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Friday, February 12, 2010

Get rid of trash by enforcing the laws

There are specific laws now in effect that could clean up Newark’s trash. Here they are, Part A and Part B:

PART A
The mayor is responsible to citizens for ensuring all laws and ordinances are enforced. (City Charter 5:03)

PART B
Newark has many laws by which it could resolve every one of its trashy neighborhoods, trashy families, and trashy slumlords. For example:

660.04 Filthy accumulations
660.05 Sidewalk repair
1860.03 Authorized receptacles for trash
1860.04 Disposal of solid waste
Property Maintenance Code (PMC) Sec. 302.1 Exterior Property Areas, Sanitation
PMC Sec. 304.1 Exterior Structures, General
PMC Sec. 304.2 Exterior Structures, Protective Treatment (e.g. paint)
PMC etc etc etc through everything about a house or building that could possibly go wrong, inside and out.

You don’t have to be a lawyer - you don’t even need to be half-bright - to look at the slumlord properties in Newark and perceive their lawless status.

The mayor is considering abandoning the above ordinances by handing over control for Newark’s cleanliness to the County Health Department. The Property Maintenance Code would, in that case, be considered a failed experiment after only three years and property owners would again be subject to ham-handed enforcement tactics by health inspectors along with harassment from complaints by anonymous busybodies.

The mayor has at his command everything he needs to clean up this city. He has the authority, he has the police, he has the courts, and he has a community-approved set of laws that could be made to work. He has everything but the will and the ambition and the inspiration.

It’s past time for council and citizens to insist that he fulfill the pledge he took when he assumed office and to comply with his legal obligation to enforce our laws. If he doesn’t, he will have ignored that pledge; if he rises to the occasion he’ll have put some badly needed polish on his reputation.

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