TAKING BACK THE NEIGHBORHOODS

City Code Officials, Police Work Together To Clean Up The Streets

PALESTINE -- From the curb, the small, abandoned frame house had the
look of one that had seen better days -- weeds and dirt competing for
space in the front yard, a dirty, broken commode sitting upright,
discarded near the front porch, old clothes scattered nearby,
graffiti sprayed on the carport.

In the back, piles of trash were heaped behind the house, creating a
refuge for rats, flies and mosquitoes.

Flanked by interim police chief Larry Coutorie and officers Melvin
Hill and James Lewis, city Director of Development Code Warren Oakley
and code enforcement officer Clydell McPeak carefully walked around
the property, noting where trash had been moved and what remained in
violation of city code.

Thursday morning's visit to the house was the second in two weeks,
and one of several made over the past month with police
accompaniment. During the first code enforcement visit to the
property, Oakley, McPeak and accompanying police officers found
discarded hypodermic needles scattered inside the house, evidence of
drug use.

At other stops Thursday, paint peeled from old wooden houses, old
cars sat scattered in yards, trash piled against fences, old washers
and dryers sat rusting in yards near where children could play.

The visits are part of a new effort to enforce city laws regarding
overgrown lots and junk vehicles, as well as unsafe structures and
trash creating health hazards, officials said.

In the first two weeks, officials cited 30 people for various
violations, Oakley said.

Property owners are given 10 days to correct the violation or face
fines and court action.

While code enforcement officials make the majority of their visits
unaccompanied, the police department became involved after officials
became concerned about their safety with some property known to be in
violation, Coutorie said.

"We got together and were trying to figure out what to do about known
drug houses, where people are selling or using," Coutorie said. "The
code enforcement people were pretty reluctant to go enforce code
rules for fear of being assaulted.

"We decided to get a couple of officers to go along. We let them do
their code enforcement work and just stand by."

Mayor Carolyn Salter said she didn't want to see city employees
assaulted for doing their jobs, something she said had happened in
other places.

"The police are going with them to protect them," Salter said. "There
have been a couple of code officers shot around the state."

Not all of the police-backed visits involve drug houses.

During the first Thursday, code enforcement officials cited a number
of abandoned cars and found one house with an open sewer in the yard,
Coutorie said.

During the second week of Thursday visits, he said, city officials
stopped to inquire about a property with two junked cars in the yard
and found a man who didn't live there asleep inside the house.

Several of the properties visited over the past four weeks have had
pit bulls, sometimes chained to trees or under old cars.

"These are the situations we're seeing," Oakley said. "We're seeing
huge amounts of pit bull dogs. One house had 12 adult dogs and
several puppies. We're seeing five to that many."

Another property had at least 53 old cars and trucks parked side by
side in long rows, some of the them dating to the 1950s. The owner
had repaired vehicles and they had accumulated over the years, Oakley
said.

In that case, the property owner agreed to find a car crushing
company to come crush and remove the vehicles, he said.

"That way they would crush them and pay him," Oakley said. "A lot of
them were his. He'd buy them to fix up and sell. He's disabled and
not able to work on the vehicles anymore."

While that example marked the extreme, plenty of other property
around the city has become home to rusting, long dead cars and
trucks, he said.

"It's not just one location," Oakley said. "It's not unusual to see
four or five abandoned junk vehicles in people's yards. They've got
to go. They've got to keep the vehicles operational."

By city law, junked vehicles visible to the public -- not kept inside
of a closed garage, for instance -- and not current on their state
registration and inspection may be cited and the owner given 10 days
to correct the problem.

Many times, attention drawn by junk vehicles has revealed other
problems, Oakley said.

"We've got all kinds of situations," Oakley said. "We ask people who
owns a vehicle and a lot of times, they're not the owners. If (the
owners) don't take care of it, we'll cause that (removal of the
vehicle) to happen."

The burden lies with the property owner to fix the problem, he
said.

"We're placing it on the property owner to get the violations
corrected," Oakley said. "It will be the property owner's
responsibility to correct."

Code officials aren't trying to be unfair to anyone, he said. They're
trying to encourage residents to take care of what they have, for
their own sake and for the sake of their neighbors.

"It's like people have just given up," Oakley said. "We've got to
(get) respect back in the community. We've got people in Palestine
living in houses with tarps on the roofs. Their houses are in
absolute disrepair.

"Not only is it hurting them but it hurts their neighbors. It hurts
the value of the community. That blight is going to leave."

Workshops are being planned to help homeowners learn how to properly
perform home repair, rather than do something that will lead to more
damage, he said.

In the short time that the program has been under way, it's beginning
to have a positive impact, officials said. Property owners have begun
to correct problems and others have taken notice.

"While we're out doing this, neighbors are out of their houses on
their cell phones," Oakley said. "We've gotten calls from neighbors
in support, saying finally something has been done.

"People have got a choice -- clean up or move on. It's not the first
time this has been done somewhere -- it's just the first time in
Palestine. The City of Henderson is very pro-active. They're doing
basically the same thing."

Regardless of the violation, officials mean business.

"This is another tool for community policing. This program is
designed to get the drug dealers, users and people who do not follow
the health, safety and building codes to clean up their act, comply
with our laws or leave," Salter said.

Oakley agreed.

"There's a horrendous number of people in Palestine who absolutely
neglect any and all regulations the city has," he said. "This is zero
tolerance. We're not playing."