CM Lumb: Preservation in Springfield, a Town Meeting.

[iloveionia]

No.
Kim Scott is only eager to interpret chpt 518 as she sees fit.
She blames blight on investors.
She believes anything too long in the system should be demolished.
She believes Spfld is better than it was ten years ago and that's good enough.
She is simply about safety and she is Chicken Little about the houses.
She believes the houses on the unsafe structures list are 11th hour houses.
She is angry and embarassed about Walnut Court.
She dislikes people who stand up for what the believe in (preservation.)
I have gone head to head with this woman for 2 years.
Numerous times on the phone and face to face.
I have taken every approach to woo her, to get her to see.
I've offered every chance to do the right thing.
Nada.
She lives and breathes by chpt 518.
She is a lying and destructive chief of code enforcement with well more power than she deserves.
She made her bed and she chooses to lie in it.
She could be a teamplayer but she refuses.
I've dealt with her so many times that she was dubbed sarcastically my BFF.
She knows we are out there saving the houses. And when we literally do it invalidates all she has said about the houses.
She is not on our side.
At least not the side of preservationists.

[Chris Farley]

FSU I agree with you. I find Kim Scott to be very sincere and has a very difficult job. She is so responsive and helpful on any questions we have had when trying to find houses. I understand some of the codes by which she has to operate are statewide. I honestly believe she will try and help find a solution, with which we may all be happy. 38 houses over a period of 5 years is a viable figure, but is far too many. A burned out house is not a demolition, they are different animals. It has to be removed due no one's fault except the person who set fire to it, and you know from the shells they are not retrievable. Even at 38 over 5 years, that is approx 1.5 houses every two months.
I was sharply told, by someone, that houses previously demolished "is water under the bridge" and you know that person was probably correct, we need to look to the future. There are two which should be of great great concern, I fear one of them at least will fall, namely 129 and 253 2nd East.
No flak please I care greatly about houses and their history and we are turning up amazing things, all will be good.

[iloveionia]

Not going to give flak.
Our experiences are different.
I stand by what I wrote.
Moving forward we have to protect what we have left.
It is with hope that a new direction that moves sharply from demolition as the only means to "abate" a "problem" will be taken.
Put the houses in the hands of someone who can bring it back to life.
As you state we are indeed turning up great things.

[markusic]

by fsu813 » Sun Mar 25, 2012 8:35 am I think she's quite eager to reform Code's addressing of historic & neglected properties.....it would make job much easier, and make many people happy.

Thankfully, the majority of us have our eyes open and can see what Ms. Scott is really up to and what kind of division Chief she really is.

FSU I agree with you. I find Kim Scott to be very sincere and has a very difficult job. She is so responsive and helpful on any questions we have had when trying to find houses. I understand some of the codes by which she has to operate are statewide. I honestly believe she will try and help find a solution, with which we may all be happy. 38 houses over a period of 5 years is a viable figure, but is far too many. A burned out house is not a demolition, they are different animals. It has to be removed due no one's fault except the person who set fire to it, and you know from the shells they are not retrievable. Even at 38 over 5 years, that is approx 1.5 houses every two months.
I was sharply told, by someone, that houses previously demolished "is water under the bridge" and you know that person was probably correct, we need to look to the future. There are two which should be of great great concern, I fear one of them at least will fall, namely 129 and 253 2nd East.
No flak please I care greatly about houses and their history and we are turning up amazing things, all will be good.

Of course, the number from Joel's office for the time period of 2007 through 2010 is 56 houses demolished. Add the demolitions in 2011, which I believe is five, we end up with 61 demolitions over the last five years, not the 38 number Ms. Scott stated. One would think that as she made a point of going to get a notebook and read those stats from that notebook that she would have gotten the number correct. However, it is in her best interest to not get that number right. It is in her best interests to down play the number of demolitions rather than have the real number out there. That 61 number gives one house per month over the past five years, also a "viable number". And a more accurate one.

As far as a burn out house not being a demolition? Is the house still here? Is it not gone from the district never to be recovered? Is that house on East 7th that burned, stood for months with the side half missing and then taken as an emergency not a demolition of a historic house? Again, trying to find excuses for the loss of a house, blaming the owners or even the people who live in the community themselves does not solve the problem, it adds to it. While we can not blame MCCD for the fire, we can certainly count the house as a demolition. In the case of 7th street, MCCD has the ability to stabilize a house that was obviously not in imminent danger of collapse rather than demolish it. Can we not blame MCCD for not exercising that ability?

Yes, we are indeed finding amazing things while we dig around in the past ten years and the role the different organizations, companies and city department played in the mess we find ourselves in here in Springfield. Some of the information that has and will come out is not pleasant. But sticking our heads in the sand and not talking about how we got here will do nothing but insure the issues continue. The past houses lost may be in the past, but they are not replaceable and so they effect the future of the community in many ways. The only reason not to talk about them or to try to forget them is if you wish the future to be the same as that past.

[Gloria]

After decades of buying condemned houses, restoring them, and then selling or renting, Michael Trautmann announced at the meeting he will NEVER buy another house in Springfield due to his mistreatment by code and the special master.

This isn't personal folks, this is financial.

There are houses here you can't even GIVE away.

Demolition by reckless policy.

Not by ordinance, not by state statute. By reckless policy.

Yes, we are moving in a direction of saving homes by foreclosing on deadbeat owners. Yes, we are speaking with a singular voice on this issue. Yes, we have more tools at our disposal with the mothballing ordinance.

However, until there is a major overhaul of code's personnel and policies, we will continue to hit roadblocks.

Pearl Street is a prime example. How anyone could watch this unfold and not see unethical behavior baffles the Hell out of me.

[Debbie Thompson]

Mike Trautmann is one of the good guys. If he is fed up with fines and will no longer participate in rebuilding Soringfield, that says something.

As I understood that conversation, though, the fines/liens he was referring to on that house were "hard cost" fines where actual money was spent by the city, not Special Master fines.

That said, a finished home will bring in more tax dollars, which would mitigte those fines in a few years anyway. The city could work with people who are restoring homes. They'll get the money back in increased taxes.

[Chris Farley]

I stand by what I say and Joel will be one of the first to tell you that the figures they put out are tentative. There is no way that we have lost an historic house a month in the last five years.
I certainly stand by what I said of Kim Scott, she is not responsible for the municodes.

[markusic]

I stand by what I say and Joel will be one of the first to tell you that the figures they put out are tentative. There is no way that we have lost an historic house a month in the last five years.
I certainly stand by what I said of Kim Scott, she is not responsible for the municodes.

Yep, and the way I understood it was that they were a bit light, that the numbers they provided did not include emergencies for instance. The actual number could be higher. There is no way we have lost a historic house a month for the last five years ? Let's see, you said 3/4 of a house a month was possible did you not? But a house a month AVERAGE was not? OK, Chris, I have to ask why you are so adamant that the numbers be lower than what they are? Who are you trying to protect here? What agenda are you trying to push? I know our motives are to save the rest of the houses, at least every single one we possibly can. And part of that effort is to educate the public as to what has happened here in the past and why it is so important to strive to save what is left. What is your motivation?


If you read the codes that govern the city of Jacksonville, you will see that a huge amount of leeway has been given to the chief of municipal code enforcement, that would be Kimberly Scott, to set the polices that both interpret the code and sort of fills in the gaps left by the code. And, to be honest, Ms Scott does get to give a lot of input when the codes are written that effect her department. That is why the mothballing ordinances are half what they should be. Why her department gets to do much of what they can do, like tell a home owner that they must fix the house or they will tear it down, then inform them they must get permission from MCCD to even enter their own property and then, as the codes and the department polices allow, deny the owner that permission. Yep, Ms Scott is doing a wonderful job alright.

[Gloria]

There are laws and then there are policies.

Seems like the majority of damage to this historic district has been from policies and not laws.

[Debbie Thompson]

Demolitions. We may be comparing apples to oranges. MCCD may have taken down the 38 Kim Scott cited at CM Lumb's meeting. Maybe she was right on the number, maybe wrong, but it isn't only MCCD that takes houses down in Springfield.

They are still gone though. However they came down, they are historic homes that are forever gone from Springfield

We lost a few to fire. Quite a few on Ionia, the two of Craig's on 8th near Pearl, the yellow one of Miss Jewell's houses on W. 5th. (The cause given was fire. Some thought it could have been saved. If I remember correctly, Chris Farley was one of those who thought it could have been saved. So was I. )

Then, Mack Bissette and Dane Baird both received permission to take down old houses and replace them with new ones, two for Mack, one for Dane, for another three houses that I know of.

For whatever reason they were demolished, they are still historic homes that are gone for good, and further decrease our percentage of historic housing fabric in the historic district.

Which is why we have to save the rest of them. I think we can all agree on that. Save the houses.