Mayor and Nuisance Officer Appear to Be Dropping Ball on Nuisance Property Law

[Lori Allen _]

Since October 1st, 2015, it appears that our police have been called out for 272 nuisance-related activities at various properties. Our city's chronic nuisance law says that after two calls for nuisance activity or two citations and/or arrests for nuisance activity, that a property owner is supposed to be sent a letter by the city informing the property owner of the issue and advising them to take action to abate the nuisance. If the nuisance is not abated and subsequent nuisance calls continue, then the property is supposed to be labelled a nuisance and the property owner is supposed to be charged for every police visit until the nuisance is abated. Unfortunately, the city seems slothful in the enforcement of this law. See the attached lists. One is a database of all nuisance calls since October 1st and the other is a recent copy of the database the city maintains to keep track of properties they have labelled a nuisance. Even with the properties that the city does label nuisances, it appears that many of them are not charged/fined for subsequent nuisance calls. Also notice that very few properties with more than two nuisance calls are on the city's list. It makes you wonder, what is the point? It appears that word is already getting around that no action will be taken. Many of Lakewood's nicer streets are now being blighted by poor behavior of some residents. It is as simple as the "monkey-see, monkey-do" mentality. Our police do not enjoy going on nuisance calls and could be helping those that really need help instead of breaking up fights at a residence or telling people to turn their music down for the umpteenth time. Many of these calls involve persons that are highly intoxicated or high on drugs, which makes matters worse.

Maybe when you wear too many hats or bite off more than you can chew, you need to take off a hat or spit some out.

FWIW.

[Lori Allen _]

Went out for a family bike ride today and as usual, trash lined streets on a Holiday weekend. Let's all give the Mayor a standing ovation!

[Dan Alaimo]

Lori,
I don't know where you live, but I don't think it's near me. This ain't the Gold Coast, but things are good here and the occasional transgression is easily overlooked.

[Lori Allen _]

Dan,

Glad to hear things are good by you. In other parts of the city, things are not looking so good. On my street, I have looked at a garbage can for almost a week. I'm not looking for a utopia, but with the taxes I pay, I don't appreciate seeing the things I do as often as I do.

Again, glad to hear your street is good about this. I just think we need a new strategy for dealing with the problem, as the current one is not working.

FWIW.

[Dan Alaimo]

...a tale of two Lakewoods, or maybe three.

[Valerie Molinski]

Dan,

Glad to hear things are good by you. In other parts of the city, things are not looking so good. On my street, I have looked at a garbage can for almost a week. I'm not looking for a utopia, but with the taxes I pay, I don't appreciate seeing the things I do as often as I do.

Again, glad to hear your street is good about this. I just think we need a new strategy for dealing with the problem, as the current one is not working.

FWIW.

Did you call the city to report the address with the garbage cans out all week? Use the app and take a pic with it? That is what I do, and it works well. Someone from the city is usually on it within a day or two. once people get reminders, it usually stops... people are not infallible.

I will say that I agree with Dan. I ran around many different parts of Ward 3 on Thanksgiving morning and saw only one busted up/trash piece of furniture that someone had clearly put out on Weds night, knowing it would sit until Friday am when collection resumed. I realize that many people went out of town and put stuff out early so they would not miss the collection, though.