Who’s minding the store?– And other points to ponder By KAREN KENNEDY “It’s my property and I’ll darn well do what I please.” “If nobody complains, leave it alone.” These are two popular – albeit archaic – rivers of thought on which this county runs. In the course of my newspaper work, I wade into these rivers of thought day after day after day. With respect to how we often conduct business, our thought process is years behind where we should be in this county. Let’s talk about our abandoned property ordinance. Yes, just when you thought it was safe to come out, here it is again. It appears the ordinance is at an impasse for three reasons. First reason. The current ordinance draft basically says if no one files a complaint about an abandoned property, the code enforcement officer must turn a blind eye to the violation and cannot cite the violator. “If nobody complains, leave it alone.” Second reason. Mr. and Mrs. Rubble live on Bedrock Drive and they inherited the property right next door with the old, abandoned family homestead still standing on it. No one is living in this old homestead, and we call it “abandoned” because the Rubbles have abandoned all upkeep of the property. It’s a downright mess – a health and safety hazard – and an eyesore, to boot. Yet, the current ordinance draft would allow it. “It’s my property and I’ll darn well do what I please.” Third reason. An abandoned property is so full of violations the county has no choice but to go in and clean it up. We’ve now got a cleanup bill, and who should pay it? The property owner should, of course. Some members of our Fiscal Court want the county attorney to bring the case back to Fiscal Court for its approval instead of keeping the case in our county court system and allowing our elected judges to do their job. This scenario is unethical, it’s “good old boy,” and it’s mixing politics with law enforcement. The vote for the current abandoned property ordinance – an ordinance that includes all of the above – was a 4-3 vote at both our March 8 special called Fiscal Court meeting as well as the March 14 regular Fiscal Court meeting. Magistrates Kent Allen, Herbie Chism, Harold Davidson, and Jamie Staples voted against passing this ordinance. Survey says three of them voted “no” for one reason and the other one most likely for an entirely different reason. In any case, that’s how the vote played out. Magistrates Don Callecod and Theresa Padgett, as well as Judge Executive Bill Haynes, voted in favor of the ordinance to include “Reasons one, two, and three.” Why should we all have a problem with this? Because if we somehow wind up passing this ordinance as it currently stands, the people of our county will be poorly served, and the violators will not be held accountable. “Nobody’s complained” is never a good reason not to enforce the law. Even with approximately 28,000 people in Meade County, this is a small place. People are either afraid to complain about what their neighbor is doing because they fear retribution or they feel like complaining isn’t neighborly. They can’t win no matter what they do. A couple months ago, after I wrote about straight piping in this county, a man called to tell me his neighbor straight pipes. The man said he has a well on his property and he’s worried his neighbor’s straight piping is going to contaminate his well water. I gave him two options for reporting the straight piping, but my best guess is he hasn’t reported it for fear of retaliation from his neighbor. This is just one of the problems with relying on complaints to enforce the law. I certainly hope this man and his family never experience any serious health problems as a result of their neighbor’s illegal actions. When it comes to “It’s my property and I’ll darn well do as I please,” boy, I do have a problem with this if it affects the health and safety of the people in this county. Should your property value suffer because someone else doesn’t care about his? Is your property value the county’s responsibility? Sometimes there’s just no accounting for taste and people will junk up their property. They’ve every right to do this as long as it doesn’t break any laws. But if it does, I’m here to tell you I have a big problem with it and so should you. Their junk and their abandoned property decreases our property values – yours and mine. We should indeed hold our county officials accountable for the adverse affects of our deficient, nonexistent, or unenforced laws. With the current stalemate on Fiscal Court, who knows what the fate of our abandoned property ordinance will be. Some say those who voted against passing the current ordinance draft are unwilling to compromise. Yet by sticking to their guns, they didn’t sell out our county. They didn’t vote for a “watered down” ordinance – one that would have gotten the abandoned property monkey off their back yet done the people of this county a real disservice. Compromise can be a good thing but not if the decisions made as a result are poor ones. Sadly, there’s little question but that the abandoned property ordinance has become extremely political. This is an opinion column. Needless to say, I’ve turned up the volume a notch or two this week. This is no popularity contest. Just calling it as I see it. Got a topic you’d like to see discussed? Contact Karen Kennedy at 422-2155 or send an e-mail to messenger@bbtel.com. The Messenger will consider all topics and select those that best lend themselves to the column’s format. All comments in response to the column should be sent to the Messenger in the form of a Letter to the Editor.
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