More on Personal Responsibility

Colleen McCain Nelson seems to want to blame the City of Dallas for a lack of responsibility on the part of property owners. I wrote before the Christmas holidays about a pile of trash she felt the City should move when the people in the neighborhood appeared to be perfectly capable of moving it themselves.

In a December column, she's again implying that the City should "do something," despite her own acknowledgement that the City is doing all it legally can, and the neighbors themselves appear to be the major factor behind the eyesore. In this case, it's a burned out structure on Spring Avenue. The property was destroyed by arsonists nine months ago. The owner lives in Florida.

Code compliance officers have repeatedly hauled off debris and tacked up plywood, but the vandals repeatedly rip down the plywood. The City would love to bring in the bulldozers and raze the ruins, but it's had to wind its way through the laws protecting the property rights of the owners. The first lawsuit was filed in June, and a continuance was granted to the owners in August. In September, the owners agreed to clean the lot within 60 days. That didn't happen. The City filed a notice of noncompliance in November and put the property in the lineup to be razed.

The owners say they paid someone to clean the property and were not aware it had not been done. That's not a legitimate excuse. They should have checked to make sure it was done. Now, back to my contention that the neighbors, themselves, bear responsibility for this eyesore. When they bought the property, the owners contracted with a management company to maintain it and collect rents. But the management company eventually refused to collect the rents because the neighborhood was too dangerous. Then the arsonists hit -- and it's a safe bet they live somewhere near. And the plywood keeps disappearing. If I were a city official, I'd look around to see if the neighboring houses had up any new plywood. It seems to me that these are not the kind of neighbors who really care whether or not there's a burned out house next door.

But the bottom line is that the property owners are responsible. The City should fine them the maximum, because they've wasted countless hours and resources belonging to taxpaying citizens.

"Bring out the bulldozers to South Dallas eyesore." The Dallas Morning News; December 9, 2011; p. 27A.