A Bit of History
With all the current furor over inspections, perhaps a look back at November 2006 might be in order. That's when a group of Realtors successfully warded off an attempt to increase inspection fees and a City Council review of Inspections Division operations was promised. Click here to read the story.
--Bernice Paglia
--Bernice Paglia
posted by Bernice at 12:40 PM
4 Comments:
Thanks Bernice for the link to this story. I remember the meeting as it was one of the first council meetings that I ever attended here in Plainfield. As the story tells it, the council has been quite complacent, has not followed up on their own commitments, and we continue to see the results, and being the recipients, of their own failures. Why we keep re-electing them?
It should be quite sad for the city of Plainfield to see how renters are subjected to the kind of landlord abuse and exploitation that we are finally reading about on the newspaper, to see that this abuse has been condoned by city officials and those few ones who have make themselves to be power-brokers should be an eye opener to voters and homeowners alike. We can't have the city move forward if these issues don't get resolved. Unfortunately, some of our elected officials remove themselves from these issues by thinking that the issues belong to "low income residents", what these officials neglect to see is that quality of life for "low income residents" ends up affecting us all.
When you see the photo gallery at the Courier News, just think that many of our school children live in one of these buildings, how can we expect them to do well when they are subjected to this abuse? And how can we expect parents to get involved when they have these worries as their daily bread?
Good thing is election season, maybe this time around something will get done.
Maria Pellum
Ah Nagy Sileem. A political appointment, got some pension credits and split.
The council at the time consisted of Rashid Burney, Don Davis, Elliot Simmons, Harold Gibson, Rayland Van Blake, Linda Carter, and Cory Storch.
Yes they have let Jenny Wenson-Maier do NOTHING but dismantle the inspections division and give in to the realtors. How much money does Jerry Green get in political contributions from the real estate and apartment owners associations? How much did they give to Robinson-Briggs? Burney cracks me up with his after the fact "shape up or ship out" attitude. way to be aggressive Council President.
The Realtors/ Real Estate Industry have had some very valid points in the past regarding issues that "should not be done". The annual inspections that are being discussed not just in PLFD, but in many other towns are a source of revenue that would supercede the States own 5 Year inspection. Its is a lot of time and work and inconvience to the Tenants to complete a 5 year inspection. They are also costly to the landlord who has to pay for both Health and Fire inspections. It can be a few hundred dollars for a small property to tens of thousands for some of the bigger sites. For the average landlord, the 5 year is more than enough. With the number of violations sure to be found with Connoly, he should have an annual inspection until he cleans up his act. Giving him a slight "benefit of doubt", many landlords are faced with "Tenants" who just dont give a damn since it is not their own, they are just renting and can move at any time. They trash the place and go to the next one. Im sure that here in PLFD he has had at least 1 of those stellar Tenants. Not all are sure to be like the 80 something year old lady that is featured in the CN who likely maintains a beautifull home.
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