quote:Those are steep fines, and they sound rather unnecessary.
Unless you have to live next to a mess like that! |
Viziondetroit
Member
Username: Viziondetroit
Post Number: 1445
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 3:14 am: | |
^Amen |
Higgs1634
Member
Username: Higgs1634
Post Number: 318
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 9:00 am: | |
Just don't pay them. Seems to work out for the owners of blighted property downtown. |
Rel
Member
Username: Rel
Post Number: 147
Registered: 02-2008
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 9:04 am: | |
Evelyn: "Take pictures of houses nearby (is she/he the only one on the block with junk near their house?)"
I think pictures of his/her property would be great (with a current newspaper front page to prove it's recent). But taking pics of other houses in the neighborhood probably wouldn't be helpful. The "but-everyone-else-is-doing-it -too" excuse is frowned upon by judges, lol. |
Rjk
Member
Username: Rjk
Post Number: 1049
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 9:28 am: | |
Does the city first notify the resident giving them a time period in which the problem has to be resolved?
I'm with Jtw, there has to be more to this story. |
Sumas
Member
Username: Sumas
Post Number: 48
Registered: 01-2008
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 10:13 am: | |
I had two friends in different parts of the city get a blight ticket. The first one was for weeds in the alley. He has a privacy fence and never uses the alley. He has a beautiful well cared for home. He took a picture of before and after and the judge dismissed the ticket. When was in court the judge also dismissed a ticket where the homeowner was cited for weeds The "weeds" were daylilies. The judge chided the ordinance officer for not knowing the difference. He tried to show the judge a picture of the burned out hulk next door to home, but it was nothing doing. So don't bother with pictures of neighbor's messes. The other friend got a ticket for two unplated cars in her driveway. She took pictures. Sold one of the cars and junked the other. Her ticket was dismissed when she showed proof the cars were gone. So clean up or pay the tickets. |
Eastsidechris
Member
Username: Eastsidechris
Post Number: 151
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 10:24 am: | |
I only wish the blight ordinances were enforced the way they should be. I've called the city about my neighbors' property two times in the past three years, with no results that I know of. The roofs of their garage AND back enclosed porch are both caving in, increasingly so ever since we moved to Detroit, in late 2003.
Jackpot, I'm really curious as to how they were cited for improper courville storage. You see, my next door neighbors left both of their containers on their curb for over a month, starting the week of the large Sunday snowfall in mid-December. They finally moved the container that was nearest to their driveway four weeks later, but left the one next to ours out. I think they finally got the picture when I moved their container next to their driveway, and the next day it was gone. But still, those containers were on the curb for over 30 days! These people have no pride--or shame. |
Swingline
Member
Username: Swingline
Post Number: 1028
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 10:33 am: | |
Jackpot, Rel is right. Your friend needs to hire a lawyer. A lawyer will cost more than $75 and a handshake, so if your friend is too cheap to pay the freight (a few hundred bucks), there's a good chance he'll find himself descending into a bureaucratic hell. If he cleans up all of his junk, the blight judges will usually dismiss the expensive tickets. There's a good chance your friend can get away with only the $100 fine and maybe some court costs. The lawyer will smooth the way though. |
Dougw
Member
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 2066
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 11:35 am: | |
If your friend has to clean everything up and show pictures proving that at the court date, and his fines are dismissed, then that is a fair outcome IMO.
Detroit needs more blight ticketing, not less. |
Rjlj
Member
Username: Rjlj
Post Number: 465
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 12:12 pm: | |
Get a lawyer for a blight ticket? What a waste of time and money. Put the money and time into maintaining your property and your home value might increase along with the neighborhood. Funny how the suburbs understand how the system works and Detroit is still learning. |
Fishtoes2000
Member
Username: Fishtoes2000
Post Number: 415
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 12:17 pm: | |
quote:Thought if I could find anybody who would know the answers, they would probably be one of DetroitYes' very knowledgeable members.
If you give us an address for your friend, I'm sure someone from the DetroitYES photography staff could arrange a photo shoot. Posting the pictures might dampen the speculation but lively up the conversation. ;) |
Southwestmap
Member
Username: Southwestmap
Post Number: 952
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 12:40 pm: | |
I have a neighbor who is emotionally ill. She was crazily harassing me (calling my work & telling the boss I was plotting to kill him, called the Cardinal to say that I was having an affair with a Bishop, slit my tires, sand-papered my car - things like that). I got a PPO, which is hard to do because it wasn't a domestic issue, but the facts were pretty scary, even to the court.
Anyway, she did take the PPO seriously but she just started to use City employees to harass me - I had dozens of tickets from the Dog Pound ( my dog was licensed but that didn't matter to the ticket city employee who sent them to me without ever seeing my dog in person!), from animal cruelty, from the DPW about some bags of leaves composting on a bench in my back yard, from DPW that my dumpster was too close to the front of my house. I finally wrote to the DPW and asked if they had nothing better to do than come out dozens of times on the same complaint and contact me with a promise of a ticket. DPW finally saw the light.
My point: sometimes people use city employees to harass and city employees are automons - they have no discretionary powers. Maybe this is what is happening to the person who got a $100 ticket about the placement of his trash can. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 6133
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 12:51 pm: | |
Clean the schitt up. Nobody wants to live next to your schitthole.
jjaba. |
Jackpot
Member
Username: Jackpot
Post Number: 2
Registered: 02-2008
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 12:58 pm: | |
The house is located near Motor City Casino (that might be the rest of the story).
His girlfriend says the officer who issued the ticket asked her if the owner of the house was white or black.
The woodchips on the sidewalk have already been removed. Granted, there were a lot of them and it was impeding foot traffic, but $2500 seems more than a bit steep. Most of the junk in the yard has also since been removed.
I have taken some after pics and can post them if anybody wants, but they aren't that exciting.
It's hard to not look around the neighborhood and say "but my neighbors" As a matter of fact, on the sidewalk across the street from the house, there has been a toilet bowl lying by the edge of the curb for at least three weeks.
And the adjacent liquor store is covered with graffiti. Isn't the store owner responsible for removing the tags? Couldn't they be fined?
And the vacant lots piled with garbage. Shouldn't the city take care of its property in the same way it expects its residents to? |
Evelyn
Member
Username: Evelyn
Post Number: 115
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 1:01 pm: | |
You’re right. I don’t live next door to Jackpot’s friend.
On the other hand, there are property owners with worse offenses than junk by the side of their house. Since Detroit has limited resources, it would make sense to prioritize.
The cynical side of me thinks that perhaps the city cited Jackpot’s friend because they thought he could afford to pay the fines, and would.
I'd also like to know if there's more to the story. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 6135
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 1:08 pm: | |
Jackpot, welcome to the Forum. Yes, post the pictures. Clean the schitt up.
When you've just lost your paycheck in the casino, the last thing you wanna see is schitt all over.
The City of Detroit is trying re-vitalize and those property cops are going after neighbors like businesses who have come into town. Your neighbors are next. Show them your tickets as an incentive to them. Show them your clean yard.
As for the toilet on the curb. Do what jjaba do. Haul it away and deposit it into a dumpster in the suburbs. If it bothers you, remove it.
jjaba just won an award for Cart Retrival Czar in his neighborhood and won a $50 prize from the local grocery. jjaba's record is nine carts returned in a single day.
jjaba on the Westside. |
Buyamerican
Member
Username: Buyamerican
Post Number: 395
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 2:09 pm: | |
KK and his boys trying their best to get some ready cash in case he is forced to pay some of the taxpayers money back. Corrupt is the only word I can use because there is so much crap, burned, boarded up, junk houses in Detroit and they never get ticketed. |
Dds
Member
Username: Dds
Post Number: 552
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 4:15 pm: | |
quote:jjaba's record is nine carts returned in a single day.
In Detroit?
(Dramatic Pause)
How could you get them away from their owners? |
Ron
Member
Username: Ron
Post Number: 361
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 4:27 pm: | |
The Department of Administrative Hearings can get somewhat overwhelming. I have handled a few hearings over there. The lowest the fine can go is $200.00. $2,500.00 seems a bit steep. Usually, fines that high are for commercial properties or repeat offenses. If neither of those cases fit, and the extent of the trash not too bad, they will reduce it without a hearing. You just have to negotiate with the officer and the city attorney.
If you do get an attorney, they need to file an appearance asap, because they only hold hearings on Thursdays for people who are represented by counsel.
FYI, these blight tickets are essentially "strict liability" offenses, meaning, if the trash is there, you are liable....end of story. No warning, nothing.
Another FYI, they take pictures when they issue the tickets, so they will have a picture of the trash at court. Also, the city attorney sometimes chastises the officers for not writing the tickets high enough for very egregious offenses.
My mother got one for having a christmas tree on her curb a few days before the scheduled pick-up. We got it kicked, however, because her tree wasn't out yet. A neighbor's tree had blown into the street, and my step-father pulled it onto the curb so it wouldn't impede traffic.
Most of the hearing officers are fair. You shouldn't have a problem getting it reduced if the facts are as you state. |
Gazhekwe
Member
Username: Gazhekwe
Post Number: 1515
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 5:00 pm: | |
For those who say the City isn't ticketing thus and so, be aware, it is very difficult to know who gets a ticket, unless they say so.
Whether something is done or they pay their fine, that's a matter for investigation. How many ticketed properties come into compliance? How many that don't comply, pay their tickets? If they do not comply or pay their ticket, what happens to them?
Some municipalities will clean up and bill you, others will put the cost on the tax bill. Tbose are possible options for Detroit to consider. Of course at this time, taxes being paid for some properties is a pipe dream. |
Jjaba
Member
Username: Jjaba
Post Number: 6136
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 6:37 pm: | |
jjaba pushes carts back which are on the sidewalks, or other public spaces. It would be ill-advised to just go in somebody's backyard, putting their precious crap on the lawn, and returning the cart to its rightful owner.
jjaba on the Far Westside. |
Detroit_pride
Member
Username: Detroit_pride
Post Number: 3
Registered: 02-2008
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 7:11 pm: | |
Would this be considered a start of the "Broken Windows Theory" ? It is a law/rule that was broken, we know that there are better things they (police) could be doing, but we should all be help accountable for breaking the law.
How hard is it to bring in your Courville container.....I wish I knew someone that could issue some tickets for leaving those damm things out.
Blight department should continue with these tickets. Just hopefully the fines are collected and the blight is cleaned up! |
Lefty2
Member
Username: Lefty2
Post Number: 1192
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 9:47 pm: | |
Illitch can write a letter to the cops and it becomes law. |
Sumas
Member
Username: Sumas
Post Number: 50
Registered: 01-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, February 21, 2008 - 1:19 pm: | |
While, cleaning out my office files, I came across a brochure, Citizens Guide" published by the Department of Administrative Hearings, Part 3:is How To Respond To A Blight Violation Notice. The phone # on the back is 313 224-0098. Your friend may want to request a copy.
Also found a post card for Code Enforcement Hotline 313 571-2800 ext 1170 |
Hamtragedy
Member
Username: Hamtragedy
Post Number: 100
Registered: 10-2007
| | Posted on Friday, February 22, 2008 - 11:36 pm: | |
I gotta chime in on the blight tickets.
First, in my opinion, (glad to have one, thanks) this has got to be an attempt to pad the city's receivables. KK revived the blight "police" around the same time the state was talking "takeover" of the city, about three or four years ago.
Second, they are out of control. From the info we've been reading here, most of these tickets are issued at random. One only needs to have their well kept easement, or more commonly, alley, produce a couch that some scum-bag dumped off (because no one seems to know when bulk pick-up is anymore) , and WHAM, you've got a ticket for $2500. (And yes, uncle Mikey Ilitch has been issued blight tickets, and rightfully so). But then again, the dumping grounds on the corner, also known as the party store, hasn't cut the grass-shoveled the snow-or picked up the Flamin'Hot Cheeto wrappers that litter the entire block.
Thirdly, from a property owner/maintenance standpoint, they are issuing tickets for not registering ($280)and inspecting ($280) rental properties. Big deal you say? Okay agreed, except they are fishing for owners at the same time, and issuing tickets to other than the property owner.
As someone who maintains nicely kept properties and responds quickly to renter concerns, this makes me and my partner far from slumlords. Granted, there are tons of slumlords out there, (and no shortage of slum tenants), but there are just as many good landlords where renters stay for years and years. And, as one who does regular maintenance, keeping up with current building codes is part of the job.
However, given the tax structure (non-homestead), insurance rates, and current renter market (the top of the renter pool bought houses with variable interest rates 3-4 years ago, now they've been foreclosed, spit out, and are right back at the bottom of the renter pool) to tack on a $150 registration fee, $250 inspection fee, plus $580 in fines (surprise, we're reopening the blight court), who in their right mind would want to own property here? Plus, does the city have more than 4 rental inspectors?
Cry me a river. Fine. I know of at least one non-profit Community Organization dedicated to fighting blight (and organizing others to do so) that has a stack of tickets dating back several years now. Several tickets aren't even for property they own or ever owned. As for the inspections & registrations, they are non-profit, and damn good at what they do. Is asking them to cough up more fees and fines, on top of spending countless days in the bureaucratic nightmare known as the City-County Building, trying to prove they don't even own the properties they are being ticketed for, what their mission is about?
Back to the small time landlords, who actually do care. There are many in this city in the same predicament. Bad renter pool, high taxes, high insurance, fear of having your plumbing stolen from a vacancy, and the Blight Police on your case for another $1000 year for a property you don't even own......You had better love this M@#$%! F&*(^%$ city.
Finally, court cases used to be scheduled 2-3 months after being cited. Those cases are now being handled in 2-3 weeks. If you choose to ignore them, it's obvious you're not alone. But they do threaten to put a lien on your property. This court needs to be brought under some sort of control. |