LETTER: Don’t back down in enforcement of code

Talk about it

To the Editor:

In an article in the Aug. 1 Daily Republic, we read where the city’s code enforcement officer had appeared and given the council an update on his progress in regard to the enforcement of the city “code,” if you can call it that.

A local man came to the meeting and complained he had been unfairly cited and fined. One suggestion by a board member was to place door hangers at the property. Do you really feel that a person who doesn’t clean his property up in the first place would ever admit to reading the “door knob notice”?

What bothers me is that the city has a “code,” hired an individual to enforce the “code” and as soon as someone complains we start to back down on the enforcement. Citizens understand the code, but some will always push it to the limit. If the code had been left alone, allowed Mr. Lanning to continue doing the job he was hired to do, “enforce the code,” it would have instilled in the minds of people that they had a responsibility and they had better attend to it.

They have a source available where they could contact Mr. Lanning, phone or personal, and let him know if they need extra time before he sent in the mowers. We must put that responsibility on the homeowners’ shoulders, not a hired official.

As I write this letter on Sept. 1, just last evening I traveled Eighth Street, just on the south side of the middle school. Someone has several lots for sale at that location. Some of the weeds are 3 feet high and the pigeon grass is 2 feet high. The property has no place to put a “hanger.” Also on the corner of Havens and the 37 bypass, the former site of Norwick Motors, what a mess.

Let Mr. Lanning enforce the code, don’t stand in his way. It will take a while, but property owners will then know it is for real.

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