Posted on 09/19/2017 5:42:52 PM PDT by TigerClaws
Mere hours after Hurricane Irma, Miami-Dade County was ticketing residents for building code violations on their wrecked properties.
Celso Perez was helping his neighbors remove some fallen trees blocking their street when a county code enforcer rolled up and issued him a safety notice for having a downed fence. "I laughed," Perez tells WSVN-TV. "I thought he was kidding. 'You are kidding right? We just had a hurricane six hours ago.'"
It wasn't a joke. The official told Perez that the downed fence—which encloses a pool—was a safety hazard, and that if it wasn't fixed by the time he returned, Perez would be hit with a fine. The official then hung the safety citation on the portion of Perez's fence that remained standing, leaving him and his neighbors to finish clearing the debris from their street.
According to WSVN, the county has handed out 680 safety notices for downed pool barriers, and another 177 electrical hazard safety notices. Reason reached out to the county to confirm those numbers, but has not received a reply.
From what can be gleaned from the WSVN story and from county code enforcement procedures, these safety notices appear to be just warnings, meaning no fines have been handed out as of yet. Reason tried to confirm this with the county as well, but was again rebuffed.
Still, these warnings carry with them a duty to correct the violation within a specific window of time. That might not even be possible for some residents, given how many businesses are still out of operation.
As Perez said of the day he got his ticket, "All the stores were closed. It's not like I can go to Home Depot and find some temporary barrier."
Even if he could, it's quite possible that Perez and the other people handed citations might have more pressing things to do right after a hurricane than bring their homes back up to code. You know: clearing the streets, seeking medical attention, checking in on family members, trying to find food. You might think the county would have higher priorities too, like getting the lights back on for Miami-Dade's 16,510 homes and businesses still without power.
County officials don't see it that way. "It is important that we reach residents in the immediate aftermath of the storm," one tells WSVN, "because that is when conditions are most dangerous, and taking steps to protect life is a critical part of the recovery process."
Ha!
Saw another one that said it was “Undocumented Shopping.”
The same residents the were forced to evacuate or get arrested...
yeah, I’m kinda conflating.
That happened to us after Katrina. We were ripping out wet sheet rock and wet carpeting, and pulled out the kitchen cabinets, but had done nothing in our bathrooms at that time. Along comes code enforcement while my husband was sitting outside on a pile of rubbish taking a bread saying we had a code violation of removing our bathroom plumbing without a licensed plumber. We had not removed anything and they had not even gone inside out house to see what had been done and not done.
I believe the problem may have been retaliation because I had written a letter to the editor of our local newspaper complaining about something our parish president had done in regard to the storm. It was about a few days after the letter appeared in print that the code enforcement officer showed up.
There was a time in American history when any code enforcement officer who tried this could have expected a lynching on the spot.
Good on them
The best time to see code violations is just after the storm.
in Miami the wind damage to structures was not too great. those that were damaged were certainly code violations.
Not true. last time I had storm damage it cost me $250. same deal. Dallas works just like miami
I work for a county government. Inspectors are told what to do by supervisors who are told what to do by administrators who are told what to do by elected officials. So, like the charming Mikey Dukakis old Greek proverb says, “The fish rots from the head.”
Town depending on fine money to keep rolling in the aftermath. Scum.
And the Second Ammendment.
OK. Let' just start with a few hundred "You're fireds" shall we?
Then we can go from there.
That's why as Shakespeare once said, "First of all, let's kill all the lawyers..."
But Bill didn’t actually mean it.
And all the functional imbeciles wonder how (and why) Trump got elected...
Tar. Feathers. Fencerail. Obnoxious bureaucrat.
Some assembly required.
Wow and I thought our town’s zoning/code department was bad...that after a $250 fine for a blow-up kiddie pool. Sorry to hear, no good explanation for handing that stuff out at this time.
I think the mayor or alcalde or whatever the hell he is was bitching about global warming during Irma. These are the kind of ignorant scum running big cities now.
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