Shit like this infuriates me. My family was the target of this nonsense when I was growing up. And I always felt like it was more a mechanism for connected people to bully those they didn't like.
For example, our family house didn't have enough parking, so I would park a bit down the road in some public parking spots for a park. I was usually only home from like 10p to 10a, so it's not like it ever impacted anyone. Plus, the "park" was pretty lame, anyone going through the trouble of driving to a park would go to the nice one a mile up the road.
One day, I woke up to a "no parking" sign and ticket. These were very clearly parking spots and the "no parking" wasn't conditional (not like, no parking dawn to dusk). Since i was the only person who ever used the spot, it was targeted at me for sure.
Drive by today and the sign is gone and lots of people park in those spots. Turns out, the people who moved in across the street got elected to the city and did all kinds of corrupt shit (ex, the dude's band got paid $600 a week to play at a park). I only found out about it because I became friends with the mayor's son, who recognized my last name from our neighbors. And of course, said neighbors were always full of smiles and hellos.
My dad was cited for "parking a commercial vehicle" in the drive way. My dad is a tradesman and said "commercial" vehicle was one of a white econoline van, or an F150. Do you think the city had any issues with other vans or pickup trucks in driveways? He ended up removing the vinyl company decal from the side and replacing it with a big magnet that he'd take off when he got home.
So yeah, I think we need a serious rethinking of how laws like this are enforced. Including, a right to meet the accuser, anti-harassment provisions that prevent people from constantly complaining about somebody they don't like, a right to have a state official come out instead of a local one. I'd also like to see enforcers be punished for bad reports, but that's a stretch.
The only reason these scum get away with their continuous, ongoing villainy is because they have absolutely nothing to fear from the system of psychopathy, which supports and encourages them to victimize their next victim; nor from their victims, who are usually too weak and cowardly to protect themselves in any meaningful way; nor from the crowds of equally cowardly and narcissistic well-to-do onlookers who read articles like this, at best say "oh, how terrible", then go about their business.
So this problem, and many other problems like it ultimately emanating from the same origin--psychopaths and narcissists and the governments they create to enforce their evil on the rest of us while gaslighting us to believe it's for our own good--only gets solved permanently when these code Nazis start getting flaxed alive and slowly tortured to death, on video, with many copies of said video then being distributed widely "to whom it may concern", with the Nazi's head on a pike then being well placed on some politician's front lawn, along with a great big sign saying "YOU'RE NEXT, ASSHOLE." That's how you change things in a hurry.
The root of the problem is that when you're accused, you cannot confront your accuser.
This is a right guaranteed by the US Constitution, but then someone decided that it only applied to 'criminal' complaints as opposed to 'civil' complaints.
This is the result. The process becomes the punishment.
If the accused could confront his accusers, that would put a stop to a lot of this real quick.
Nashville is infamous for petty code enforcement. The IJ has been helping people there:
If they get a tip, they still need probable cause (corroborating evidence from other sources) to take action. They can't go from a tip to putting you in the slammer merely based on the tip.
They might ask you to come in and answer questions, but they can't punish you with fines, etc, like a code inspector can.
If it's more than just a tip - let's say it is a witness that is coming forward, then you will have the right to question the witness in a court of law.
Sure, They have to have evidence like seeing in the murder.
In this case of stupid code enforcement, The tipster simply tells the enforcer where to look, and the enforcer goes or collects the evidence and proof themselves.
I don't think the laws are unreasonable but rather capable of being interpreted more broadly than the lawmakers intended. The laws sound like they were intended for more serious issues.
It's not the same thing. Any well-intentioned law - and plenty that are not well-intentioned - will be leveraged in this way. Speed limits on roads and safety rules about cars having working lights should absolutely exist, but they are disproportionately enforced against minorities and other "undesirables" as a way of power enforcement. The problem is the system and the racism that is systemic.
Society relies upon discretion and selective enforcement. Mandatory minimum sentences are a travesty that has destroyed countless lives. It's impossible to write laws to cover every scenario, so we rely on proper enforcement and sentencing.
If you dont like the stats quo, it seems like improving the laws to prevent abuse is a lot more plausible than trying to reform how 350 million think, feel, and act.
The same law system that is been rather harsh on many non-whites too.
Sure, it's not 100% race. But it's definitely a combination low-income people and their race.
So, I'll fill in all those who unaware. This is mainly taking place in East Nashville. East Nashville has historically been inhabited by poor black people. It's across the river from the heart of all the downtown action, and I would say up until about... 10 years ago, East Nashville was a rather unsafe part of town be in. And perhaps the word "unsafe" is been too generous. There are many buildings with bullet holes in them still. Like many large southern towns, segregation of the past didn't magically disappear.
However, East Nashville has been and is still currently being heavily gentrified, and many of the long time residents have been priced out of the area. This is mainly due to the how valuable the location is in proximity to downtown.
So, sure the codes are a big issue, but the monsters perpetuating this unfair practice have used all their major ploys, loopholes, etc. they can to keep this profit machine running. Rich and uppity white folks from California, Chicago, New York, etc. do not want to be neighbors with black folk [1]. The racial angle isn't being "pushed", it's truly the motive here -- the poor white people areas aren't being heavily gentrified, at least not to the same rate, which I do not find surprising, all things considered...
Source: Nashville Native
[1] I do not mean to offend anyone who is from those parts. However, I constantly hear things along the lines of:
"I just moved form <affluent city/state>, and I cannot believe how cheap everything is here!" or "Wow, a house like that would cost <insert multiplicative> as much where I am from."
I'm seeing active attempts to raise the minimum cost of living in the entire article, the idea that we want affordable housing is absurd. Clearly people want expensive housing to drive all the poor people out of the neighborhood.
In Silicon Valley, if you leave your car parked on the street for a few days, without moving it for 50 (?) yards or more, you will get cited. I got cited in front of my own house, for my old car, fully on the insurance. Stupid? - yes. Discriminatory? - no.
Yeah, I had that problem back in college. Hey, driving a few blocks to the university would actually slow me down because then I wouldn't have my bike to get around campus. Hence I rarely drove other than on the weekends--except to move the car to avoid tickets.
It's discriminatory because this is mainly happening in one area that was, and still is, predominately inhabited by those with a higher melanin count than the rest of the city.
It seems to me that this one code enforcer is wasting the city's money by spending his time writing citations that aren't based on a complaint. He seems to have a vendetta against this one homeowner. I think he should be fired.
"When Tad Dominiak, the inspector assigned to our case, called me back, the conversation did not go well. Dominiak told me every plant on the slope longer than 12 inches would need to be removed. He threatened me with a fine of $50 per day, per weed, if we didn’t comply. When I told Dominiak that removing all of the vegetation would cause massive erosion, he suggested terracing. We had looked into that, I told him, and it would cost tens of thousands of dollars. He responded, “Your cost of compliance is not my problem.” "
I wonder why they can't just buy, borrow or rent a weed whacker.
I am missing some context for spending $30,000 being a serious option, and I wonder if the inspector didn't understand either.
(Further on it says they paid someone $5000 to remove the vegetation...
And another $4,000: "I’ve since attempted to stop the erosion by anchoring cement blocks into the slope and turning them into beds with trees and decorative plants. Hauling cement blocks and 35-pound bags of mulch up a steep slope is a laborious process, and I have no idea if it will work. But while it’s still been expensive — about $4,000 so far"
And a tree that costs thousands to remove:
"By forcing us to fix a dubious problem, the city had created a genuine safety hazard. Taking down the tree will cost another $4,000 to $6,000.")
Probably would not help the case in the article where the code enforcer, on his own, decided to just constantly go look for problems once he found an easy victim. The root problem seems to be spelled out in the article:
> One former city official with experience in Codes enforcement, who also asked not to be named, said the laws are vague enough that inspectors could easily find violations at every home in the city, including his own and those of other Codes inspectors.
When you have a law that is written such that everyone is breaking it, you can just send people out to harvest fines from anyone you don’t like.
The entire article equates white to wealthy. Anybody who has spent 2 minutes in the south knows that poor whites are NOT on great terms with code enforcement.
So what they really MEAN is wealthy people of all races are using the system against poor people of all races. But instead they pretend middle class black people can't figure out the system while poor whites are unaffected.
It read like it was written by an upper middle class white girl fresh out of college.
How many “middle class” black people are gentrifying nashville? And isn’t the man spoken Oc in this article pretty much middle class? He owns his property. Maybe lower middle class, or approaching middle class?
I’ve had white friends tell me how they didn’t want to be gentrified out of their area in nashville. The funny thing is he was a white guy who probably got his house through his parents’ resources. I dont think hes afraid of well educated black people making his area’s cost of living going up.
For example, our family house didn't have enough parking, so I would park a bit down the road in some public parking spots for a park. I was usually only home from like 10p to 10a, so it's not like it ever impacted anyone. Plus, the "park" was pretty lame, anyone going through the trouble of driving to a park would go to the nice one a mile up the road.
One day, I woke up to a "no parking" sign and ticket. These were very clearly parking spots and the "no parking" wasn't conditional (not like, no parking dawn to dusk). Since i was the only person who ever used the spot, it was targeted at me for sure.
Drive by today and the sign is gone and lots of people park in those spots. Turns out, the people who moved in across the street got elected to the city and did all kinds of corrupt shit (ex, the dude's band got paid $600 a week to play at a park). I only found out about it because I became friends with the mayor's son, who recognized my last name from our neighbors. And of course, said neighbors were always full of smiles and hellos.
My dad was cited for "parking a commercial vehicle" in the drive way. My dad is a tradesman and said "commercial" vehicle was one of a white econoline van, or an F150. Do you think the city had any issues with other vans or pickup trucks in driveways? He ended up removing the vinyl company decal from the side and replacing it with a big magnet that he'd take off when he got home.
So yeah, I think we need a serious rethinking of how laws like this are enforced. Including, a right to meet the accuser, anti-harassment provisions that prevent people from constantly complaining about somebody they don't like, a right to have a state official come out instead of a local one. I'd also like to see enforcers be punished for bad reports, but that's a stretch.