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Gee, the Lake Worth’s city manager has vowed to address the code department’s problems. There must have been some sort of epiphany to arrive at the conclusion we had a problem, Houston. We have only been complaining about code enforcement or the lack thereof for how many years now?
Read the editorial in today's PBPost.
Read more from the PBPost.
14 comments:
Susan Stanton realized that code policies were ineffective and attempted to change its direction. She was fired for her efforts. Scott Maxwell had a better plan. How did that work out?
Stanton destroyed the code department and refused to replace employees that quit. Her attitude I believe came directly from Cara Jennings and Golden who both felt that code was not needed. Stanton refused to hire an independent auditor and the result that we are faced with today is this mess. If it were not for the auditor hired by this commission these facts would never have come out. Do you really think that things were better in the code department under Stanton? If you do you are wrong.
Why can't they (code enforcement) just drive around and cite? I have been told that a number of complaints have to be filed before ce even does anything. No excuses.
Stanton did NOT destroy the code enforcement department. Where do these lies start? They never end with you people. Please do some research before coming here. Jennings and Golden never said nor did they believe that code was not needed. Stanton was attempting to revamp the department and incorporate policies that made sense.
It is true, however, that she did not budget for an internal auditor...a big mistake IMO and I said so at the time.
Code department is not a collection agency. That would be finance or an outside third party. This city would flip if the code officers started asking for payment on the spot. Their job is to cite violations and it's up to finance to collect the money. There's a whole piece of the process that has never been completed and that is not the responsibility of the code dept.
The above post is one of the more intelligent and intuitive comments I've read on this site.
The Internal Auditor noted in his report that once the properties were being fined, all further action stopped.
Keep them coming.
Cara was the commissioner who stopped anonymous code complaints. You know this is true Lynn because I remember seeing you at the meeting where this was discussed and voted on.
After Stanton was hired she made a statement concerning code and indicated that it was no longer a priority. The number of code officers dropped and she did not replace them. I met with her a year after she took over and confronted her with the fact that code was doing nothing to stop the blight and that I was extremely disappointed with her decision to allow the department to fall apart. She admitted to me that she had made a mistake but was acting under the direction of certain commissioners who did not want the illegal population touched. Stanton played a major role in allowing our code department to get into the shape it is today.
Actually I don't know that to be the truth at all. In fact, I believe anonymous complaints were no longer accepted just a few years ago in order to curb crank complaints or those that were unfounded. We do have a bunch of complainers in this town and some people don't know what falls under a code enforcement complaint. This was done, I would suppose, to free up time for our officers so that they did not have to allot time to complaints that did not fall under their authority. Just a guess. I would call up code and maybe they know the answer and the circumstances.
Anonymous complaints are sort of like anonymous posts on this blog. Many are not too credible.
People need to have some courage and fortitude and stand up and put their name behind their beliefs.
John, I have written about this on so many occasions. Stanton said that our present policies were not working (which is true) and wanted to work on a policy that could change the direction of enforcement to the good. Overall, the reduction of officers was by ONE. She told me that if she had known how adamant everyone felt about code enforcement, she would not have reduced the staff at that time. She moved 2 people to the conservation department and this was because of the CROD which is a serious commitment.
Our Code Enforcement has the same amount of people working on issues as it did when she was city mgr--more supporting staff now bringing up the dept to 11.
Lynn, it is likely because so many people are complaining about it now and the city leaders are getting major complaints from citizens as to the hell hole this city looks like. We have a beautiful beach and downtown and go one or two blocks in any other direction and the city looks like hell, now the graffiti is out of control again, Compass, Mayor Drautz old house and many on 2nd Ave North go tagged a lot the past few days, the CM, PBSO, and Code all need to work together, it is not an impossible task to clean up this city, if it were a priority, it could be done in all parts of the city, the city just lacks consistency and direction. The CM and leaders need to realize that we all care and love our city and wanting it looking the best, we would not bring these issues to them if we didn't care. The new CM may now realize he bit off more than he can chew with his mediocre leadership in Lantana, people in LW do not want to settle for mediocrity anymore, we got the beach, we go the downtown, and some part of the south looking better and we want the entire city to look better, if this CM can't do it( and he is supposed to be the expert to run a city) then we need to get someone else who can, without giving attitude to citizens as to why we have so much blight and dumpy conditions. The CM is on the hot seat now, he knows he needs to clean it up here real soon or he will be packing his bags, his lack on responsiveness to the citizens and attitude has rubbed too many the wrong way lately, that is his epiphany Lynn.
"Gee, the Lake Worth’s city manager has vowed to address the code department’s problems. There must have been some sort of epiphany to arrive at the conclusion we had a problem, Houston. We have only been complaining about code enforcement or the lack thereof for how many years now?"
Code enforcement! We have CODE ENFORCEMENT? No sh*T. This is sort of like the CM is doing a wunnerful job and the commission is doing even a better wunnerful job. Now Scott is going to do something about the deplorable conditions? Sure he is.
Too bad he wasn't put in the hot seat during his 1 yr evaluation. With all that is wrong with this city, all that is crumbling around us, the commission thought it appropriate to rate the CM's sexiness as opposed to hold him responsible for the $135,000 job he was given.
12 years since i have been here --tried to make a difference,but when lazy people are hired without oversight--what do you get? a city that is run down because they just want a paycheck and ride around in the truck all day doing nothing---nothing has changed --and get use to it
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