Here is the podcast with Sly from Friday on Madison West Side Crime and Meadowood:
I am was saddened when I opened up The Capital Times this morning and read:
Landlord law tops mayor's list: Seen as help in fighting crime
The chronic nuisance proposal would identify addresses where police calls and other problems are frequent, and require landlords to come up with a plan for improvement. It would also allow the city to take action against the landlords if their properties don't improve.
It is truly depressing. They just do not get it. Stop and ask yourself two questions:
- If jobs, and job training, quality childcare, transportation to home and work, and quality health are the keys to ending poverty and in turn stopping crime, how does a law that requires landlords to control tenant behavior become the top priority?
- If the Madison Police department with a $50 million budget cannot control crime in Meadowood, how are a rag tag collection of untrained landlords going to do it, especially with half the Madison Common Council making it virtually impossible to evict?
Do not get me wrong. A solid code enforcement program with Building Inspection and the property owners working together is critical. They can start with the vehicles that are either abandoned or improperly registered or licensed (some belong to families too poor to register, others belong to punks who use them in the commission of crimes.). Then they can move on to the 'neutral' parts of buildings and look for contraband that no one wants to keep in their home and risk possession of anything from drug paraphernalia to weapons charges. After that they can meet to examine exterior lightening and other safety items.
For that we need a new ordinance? Phooey.
Then they can gain the confidence of the good families in these buildings who would also like to see the gang bangers, drug dealers and other thugs thrown out. You need them and they will not help until there is trust. Can you say Community Policing? Family enhancement? Public health nurses and social workers?
Duh.
Of course, some of the problems are from 15 year old teenagers who live in those buildings who have not graduated to the Big House. Tell me how this new landlord ordinance is going to change their lives and behavior. Oh. We will evict them. More phooey.
Hey I know. Let's have a study.
Well study this:
Put in community police officers $$$$$$$$$$$$$ and nurses, more $$$$$$$$$$$, work with employers and local religious organizations.
And yes, kick out the older thugs and make it clear they are not welcome anywhere in the metro area.
Sorry. This was supposed to be a short post on the podcast. Got carried away. The solutions for Meadowood was supposed to be Monday's post. I suppose I will do it again. I love talking to myself.
Hah, Paul - I sent you the podcast for your own personal enjoyment but hey - having you post it here is better than a sharp stick in the eye.
Thanks,
Morgan
Posted by: mpwelk | August 11, 2007 at 04:20 PM
OK - I'll bite?
How does the Common Council make it hard for landlords to evict tenants?
Eviction is governed by state laws, not local ones.
Posted by: Brenda Konkel | August 12, 2007 at 12:09 AM
Born in Madison 1965, went to Emerson and moved to the Prairie Rd/Birch Hill area in 1974. This was a newly built house, the majority of our neighbors worked for the city/county- Sheriff, MPD, MFD and other city departments. My own parents worked for the city, pop in a division of the DPW and mom in a dept. at the CCB. Offhand I'd figure that 35% of those '74 neighbors are still there, kids gone, retired or close to.
There is a rough square, the borders being Frisch Rd. to the west, Loreen Dr. to the east, Jacobs Way to the south and Hammersly Rd. to the north which were mostly duplexes filled with the kids I went to school with at Falk Elem. and then Orchard Ridge Middle.
This was my neighborhood, and it was far from homogenous. I benefitted from going to school with boys and girls from many different cultures that I didn't see at the school to the south (Huegel). I realise that it was a different time, but those duplexes were filled with people who also had families, jobs, and now that I am thinking about it, dads... yes, dads, who were out mowing lawns on Sat., taking us kids to West Towne for shopping, movies or just to hang out. I knew in my gut at times when I visited friends that they had a tougher time providing for their kids the things I took for granted. That being said, I learned more about resourcefulness
and family togetherness from them than from my more 'middle class' friend's families. The Lucy Lincoln Heistand Greenway wasn't a Maginot Line then, we had softball games, cookouts and (gasp) fireworks at the small park behind Jacobs Way.
Not everything was all hunky dory though. I saw my share of single moms, alcoholism, delinquency and petty crime. There did however, seem to be an overriding sense that things were looking better and not worse. Good neighborhood, good schools, good kids.
I visit my retired parents often. They still live in the same house, many of the same neighbors, but I now feel a sense of entrenchment, putting up a bullwark against that same area I had been able to find friends so long ago. There are still many young families in our immediate area, but i feel that the unobtrusive fencing that my parents put up to 'keep the grandkids in' also served to keep that 'square' of neighbors out.
My mom and I have always believed in and supported the liberal progressive positions, we volunteered at the Civic Center, and Tues. night was always our night for popcorn and the common council.
That is why our conversation today was so unnerving. I was there to mow the lawn and she cornered me about my views on how crime is at it's core a reflection on poverty and opportunity, education,etc. She made a comment that blew me away... "If they are so impoverished, why do they have the most expensive shoes, the most expensive clothes and then can't pay rent?" "Why do I see people milling around their shiny cars, loitering in the middle of the street when I am trying to simply go to the grocery?" " They must use all that welfare to be able to buy those fancy rims and fancy clothes."
I was ASTOUNDED. So much so that all I could do was meekly shut up. Here was the progressive role model I had always looked up to, someone who worked for and believed in the most progressive and effective mayor our city has known... The worst thing about it was she had a point. We were driving the neighborhood and I was a witness... To her point.
This city is my life and my love, I have traveled and lived in other countries and states, am a disabled vet, but would never think of going far from the capital of Wisconsin. It just pains me to hear from those in the trenches of the Meadowood neighborhood just giving up.
Posted by: LifelongMadison | August 12, 2007 at 03:10 AM
Aren't eviction laws done on the state level, not the city level, so the Madison common council would have nothing to do with that...even if their views would favor that, how could an alderperson affect state law?
Posted by: Something Verbose | August 13, 2007 at 01:36 AM