Last Thursday Sal Panto took the media on an inspection walk. In fairness to Panto, he didn't invent the Mayor's Walk, actually he doesn't invent much. These walks always single out a very small percentage of properties for scrutiny, and scrutiny is expensive for the property owners. A code officer on Panto's publicity stunt estimated that half the properties viewed would be cited. Violations included peeling paint, cracks in the sidewalk, and weeds. Although, now a days, paint starts to peel ten minutes after it's applied, the cost of application is $thousands of dollars. Sidewalks crack and weeds grow. Although there may be some credence to the Broken Window Theory, there is also the empty taxpayer wallet reality. In Allentown, former Mayor Heydt took walks every summer, but never succeeded in inspecting Quality Of Life into the city. Allentown's program now is amuck, with hundreds of tagged houses actually contributing to the blight. These walks never get out into the more expensive residential areas, where paint also peels and sidewalks crack.photo:Ed Koskey Jr./The Morning Call/June 8, 2012
Can you check out Pawlowski's Hall of Fame project success? How many of those blighted properties are updated now and being lived in by new families? That would be interesting.
ReplyDeleteAllentown's program now is amuck, with hundreds of tagged houses
ReplyDeleteAt one neighborhood watch meeting, someone said the number is now 600 properties. This figure has not been confirmed by city hall in fairness to the mayor.
Panto may have a dog and pony show but is it true Pawlowski only has two zoning enforcement officers to cover the entire city?
ReplyDelete@7:47, i did a post which documented that the city purchased at least two of them, at a premium price. it was titled, neglect has it's reward. as far as checking something more out, once again let me say; i have no more time or sources than anybody else, check it out yourself.
ReplyDeletei am waiting to see what great ideas panto brought back from israel hesaid he was going to use
ReplyDeletei think the big hole in the ground can be a landfill no hokey hockey arena and der fuhrer pawlowski will think twice about strong arming money from other towns and boros its called government by the people for the people not some egotistical brainstorm
ReplyDeleteSal Panto creates or saves jobs. Sometimes simultaneously. Naked jealousy is not a good thing ...
ReplyDeleteEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
AL BUNDY NATIONAL JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS HALL OF FAME
Just look one hundred miles to the east to see the validity of the 'broken windows' theory of policing and code enforcement. Can a municipality go overboard? Sure. That's why citizens have to watch them carefully. And that's the value of responsible blogs like MM's.
ReplyDeletePawlowski's walks have worked. Hundreds of tagged buildings is a good thing. Getting them repaired or demolished takes time through the process, but the direction they are going in is toward being fixed or forgotten.
ReplyDeletepawlowski didn't go on walks. the allentown buildings were tagged by mostly one inspector, for often very superficial reasons. this blog has covered the inspection situation in allentown on several occasions.
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