La City corruption

[ICE]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-building-inspector-corruption-20110623,1,6124815.story?obref=obinsite

 

[karmann33]

With the way the economy is people will take drastic measures to get their project approved and dangling money in front of a public official looks like it works in LA. Those inspectors were also making a decent wage to lose it all by taking bribes is unbeleiveable.

 

[mmmarvel]

My main mentor use to say that for him to take a bribe, it would have to be a high 7 figure number ... odd, he never seemed to get bribes.

 

[Mark K]

Corruption takes both the public servant and the person who wants their projec6t approved.

I believe that a the buildig enforcement environment creates situations that facilitate corruption. Lack of monitoring of the inspectors work and a lack of effective appeal process creates a situation where the inspector has great power and no accountability. The all too common practice of enforcing what one believes should be the code as opposed to what the code clearly states also leads to the idea that the inspector can do whatever he wants. If you do not want corruption you need to manage your department and create a culture where you only enforce the regulations.

City of Oakland, California has recently had some problems with abuse of power and potentially corruption related to the enforcement of blight problems. Read the Grand Jury report http://www.acgov.org/grandjury/final2010-2011.pdf

 

[conarb]

Here is an article summarizing the Alameda County Grand Jury Oakland corruption report.

If the annual report of the Alameda County grand jury is an accurate account of the operations inside the city of Oakland's Building Services Division, the logical next step must be a criminal investigation. The division of Oakland's Community and Economic Development Agency is responsible for reviewing plans for new construction and renovation, inspecting the city's housing stock and enforcing the city's blight and nuisance laws.

When a property owner ignores cleanup orders, Building Services can hire a contractor to do the work and place a lien on the property for the cost.

But the grand jury report released Monday outlined a pattern of arbitrary and excessive fees, fines and abusive actions by building supervisors and inspectors that so "appalled" the panel, it recommended the city revoke the agency's law enforcement authority.

In one case, city inspectors tagged an Oakland property with a blight order for what turned out to be children's toys in the yard. The city moved forward with the cleanup, demolished a garage legally converted to a recreation area two decades earlier, and charged the owner $18,000, the report said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/27/BAQ91K3C69.DTL#ixzz1RRdLxepB



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The scary thing here is that this isn't just individual corrupt inspectors, it's an entire city's policy of corruption to raise money to feed the beast. When building inspection turns from public safety into many making it's time to get rid of it and allow codes to be enforced by private right of action for code violations, maybe the ADA private right of action is better than municipal enforcement, at least you only have to pay the lawyers and guys in wheelchairs once, with public employees you have to pay them for life and the lives of their spouses and now domestic partners.

 

[High Desert]

I just hope these guys don't decide to move north to Orygun.