Letter: Article on zoning members was unbalanced and wrongheaded
July 14, 2008
To the Editor:
I am responding to the recent Athens NEWS article by Jim Phillips, in which the mayor is accused of a “witch hunt” against landlords for terminating Steve Pierson as code director (The NEWS, July 9). First of all, this piece presents itself as “news” when its purpose is obviously to serve the interests of local landlords, such as the owner of The Athens NEWS.
In a typical Republican tactic, the landlords accuse the mayor of the very thing they themselves are actually doing — orchestrating a witch hunt through innuendo and ominous warnings of what is in store for us all, which will be the terrible fate of overall compliance with City Code —for EVERYONE! The run-down, rat-hole charm of much of West Washington might well disappear! Our beloved cracked and buckling sidewalks might be forced into suffocating flatness and uniformity! The free-spirited trash now blowing through our yards and streets might have to be PICKED UP!
Students might actually be forced (largely against their will!) into habitable dwellings! And landlords are going to suffer, really suffer. So yes, it’s a witch hunt.
Well, break my heart. This landlord group goes on to claim that the mayor is anti-development because Steve Pierson knows so much about the City Code, and he is, in fact, irreplaceable. It is curious, however, that someone who knows so much about the code and has an office on the west side of Athens to boot would be so oblivious to the egregious code violations surrounding him.
My own experience, after seeking to bring some of these code violations to Pierson’s attention for three years in a row (including photographs, letters, discussions, frequent visits and phone calls), was that he came down hard — on me for complaining. Not that I object to living within code, but I would think that the basic concept of equality before the law would require the same enforcement for others as well. And, I admit, the code office finally did act on my complaints, though with the greatest show of reluctance and resentment, after I spent over $600 in attorney fees and began a lawsuit. But that’s just my personal experience.
However, I do note that in the short space that Paul Wiehl was given to defend his position (two paragraphs out of 23), he reasonably notes that landlords who comply with code have nothing to worry about, and that he simply wants consistent rather than arbitrary code enforcement.
Steve Pierson had six months to implement this basic change of direction and didn’t do so. Knowledge of the code isn’t worth anything if it’s not enforced, and, of course, that’s the real reason for the outraged complaints of Coady, Sole and Bloom and the rest of this landlord group, which takes up the great bulk of this article.
Bill Cook
Mary Street
Athens
Editor’s note: The article in question was about the two zoning board members who quit as a result of the mayor firing the code director, so that’s why the report had a critical focus on the mayor. In today’s issue, we are including an article in which Jim Phillips interviews neighborhood groups about the firing. Also, the article from last Thursday doesn’t contain any quotes from Sole and Bloom. They did, however, submit a letter to the editor on the issue that we published in that paper. TS
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