Re: [Mpls] Prison Time for Pealing Paint: the Next Stage in Minneapolis DeathSpiral?

[j c harmon]

I got one too; mine was a cutesie letter from some pseudo-neighborhood 
clean-up organization stating that if I don't paint the trim on my garage in 
two weeks I can expect a violation notice from the city.  I called and told 
them I felt there were more important things going on in North Minneapolis 
than chipping paint, and that they can come and pry the paintbrush out of my 
cold, dead hands. I mentioned I didn't like that the rather threatening tone 
of the letter either - apparently the city has kept enough employees to be 
able to send someone out to "do it for me" for an exorbinant amount of 
money. Does anyone know if they let you look at a color chart? Or do they 
use street-stripe yellow on everybody's? I also told them my neighbor's 
garage has been physically crumbling for years and that I hope they got a 
nice letter too. I twisted the knife by reminding them that there's a vacant 
house owned by the city on the corner of 34th & Russell that's been sitting 
for nearly SIX YEARS. He assured me by saying they sent out 250 notices...
Jerks,
Jill Harmon
Cleveland


From: Dyna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Mpls] Prison Time for Pealing Paint: the Next Stage in 
Minneapolis Death Spiral?
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 03:13:26 -0500

	As Mark Snyder has noted,  I'm not the only citizen targeted in 
Inspection's latest fund raising scheme.

	In hopes of making the city budget our city has decided to raise tax rates 
by 8% a year. Add in paper appreciation in housing values and the loss of 
various protections like the circuit breaker and we're looking at double 
digit property tax increases for years to come. Unfortunately, our city 
fathers and mothers are assuming that we taxpayers will blindly pay these 
increases. In reality as taxes increase more citizens will cancel 
improvements that would increase the tax base. Here on the Northside many 
properties have sat empty for months and ultimately will go tax forfeit 
when the increasing taxes on them exceed their rental potential or value to 
an owner occupant.

	I have no doubt Inspections thinks the revenue from wholesale fines will 
fill their departments funding gap. In reality assessing thousands of 
dollars of fines on property owners who are barely able to pay the taxes on 
their empty buildings in crime ridden neighborhoods will merely hasten the 
day when they give up and let their properties go tax forfeit. Ultimately 
the city will find itself in similar straights to what it did in the early 
90s- stuck with a bunch of never to be paid assessments and unpaid tax 
bills on worthless vacant lots. To cover those losses they'll raise taxes 
even more and levy even more fines- and more citizens will move out and 
leave the city with even less revenue and more expenses.

	from increasingly abandoned Hawthorne,

		Dyna Sluyter

On Wednesday, August 20, 2003, at 11:39 PM, Mark Snyder wrote:

You have my sympathies. I'm vice president for my fraternity alumni 
housing
corporation. We received a similar summons a few days ago to appear in 
court
next week over failure to fix a retaining wall at our chapter house in
Dinkytown. It was damaged earlier this year when a truck exiting the
neighboring parking lot ran into it and knocked part of it down.

The sad thing is that we did get the retaining wall fixed. It was a few
weeks after the deadline that Inspections had set because we had trouble
finding a contractor to do the job, but the work was completed about six
weeks ago. And we already paid a $100 "reinspection fee" for missing that
deadline.
As best I can guess, the inspector did not bother to check the retaining
wall out before filing a complaint with the courts or the turnaround time
from when he filed to when a date was actually set must be awfully slow.
I'm all for aggressive enforcement of the housing ordinances, but this is 
a
little ridiculous! What's next - going after homeowners that have tallish
flowers in their boulevard gardens? Oops - they already do that, too.

Mark Snyder
Windom Park
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