[Peace-discuss] more than a nuisance

[E. Wayne Johnson]

Your previous experience and hard work is noted and appreciated by all, 
but Basic maintenance is not at all what the proposed urbana criminal 
nuisance ordinance is about.

The most recent draft is available at the city's website. 
http://www.city.urbana.il.us/Urbana/City_Council/Agendas/01-12-2009/ordinance_2008-11-135.pdf
Additional info here:
http://www.city.urbana.il.us/Urbana/City_Council/Agendas/02-09-2009/ordinance_2008-11-135.pdf

Ricky Baldwin wrote:
> My opinion may not be popular on either of these lists, but I think I 
> ought to explain where I'm coming from.
>
> In the nineties I worked for ACORN - an association I was never 
> prouder of than in this last election.  As a lone NYC Council member 
> once said in another context - about not so different attacks on poor 
> people organizing for their rights to vote, to improve their 
> communities, to live in decent housing and safe neighborhoods, attacks 
> by people who oppose all those things - "It is a badge of honor!"
>
> When I was at ACORN I spent my days and evenings six days a week 
> walking around in the poorest, most dangerous (a.k.a. "worst") 
> neighborhoods in the cities where I worked, talking to people who 
> lived in toxic environments.  There were many rats, and in Buffalo 
> skunks, garbage in the streets not swept by the city, abandoned 
> buildings, vacant lots.  When it rained water cascaded down the walls 
> of the living rooms and kitchens where we sat and talked and they 
> offered me orange juice and tried to figure out why I wasn't married 
> and we planned the next meeting and how to get the press interested 
> and which local preachers might help and which might get in the way, 
> which cops were honest and which were dangerous criminals.  Front 
> doors of apartment buildings didn't lock or had been broken for 
> months.  Some people were afraid to go out into the hallways in their 
> own building because of the violence and violent people going in and 
> out, or living next door, down the hall, just up stairs.
>
> These were hazards, nightmares, not mere "nuisances".
>  
> Landlord after landlord refused to fix anything, get rid of any 
> dangerous tenants haunting the buildings, or take any responsibility 
> at all.  People in these communities were trapped.  They lived there 
> because they had few options, and there was very little recourse.  We 
> organized together and fought the landlords, pressured city government 
> to hold them accountable, and demanded that the landlords and the 
> local government take some responsibility for the neglect and toxicity 
> of those neighborhoods.  It was always an uphill climb, because money 
> and influence and property rights were always on the other side. 
>
> We won some, one piece at a time, but in truth we lost more often.  I 
> think a lot of us know that song.  Even the victories were often mixed 
> bags, but we improved real lives.
>
> I do have concerns about the proposed "Nuisance Ordinance" - some 
> along the lines I think expressed by Charlie Smyth - and I'd like to 
> see a more community-based, even complaint-driven system, rather than 
> reliance on the police - but overall I support this effort.  I hope 
> I've explained why. 
>
> I continue to support efforts to expose and address police racial 
> profiling and other abuses of power.  I still hope we as a community 
> can strengthen the police review board some day soon.  But I do not 
> see this ordinance as repressive on its face, but potentially very 
> progressive.
>
> In Solidarity,
> Ricky
>
> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
>
>
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>
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