Letter: Mayor was right; city code office badly needed a house-cleaning
July 17, 2008
To the Editor:
I read with interest the letters to the editor in last Thursday’s Athens NEWS that expressed support for fired Athens Code Director Steve Pierson. Most commented on two points: Pierson’s good personality and his deep knowledge of code. I would agree about the characterization of his personality. In my limited interactions with Pierson, I have seen him conduct himself in a strictly professional and appropriate manner. I don’t understand, however, how a wealth of knowledge in one person’s head is seemingly favorable to a written, transparent code system that anyone – citizen, volunteer or code employee – can readily access.
I lived on North Congress Street for seven and a half years and witnessed the steady decline of the neighborhood. I joined my neighborhood association and tried to help stem the tide of ghettoization. My own experiences with the code office were radically different than those of the letter writers (which looked to me to be mostly landlords and developers).
Just a few examples: I went into the code office a few times in person and was surprised to see a mounted television set in the office – turned on! A code officer inspected my partner’s one rental unit and did not bother to walk upstairs to complete that part of the inspection. I never found out why code declined to issue a standardized inspection checklist. Most importantly, when my former neighbors and I would contact the code office with reports of code violations, we were met with a very haphazard response – sometimes immediate, often delayed and often no followup at all. I could walk up North Congress Street today and find mountains of trash left over from student move-out, severely over-occupied single-family houses and some houses that should be condemned.
As far as the people who have resigned along with Pierson’s departure, I don’t know them or their work, but I can only take their alliance with the old regime as a sign that now is the time to “clean house” in Athens.
Mary Reed
Athens
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