[Peace-discuss] Re: Nuisance Ordinance and Racism

[Marti Wilkinson]

If we can get back to the original issue - there are different opinions on
the proposed ordinance regarding property owners and the conduct of their
tenants. My primary objection is due to how an ordinance like this can
potentially be enforced.

By that same token, I am not unsympathetic to property owners who live next
door to individuals who engage in criminal conduct. My question here is what
would the individual do if the neighbors happen to be homeowners?  To me the
question of how to deal with poor neighbors is one that can't always be
addressed through the creation of laws.

For example, when I bought my house in 1997 I came close to not making an
offer on the house because the owners pulled a couple of stunts when I
attempted to see the house. I wasn't able to get a good look at the backyard
due to an oversize swimming pool. However, I was living in a place where the
lease was going to expire and it was the best house I could afford at the
time.

When I moved in I had to cut down 5 foot high weeds that were spread across
the back yard. Additionally I had to fill in the hole that had been left
when the previous owners removed their swimming pool. Underneath the wood
deck (which I later removed) was an exposed wire which connected the
detached garage to the house. In order to alleviate the fire hazard I had to
disconnect the power to my garage. In the process of moving the previous
owners trashed the place, left a mess, and took off with the mailbox. Their
daughter later came over and told me how embarrassed she was by the state of
things.

This is not all....a couple of my neighbors, who moved here from Germany,
told me that they had been subject to verbal abuse and harassment by the
previous owners. Another neighbor of mine, who is blind, received similar
treatment. I've heard stories about drinking and loud fights and when I
checked the circuit clerk site I found that members of the family have been
on the receiving end of restraining orders. However, as homeowners, they
were not subject to the types of nuisance laws that are being proposed
against renters.

At the time I bought the house the previous owners told me they were
building a place out 'in the country' and, considering what I have heard, it
may be that they just were not a good fit for living in a municipal
community.

Needless to say my neighbors were happy to see me move in:)

Marti



On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 9:38 AM, E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> wrote:

>  You certainly seem to be far more cynical and far more willing to settle
> for a lot less than I am,
> and certainly more willing to surrender your personal liberties to the
> (I'll say it again) iron thumb.
> I am surprised to find you and Ricky both defending the status quo in
> Urbana.It
>
> Laurel, despite her privileged life, is surprisingly UNpompous and
> UNarrogant.
>
> Really!!!!?????  You've GOT to be kidding.
>
> She is the most pompous and arrogant person that I know and certainly one
> of the most pompous I have ever
> had the misfortune to have met.  I dont know what draws a serpent like her
> into a backwater like Urbana.
> She is obviously someone "Not from around here".
>
> I perceive Laurel Lunt Prussing as a sort of post-modern Margaret Sanger, a
> campaigner, nay, a marauder
> for the superior blooded elite.  She is one who perceives the inferior and
> now cowering unfortunate miserable unwashed
> under her purview as "human weeds".  Since it is all So too damn late for
> her to have prevented their birth,
> she desires to call in and invalidate their franchise on life by what ever
> post-natal means are at her disposal.  She is, as some
> others have observed, genuinely classist, and racist to the ribosome.  But
> she covers for and disguises her
> inherent illiberality by various outward displays and posturings of false
> concern.  She knows that she
> must always maintain the facade because she is a political animal.  She is
> constantly on the lookout for each opportunity to
> slapping the scarlet badge of bigotry and racism on others as a cloak for
> her own occasional "wardrobe malfunctions".
>
> The fact that someone like Laurel Lunt Prussing was ever able to hold a
> public office is a testimony not only to the power of
> deep pockets in the political game but also to the sheer ignorance and
> apathy of the hapless electorate.
>
> That's pretty much how I see her, but I might think of something else later
> on.
>
>
> John W. wrote:
>
> It's funny...I agree with Ricky but I also agree with some of what you say,
> Wayne.
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 9:54 PM, E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> wrote:
>
>  Ricky,
>>
>> I think it is reasonable to state your opinion and state your case.
>>
>> I don't think that is reasonable to equate things that are under the
>> control of a landlord ("toxic waste") with things that are not under the
>> control of the landlord (behaviour of the tenants and their guests).
>>
>
> Ah, but that IS very much under the control of the landlord.
>
> First of all, the landlord screens the tenants, and determines what type of
> tenants s/he wants living in her/his building.   There are certain
> fundamental bases upon which a landlord cannot discriminate, but the
> landlord can most certainly discriminate on the basis of credit history,
> prior negative history with the tenant union, a background of criminal
> convictions or civil judgments, etc.
>
> I live in an apartment building with 11 units.  We all sign a lease, which
> is a binding contract.  One of the provisions in the lease is that we not
> make excessive noise.  If one of my neighboring tenants is making excessive
> noise, I first go and talk to the tenant directly.  If that approach fails,
> I phone my landlord, who is very conscientious and wants to maintain a
> decent building.  The landlord then phones the offending tenant, and warns
> him or her to keep the noise down.  That generally works, because the
> landlord has every legal right to boot the noisy tenant's ass out of the
> building for violating a term of the lease.  The tenant has control over
> his/her behavior, and the landlord has control over the premises and who is
> on the premises.
>
> Should my appeal to the landlord fail, I then call the police, and a
> complaint is lodged against the noisy tenant.  I don't recall seeing
> "excessive noise" in the Urbana ordinance, but I personally don't want to
> live in the vicinity of noisy tenants.  My rent entitles me to, among other
> things, the "quiet enjoyment" of my domicile, and I take that very
> seriously.
>
>
>
>> As many others have pointed out, the ordinance is likely to be unevenly
>> enforced, and at best, it is completely misdirected in that it does not
>> address any of the roots of the problem.
>>
>
> Virtually nothing in our criminal justice system addresses the underlying
> roots of the crime problem.  There's nothing unique about this ordinance.
> "Solving" crime is, methinks, largely beyond the powers of the City of
> Urbana.
>
>
>
>> *
>>
>> Since I moved to Urbana from Guangzhou in China in 2001, the Philo Road
>> area has collapsed
>> with several businesses there closing (Kmart, the shoe store, 3 or 4
>> various small shoppes in Sunnycrest, the dental center,
>> the IGA store, and Piccadilly Liquors), Lincoln Square has completely
>> imploded and died, and several other
>> small businesses have either died or failed to thrive.  (*I am confident
>> that I didn't jinx Urbana by my arrival.*)
>>
>
> This is all unfortunate and I don't quite understand it.  It seems to me
> that Lincoln Square is in a choice location and should be thriving.  But
> what's your point?  Is this loss of business responsible for the crime
> problem in Urbana?
>
>
>
>> At the onset I had a generally positive view of Urbana's new Mayor as I
>> had credited her
>> (falsely) with attracting some of the new activities and new construction
>> occurring on her watch.
>>
>> At my very first meeting with her, she told me that the financial
>> activities of the city should not be known by the people.  We had a long
>> hard fight with her on the issue of transparency in the local government
>> with much chicanery on her part.  Among all the things that she did
>> the most dastardly was the placement of "fluff" referenda on the ballot to
>> block the activity of grassroots democracy in querying the will of
>> the people.  It became clear to me that the goal of the mayor and her
>> supporters was remain in power, and to squelch all external voices.
>>
>
> Remaining in power seems to be the goal of most politicians, though
> considerably less so on the local than on the national level.  It's the rare
> politician who does the "right" thing irrespective of the political
> consequences, and I've seen those politicians take as much or more flack
> from citizens than any of the others.  You can't please all of the voters
> all of the time no matter WHAT you do and how conscientious you are.
>
>
>
>> At the city council meeting in early December where a transparency
>> referendum was discussed, she got her facts a bit confused and
>> attributed events surrounding IRV petitioning with those having to do with
>> the transparency issue.
>>
>> In all cases, the goal of those of us working on transparency and IRV was
>> to improve the quality of local government.
>> Transparency is going to become more and more important as city revenues
>> shrink, expenditures balloon, and deficits loom.
>> IRV is a great idea, and Urbana's ruling class is terrified that the
>> people might actually get a voice in city government.
>>
>> Mayor Prussing has made herself the National poster child of elitism and
>> the mailed fist in city government.
>> All tyrants have their supporters, and quite likely most pompous prigs
>> like Laurel Lunt Prussing
>> did not start out to be as arrogant and authoritarian as they inevitably
>> turned out to be, or were found out to be, later on.
>>
>
> There's no doubt that Mayor Prussing is an elitist, just like a good many
> readers of this list.  She's led a pretty privileged life, and it's the only
> life she knows.   ("Mailed fist", on the other hand, is pure libertarian
> speak.)  Despite that, I agree with Ricky that there could be FAR worse
> mayors.  Laurel, despite her privileged life, is surprisingly UNpompous and
> UNarrogant.
>
> John Wason
>
>
>
>> Wayne
>>
>>
>> Ricky Baldwin wrote:
>>
>> Sorry, but I have to say that we may disagree with this ordinance - or
>> some of us may agree - but the reasons given for it at the Urbana City
>> Council's "committee of the whole" meeting where this was debated were not
>> crazy or rightwing.  People who live in neighborhoods, particularly poor
>> neighborhoods, are often forced to live next to rental property where a
>> great deal of dangerous, anti-social behavior occurs.  The police may be
>> little help or may not be able to get convictions, or to get convictions to
>> stick, or otherwise unable to abate the hazard.  If a landlord had toxic
>> waste spilling out of a rental property into poor (or "middle class")
>> neighbors' homes and/or yards, very few of us would object to the City or
>> the Mayor trying to clean it up. If it was tenants who were dumping the
>> waste, we would not object to the City demanding their expulsion.  But there
>> are other kinds of hazrds, some of which most of us have never had to live
>> next to.
>>
>> We may or may not believe that these reasons justify this action.  We may
>> feel that authorities are being given too much latitude in this particular
>> version of an ordinance that *could* be justified if more limited.  These
>> takes would be understandabe and reasonable.  But I fail to see how this
>> action makes Laurel Prussing's credentials as a "progressive" somehow
>> suspect.  Or that "she is getting worse, and worser, and worserer".  That
>> seems to me throwing the baby out with the bath water.
>>
>> What am I missing here?
>>
>> I have disagreed with Laurel Prussing from time to time.  She was dead
>> wrong on IRV, for example, and I said so in the News-Gazette and told her so
>> on the phone.  She was wrong in her objections to the Resolution in Support
>> of the Employee Free Choice Act most recently (although she didn't really
>> try to block it in the end).  But in general I believe she has been a very
>> good mayor, much better than any other mayor I believe I have ever
>> personally experienced.  I don't say that lightly.  But she has taken
>> courageous stands against, for example, drug testing City employees
>> willy-nilly.  She was very public in her support for the citizens' police
>> review board, established a commission to study it, allowed the grassroot to
>> name the people who would serve on it, and worked to make it happen over
>> months.  She caught a lot of flak for that and never flinched.  And so on.
>> She attended AWARE's postcards for peace event at the IMC, too - how many
>> mayors would do that?
>>
>> Obviously this is not an exhaustive list.  It isn't meant to be.  Of
>> course it is right and just to disagree with any politician or elected
>> official anytime they're wrong, just as we should support them when they are
>> right.  And we have the right to run against any politician or elected
>> official as we see fit, for whatever reasons.  This is not about that.  I
>> also understand that we get excited in the heat of conflict, over issues we
>> feel strongly about.  Many of us have divergent views on a number of issues,
>> and that's just fine.  But I had to say that I find this a
>> mischaracterization of a generally very good mayor.  I would be dishonest if
>> I did not.
>>
>> Ricky
>>
>> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
>>
>>  ------------------------------
>> *From:* E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> <ewj at pigs.ag>
>> *To:* Randall Cotton <recotton at earthlink.net> <recotton at earthlink.net>
>> *Cc:* peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>> *Sent:* Friday, January 2, 2009 8:47:20 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] Re: Nuisance Ordinance and Racism
>>
>> >>And Prussing is supposed to be progressive?
>>
>> She IS progressive.  She gets worse, and worser, and worserer.
>>
>>
>
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