Letters: Existing Code Enforcement Bureau can’t fight blight

Letters: Existing Code Enforcement Bureau can't fight blight
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“Fighting the Blight” is optimistic and vague in its conviction that the answer to runaway blight is to change nothing, to continue to rely on individuals who have been ineffective in controlling blight since 2007. It’s hard to imagine anyone less prepared to reduce blight than the failed Code Enforcement Bureau.

The optimal course of action would be to admit the effort has failed and develop a robust strategy to remove and prevent blight. This would require sharp focus on targets, goals, capacities, performance metrics, scheduled progress assessments and planned contingency actions. None of these are part of the bureau’s mission, strategy or culture.

The bureau does not fight blight and is not designed for it. Trade journal Louisiana Commercial Realty recounts, in a history of the bureau, that Marc Morial established it as a means of taking small property owners’ money without bothering to raise their taxes, or reduce blight. Its real mission is to squeeze fines out of victims, and its strategy is to recruit a sales force of unscrupulous, complaining neighbors willing to make false complaints and feed them to the bureau.

The Commercial Realty article vividly describes the bureau’s use of a kangaroo court to make its targets so miserable that they will sell their properties to the complainers at below-market prices, while the bureau collects victims’ fines for non-existent violations.

This is a bunco-extortion racket whose goal is to benefit the bureau and dishonest neighbors that feed victims to it and ignores real blight. 

Start over. Aim specifically, systematically and exclusively at fighting blight. Stop wasting time and money persecuting families that the bureau and unscrupulous neighbors drive to misery just to get their money and property.

JOHN HOWARD

New Orleans

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About Mary Weyand 15973 Articles
Mary founded Scoop Tour with an aim to bring relevant and unaltered news to the general public with a specific view point for each story catered by the team. She is a proficient journalist who holds a reputable portfolio with proficiency in content analysis and research. With ample knowledge about the Automobile industry, she also contributes her knowledge for the Automobile section of the website.

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