Mediaboss Marketing

The following is from Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson. Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

If you think youre hearing more accounts than ever about improper government intrusion into our lives, youre a lot like author and journalist David Kirby. He researched that for new book When They Come For You: How Police and Government Are Trampling Our Liberties and How to Take Them Back.

Sharyl: When you say, When They Come for You, who is the They?

Kirby: The they can be anything from a local social services agent in your community, to the president of the United States. This goes on at the state, federal and local level. It goes on in red states and blue states, rich states, and poor states, big cities, and small towns. I found violations of the Fourth Amendment, the First Amendment, freedom of speech, people having their homes raided without a warrant. People having their cars taken away from them because they were suspected of a crime even though they didnt commit a crime. People in debtors prison because they cant pay their court fees and fines, and of course child protective services that come in the middle of the night, and just yank your kid away.

Sharyl: Do you think theres been an escalation in events like this, or are we just able to find them, and notice them more?

Kirby: Its a very good question. Theres not a lot of hard data unfortunately. There is more monitoring. Social media, people have cameras with them everywhere so its more noticeable. But I do think it is getting worse. I think particularly with surveillance, with the First Amendment, with freedom of the press, freedom of protestors. I think it started after 911, the PATRIOT Act. It got worse under Obama, as you well know, with surveillance of the media. Now I think its getting even worse, particularly cracking down on protesters, spying on protestors, and doing things like threatening to sue media outlets for libel, or wanting to change the libel laws.

Sharyl: Many Americans say, I obey the law. If the government wants to surveil me, look at my computer, I dont really care. Is there a counterpoint to that?

Kirby: I mean thats the Fourth Amendment. Its the most threatened amendment in our country, I think, after the First Amendment, which is a close second. But we need to protect those protections for everybody, and once you just acquiesce and say, Well, its okay if theyre listening in on my phone call, then the door starts opening wider and wider.

Sharyl: Is it fair to say you consider yourself a liberal, or a liberal Democrat?

Kirby: Im a lefty. Yes. Left of center.

Sharyl: Do you notice any division? Is one party or the other better or worse at any of this?

Kirby: Theyre both bad to be honest. I can pick apart, and my book does, and Im equally critical of the Obama Administration as the Trump Administration. A lot of my stories take place in blue states.

Sharyl: But what do you attribute that to, if there isnt even an ideological divide into where this happens?

Kirby: Well, I think when you talk about ideology, I think people on the far left and on the far right are actually a lot more united over these issues than they realize. People on the left dont like government intrusion any more than anybody else does. It is more of a libertarian point of view. I call myself a lefty libertarian, which sounds oxymoronic, but I figured it out. I would say people like Rand Paul is certainly bringing these things up once in a while. He has sponsored some bills in Congress. They go absolutely nowhere. He does get Democratic cosponsors. There are people, progressives, who are interested in reforming these issues, and reigning in the government. But like I said, it goes nowhere.

Sharyl: What would you say is the takeaway message you would like people to walk away from reading your book with?

Kirby: Know your Bill of Rights. Read them, study them, know what protections you are offered under them in case you ever need to use them, and if you are concerned about these things, its up to us. These are our personal freedoms, and they are under attack.

A new report from Pew Research Center says a majority of Americans, 64%, are concerned about how much data is collected about them by the government online.

Watch the interview by clicking the link below:

http://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/when-they-come-for-you

Read more from the original source:
When They Come for You - Sharyl Attkisson

DECEMBER 15, 2019

I GENERALLY CARE relatively little for the personal lives of people of note, but something that always nagged me just slightly about Edward Snowdens 2013 revelations that the NSA was spying on pretty much everyone was how angry was his girlfriend?

After all, we all knew Snowden had a girlfriend, since it didnt take long for the media to uncover that her name was Lindsay Mills, that (much to their infinite delight) she had photos of herself in lingerie, and that her significant other had suddenly turned up in Hong Kong halfway through a business trip and started to fill the world in on US mass surveillance without running it by her first.

It must have been quite the shock.

I therefore found it uncharacteristically satisfying that Permanent Record included a chapter composed of extracts from Lindsay Millss diary. It was genuinely interesting to get an insight into how someone might cope with this very unusual situation being thrust upon them in a more candid tone than we generally get from the guarded Snowden throughout the rest of the book. These excerpts were all the more necessary, as this really is a book about the personal no further details of public significance are released in this title, which is a work primarily of analysis and reflection.

The general schema of the book is precisely what one might expect: Snowdens childhood in North Carolina and the DC Beltway; his decision to enlist in the US Army following 9/11; his roles as a defense contractor in the United States, Switzerland, and Japan; his ultimate decision to blow the whistle on mass surveillance and subsequent temporary asylum in Russia. Prior reviews have been accompanied by a few snarky remarks: The New Yorker, for example, claimed that Snowden saw the early internet as a techno-utopia where boys and men could roam free, although I cannot recall Snowden making such exclusionary gendered distinctions. Presumably it complements Malcolm Gladwells earlier piece on why Snowden is not comparable to Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg (since he is a hacker not a leaker) in flat contradiction to Ellsbergs own defense of Snowden published in the Washington Post:

Many people compare Edward Snowden to me unfavorably for leaving the country and seeking asylum, rather than facing trial as I did. I dont agree. The country I stayed in was a different America, a long time ago. [] Snowden believes that he has done nothing wrong. I agree wholeheartedly.

So eager has everyone been to snipe and show their moral fiber as good little citizens, that they have rarely found the time to dig into Permanent Records main themes. Rather than spilling more facts, Snowdens aim seems to have been to contextualize his previous disclosures and explain their significance. Thus, while many parts of the book are truly gripping a goodly portion of it details how Snowden removed information detailing surveillance from his workplace under a pineapple field in Hawaii and arranged to share it with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald in Hong Kong it is the authors underlying themes and motivations that truly deserve our attention.

It is apparent early on that Snowden pursued two main purposes in releasing Permanent Record: 1) to convince skeptics that he acted for the good of the country and to defend the US Constitution (indeed the books release was timed to coincide with Constitution Day on September 17), and 2) to educate readers about technology, or at least that part of it related to mass surveillance.

Early on, while still describing his 80s childhood and initial fascination with what he then termed Big Masheens, Snowden recalls imbibing lessons from his Coast Guard father Lonnie about the potential for technology to bring its own form of tyranny with it. According to Snowden:

To refuse to inform yourself about the basic operation and maintenance of the equipment you depended on was to passively accept that tyranny and agree to its terms: when your equipment works, youll work, but when your equipment breaks down youll break down, too. Your possessions would possess you.

Technological tyranny is a theme Snowden comes back to later in the book, reflecting on Mary Shelleys Frankenstein he was after all posted to Geneva, where part of the novels action is set.

That may sound a bit clich, until you learn that Snowdens sales partner during his time at Dell literally nicknamed the cloud system they developed for the CIA Frankie because its a real monster. That wasnt just a private office joke, but how he tried to convince the agency to greenlight the project during a sales pitch. Its these little pieces of not-exactly-earth-shattering, but still pleasantly informative detail that help the book keep ticking over and compensate for the often distant tone of its author. Snowden frequently describes his feelings, but rarely does he make the reader feel them.

Snowden also lavishes attention on explaining how he interacted with the internet as a child and teen. While many have interpreted these lengthy passages as either nave utopianism or pathetic addiction, his point is much more important than that. Im much of an age with Snowden and therefore remember many of the things he recalls: phreaking, personal homepages, chat rooms, and the days when you could just ask perfect strangers for advice and theyd give it to you. What I think I hadnt fully considered before reading this book is that at least some people in this rather narrow cohort absorbed some knowledge of modern technology. Despite being nowhere near as interested in computers as Snowden (and having a positive antipathy to Big Masheens), I learned how to build circuits and program from Basic to Java as part of my general education. That gave me the ability to learn more later in life and to form a better (if still far from expert) understanding of the nuts and bolts of computing infrastructure.

By contrast, many people today know how to use tech, but they dont understand it. Just like few people who use money understand economics. And just like an ability to grasp finance creates an enormous power differential, so does the ability to understand tech.

Snowden is at pains to redress this balance, methodically explaining everything from SD cards, to TOR, to smart appliances, to the difference between http and https, to the fact that when you delete a file from your computer, it doesnt actually get deleted. He bestows the same attention to detail on these subjects as he does describing the labyrinthine relationships of his various employers and the intelligence agencies, and this clarity helps turn the book into a relatable story about issues rather than a jargon-stuffed, acronym-filled nightmare.

Only by understanding how technology works on a basic level, so argues Snowden, can journalists ask the right questions of power and regulators regulate effectively. He strengthens this case by noting examples of times when major announcements (construction of enormous data storage facilities; a CIA presentation in which the speaker literally admonished the journalists present to think about their rights) were simply ignored.

They did not make waves, Snowden thinks, because journalists and regulators simply didnt realize their significance. There is, as he says repeatedly in the book, a lag between technology and regulation.

It is an issue that others in a position to know, like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, have pointed out. Everything from advances in robotic warfare to artificial intelligence to total surveillance aided by facial recognition is dismissed as alarmist until well after it is happening, when its then dismissed in true Nineteen Eighty-Four style with a shoulder shrug as inevitable.

And when that doesnt happen, tech tends to be treated as an entirely new phenomenon requiring heavy-handed, and often counterproductive, regulation.

While it is entirely true that people are bullied on social media, for example, we shouldnt forget that people were bullied in real life in the past, too. And threatened. And the victims of fraud. And defamation. And child abuse. As a result, we shouldnt lose sight of the fact that we often do already have a well-developed arsenal of remedies that can be adjusted for the internet era without the need to jettison constitutional values in the name of protection and safety.

There are ways to apprehend criminals effectively without the total take of information that intelligence agencies so lazily demand. Vigilante pedophile-hunting groups have been quite successful in luring would-be predators to justice by posing as minors on social media sites. While it is beyond question that such activities should be left to properly trained and authorized police forces not righteous citizens who can do as much harm as good it does show that the individualized pursuit of crime can still be very effective in the social media age. Indeed, in regards to some crimes, like forms of child abuse, detection may well be easier than in earlier times with many culprits unable to resist the temptation to groom potential victims online.

Rather than veering between complacency and panic, we should be thinking about the various ways in which to update our legal framework for the modern digital age something Snowdens revelations about the warrantless mass surveillance programs he uncovered have given us a particular urgency to do.

The part of the law most significant to Snowden, and which he quotes in the book, is the US Constitutions Fourth Amendment, which reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

According to Snowden, the NSA sought to circumvent the Fourth Amendment by creating a huge database of all online activity the permanent record of the books title ideally stored in perpetuity and which they would only search when [the organizations] analysts, not its algorithms, actively queried what had already been automatically collected. Intelligence agencies also argued that because individuals have already given permission to third parties, particularly telecommunications companies, to host their data, that data no longer resided in the private sphere and thus constitutional privacy had been forfeited.

After all, the magic of what feels private sitting in front of your computer or scrolling through your phone at home can only happen by connecting to distant servers.

Those who support a living document interpretation of the Constitution may see this as an eventual opportunity to expand the scope of the terms papers, and effects for the modern era, something Snowden himself suggests; originalists might argue that only a constitutional change itself can suffice to fully address privacy rights in a digital age.

Some of the actions that Snowden describes monitoring people through their webcams in their homes via XKEYSCORE would certainly seem like unproblematic violations if committed against US citizens or persons on US soil under present wording and interpretations. Others like hunting through the vast reams of information we sign over to private companies may prove more difficult. Justice Scalia, the nations most well-known originalist prior to his death in 2016, is alleged to have refused to be drawn on whether or not computer data was an effect in the sense of the Fourth Amendment at a public lecture in 2014.

In more practical terms, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided in 2015 (ACLU v. Clapper) that bulk collection was not covered by Section 215 of the Patriot Act, stating in part, Congress cannot reasonably be said to have ratified a program of which many members of Congress and all members of the public were not aware, a decision followed shortly by the passing of the USA Freedom Act, under which telecoms companies keep records that law enforcement may then request.

However, it is somewhat doubtful whether legal remedies alone will effectively stop the political-intelligence agency complex that Snowden describes so adroitly in his book. He recalls the panic he witnessed at Fort Meade and outside the Pentagon during 9/11, and later the blame as politicians emphasized the prevention of terror attacks as the standard for measuring their own competence. Intelligence agencies felt both the horror of having to develop some way to guarantee safety and the power of being able to extort huge budgets from Congress in the interests of doing so. Once an agency has the capability to engage in mass surveillance and is under significant pressure to maintain security, its difficult to imagine it failing to indulge regardless of legalities.

Snowden mentions encryption, SecureDrop, and the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as potential ways for citizens to uphold their own privacy, but Im less than convinced. Encryption is not readily available to the average person working on an average budget; few people will ever have any reason to use SecureDrop, and I doubt many of the alleged positive effects of the GDPR, which has mainly led to Europeans agreeing to any and every pop-up in order to get to their content ASAP while introducing barriers to sharing and advertisement for small businesses (precisely not the threat).

In this context, perhaps the right to be forgotten (in fairness, now enshrined in Article 17 of the GDPR, although the principle derives from an earlier 2014 court case) is more relevant. After all, Snowdens main fear is the creation of the unforgiving permanent record, where every mistake, minor trespass, and ill-considered comment remains preserved for all time and just waiting to be used against one. Indeed, he contrasts this with the early days of the web, where one could develop opinions freely and cast aside identities that one had outgrown. Snowden regards this freedom as pivotal to development and maturation, as we all tend to curate our lives over the years, forming the identity we want to have at the expense of conflicting past actions.

Despite the fact that he never made it to his intended destination Ecuador Snowden remains, much like Ellsberg, a powerful example of a person who blew the whistle on state abuses and not only lived to tell about it, but is living an apparently well-adjusted life. As he lets us know at the end of the book, Lindsay eventually joined him in Moscow, refrained from slapping him silly (as Snowden admits he deserved), and agreed to marry him. Its a fitting low-key end for a book, and a story, that is more about substance than style.

Roslyn Fuller is author of Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed Its Meaning and Lost Its Purpose and In Defence of Democracy and is the director of the Solonian Democracy Institute.

More:
Snowden: A Whistle-Blower Who Lived to Tell About It - lareviewofbooks

from the double-double dept

I'm not sure when or if this has happened before: this week we've got cross-category winners in both the first and second place spots, both in response to the latest example of a SLAPP suit filed by a supposed free speech supporter. Norahc won first place for both insightful and funny by putting a name to this increasingly common hypocritical phenomenon:

Hereafter, this should be referred to as the Nunes Effect.

Meanwhile an anonymous comment took second place for both insightful and funny with a response to someone misusing the notion of "freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences" as though it was meant to include lawsuits:

Interesting theory. Then for the US, I propose a new civil law that allows people to sue others for owning guns. Like, if you are unhappy that someone owns a gun, you can sue them for up to a million dollars. Thankfully this would not infringe on the 2nd Amendment, since they are still free to own guns, just not free from the consequences.

And since that's all the winners right there, we now move straight on to editor's choice for both categories! On the insightful side, we've got a pair of comments about the ongoing privacy wars on multiple fronts. First it's That One Guy responding to the states that argued against the Pennsylvania ruling that compelled password production violates the 5th amendment:

A telling, and worrying, argument

"In a joint amicus brief in support of the Commonwealth, various states provide an interesting history of modern encryption, press the troubling consequences of Appellants position including the altering of the balance of power, rendering law enforcement incapable of accessing large amounts of relevant evidence and warn that adopting Appellants position could result in less privacy, not more, in the form of draconian anti-privacy legislation."

'If you don't let us violate constitutional rights we'll pass unconstitutional laws in order to let us do so' is really not the sort of thing you want multiple states arguing, as that shows a mindset that considers constitutional protections and privacy of the public not limits to be respected and something to uphold respectively, but obstacles to be worked around and/or undermined.

Law enforcement has never had access to all of the evidence they've wanted, and the fact that there are more ways for people to protect their privacy, even if that includes really terrible people, is not grounds to start giving them that which they have never had and never will have, especially when it will come at such a great cost to the general public.

Next, it's Bergman responding to our post about the EU telling the US to ban strong encryption:

Nerding Harder

The US government has over a hundred times greater access to people's communications, personal papers and everything else now than it did when the Fourth Amendment was written. The US government has surveillance capabilities beyond the worst nightmares of our founders.

Our law enforcement has never had a problem finding anyone from petty thieves to traitors, from illegal immigrants to foreign spies. But they're saying now that their incredible wealth of information is insufficient, that we are at risk of them being unable to catch all these bad people if we return to a level of government surveillance that persisted for most of our history, that they had zero problems with then.

The answer is as simple as it is obvious. The tech sector is not the group that needs to nerd harder. They people who need to nerd harder are the government agencies that are apparently slacking off, because with greater capacity to find bad guys they are claiming a reduced ability to actually pursue them.

Giving them more tools when they aren't fully utilizing the ones they already have is silly, they just won't fully utilize those either.

They just need to nerd harder at the NSA, DOJ and ICE.

On the funny side, we start out with allengarvin responding to our post about the court that tossed 82 pounds of marijuana because of the deputy's pretextual traffic stop:

"The rental car was only doing 60 mph in a 70-mph speed zone"

That crime is far worse than carrying 82 lbs of marijuana. If you're not passing someone, GET OUT OF THE DAMN PASSING LANE!!

And finally, we've got an anonymous response to our post about cord-cutting in which we accused cable execs of sticking their heads in the ground:

Pretty sure that is NOT where they are sticking their heads...

That's all for this week, folks!

See the original post:
Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt - Techdirt

You are here: Home / News / READ: Trump White House says no to participating in Wednesday impeachment hearing

December 1, 2019 by Sharyl Attkisson Leave a Comment

The Trump administration has sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee stating that the White House will not accept the invitation to take part in Wednesdays highly partisan impeachment hearing.

Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI

We cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the President a fair process through additional hearings.

Read the letter below:

Fight improper government surveillance. Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI over the government computer intrusions of Attkissons work while she was a CBS News investigative correspondent. Visit the Attkisson Fourth Amendment Litigation Fund. Click here.

Filed Under: News, US Tagged With: rep. jerry nadler, Trump impeachment

Emmy-Award Winning Investigative Journalist, New York Times Best Selling Author, Host of Sinclair's Full Measure

Go here to see the original:
READ: Trump White House says no to participating in Wednesday impeachment hearing - Sharyl Attkisson

The challenge of cleaning up dilapidated and unsafe structures in Martinsville has become overgrown with challenges for city inspectors.

As of November, just two employees had performed more than 1,200 inspections since the beginning of 2019, Building Official and Zoning Administrator Kris Bridges said.

Part of this workload involves following up on two resolutions Martinsville City Council passed in September to address property maintenance concerns from citizens.

One resolution declared more than 20 houses, which City Attorney Eric Monday described as frequent flyers because of recurring complaints, to be public nuisances and ordered property owners to repair the problems. Council added many of the same properties to the rental inspection program at its meeting on Sept. 24.

Since September, Bridges said his office has been working steadily through the rental inspection and public nuisance lists, taking these about five at a time. The inspectors must have time to examine the property and reinspect it once work is completed. Property owners who are found in violation must be given due process and an opportunity to remedy the issue.

At their meeting, council members decided to spare several other houses from the initial lists because the owners seemed willing to work with the city to make repairs. These also require communication and follow-up from the inspectors to make sure the work is being done as planned.

City inspectors are responsible for investigating property maintenance complaints from local residents. These range from junk cars and trash in peoples yards to abandoned houses that are open to squatters and the elements.

Bridges also is working through a list of houses that the council approved for demolition this year because they have deteriorated to the point of being dangerous. The demolition program was had been de-emphasized for several years but was revived by City Council in 2018.

All this is on top of the departments normal workload of inspecting new construction, building repairs and renovations in the city. And there is more construction going on than people might think, Bridges said. If you talk to local contractors, he said, Everybodys busy.

With only himself and inspector Mark Price conducting more than 1,000 inspections a year, Its a balancing act, Bridges said. We do the best we can with the limited resources that we have to address the situations that we can. We do respond to every complaint.

But the city is limited in the problems that can be addressed by limited staffing, lack of money, the time required for the complaint process and what is legal to act on. Bridges said the code allows a D-minus thats barely passing. Well, barely passing is still passing.

When receiving property complaints, he said, We have to look at, are these the worst in the city? Just because it looks bad doesnt mean it rises to the level of a code violation.

Emphasizing safety

The most important concern for the inspections department is safety. They must emphasize situations that affect safety of the occupant and safety of the public in general, Bridges said.

In terms of danger, a building that is open and unsecure against public entry is pretty much the worst of the worst. People can go in and do things like squatting, using building materials as fuel for heat, or other illegal activities. Its a danger to kids who may not understand what unsafe looks like, he said.

The next most damaging issue is having an open, second-floor entry, such as a damaged roof that leaves the property open to the weather.

Theres nothing you can do to make a house go downhill faster than, one, to be vacant, and two, open to weather, where moisture and animals can get in. Those are the top things that make properties high on the list, Bridges said.

Other safety issues can include hoarding or living in a house without proper utilities. A dwelling must have a way to heat water for sanitation, have sources of natural light and ventilation, and provide heat in the winter. This heat source must be permanently installed, not a space heater, he added.

If you dont have electricity but still have gas, you might be using the stove or oven to heat your house, which is very unsafe, Bridges said. Theres no requirement for air conditioning in a single-family dwelling, but there is a requirement for heat. Even then, the legal minimum is 65 degrees during the day and 60 degrees at night.

Protecting renters

Safety was the intent behind Martinsville City Councils addition of 18 properties to the rental inspection list. Council first established the program in November 2018 following several reports of unsafe conditions in local rentals, including bricks that had been removed from a fireplace and a gas line improperly hooked up to a water heater.

Bridges intends for it to be a living list: As some places get cleaned up, others can be added.

Martinsville cannot afford to have a full-blown rental inspection program like some larger localities do, which would include all rental properties in the city, he said. Instead, this one consists of the ones we receive the most complaints about.

Were restricted in what we can charge to run the program, so it cannot be self-sustaining. Were not in a financial situation where we can take on additional responsibilities and tasks that are not cost-neutral, he said. So, we came up with resolution through council that identified specific houses instead of making a broad stroke.

In addition, a full rental inspection program negatively would impact the large number of very responsible landlords out there, Bridges said. We do not need to put regulations on people who are doing what theyre supposed to.

The department strives to work with property owners and give them a reasonable amount of time to make improvements. Several of them are being very cooperative about letting us come in and take a look, he said. We do understand that this is not their only responsibility every day.

Ultimately, inspectors want to work with property owners to repair a problem without resorting to fines or legal action, Bridges said.

The people that ignore us, thats where things escalate, he said. It doesnt do anybody any good to get them in front of a judge, because the money they wouldve spent on the house now goes to court fees and lawyers, and thats not our goal. Compliance is our goal.

The complaint process

Property maintenance violations are driven entirely by citizen complaints usually meaning that a resident calls the inspections department to report a problem in his or her neighborhood. Residents can reach the inspections department at 276-403-5174 or in room 217 on the second floor of the Municipal Building.

When a citizen complaint comes in, inspection staff add it to a master list and go out to inspect the property in person. The complainant must give their name and contact info, but this is not publicly accessible information, Bridges said.

We do not take anonymous complaints. Complainant information is protected, if theyre fearful of some kind of retribution, he said. But we also want to be able to get back with the complainant and let them know what the status is.

If no violation is found, we call the complainant and let them know its not quite to that level, he said.

For example, a backyard that cannot be seen from the street cannot be cited. If its something we have to take extraordinary effort to see, its a little bit beyond the interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, in the opinion of the city attorney. Were not saying its not an issue, just that legally we cant necessarily take action on it, Bridges said.

If a property maintenance violation is found, the city then works to notify the property owner through various means. This includes a notice posted on the door, mail, and in the newspaper.

We have to be fairly consistent in how we notify people. We dont have access to everybodys phone information, he said.

Bridges said he realizes some owners live out of town, but if its your house, youre responsible for keeping up with your house. If you cant do it physically because youre four hours away, you need to get someone to do it for you.

Depending on the type of violation, the time given to get into compliance could be three, seven, 10 days or more.

Complainants can use the citys online tracking system to look up by property and see where your complaint is in the process, Bridges said.

The webpage has a lag time of a day or two, but it does pull directly from the citys property maintenance complaint tracker. The system can be accessed at http://mud-va.org/pmview.php, or by visiting the citys homepage at http://www.martinsville-va.gov, clicking the residents tab, then selecting property maintenance from the menu.

Grass is a tall order

The majority of complaints the city receives deal with high grass. However, this goes beyond a homeowner who skipped mowing the lawn for a week or two.

We dont have a landscaping ordinance; we have a high grass and weeds ordinance. The majority of the yard has to be 10 inches high or more, Bridges said.

Again, the intent behind the ordinance is protecting public safety. Grass that high provides an environment for ticks, snakes or other animals to live, as well as hiding other hazards such as sinkholes, he said.

A groundhog infestation can be just as bad as a snake infestation, Bridges said, because of the digging and burrowing, and creating holes you dont see when you walk across the yard.

Grass can also be a fire hazard when you have extra fuel. Most grasses, when they get up above 10 inches, they start dying off. It doesnt take much to light off a brush fire, he said. Thats when things escalate from a minor problem to a big issue that affects multiple occupants and residences. Thats what were trying to prevent.

If the property owner does not cut the yard down to acceptable levels by the deadline, Bridges said his department refers the case to Public Works to mow it. When we turn it over to Public Works, theyre only going to knock [the grass] down. Theyre not going to make it look pretty, he said.

The owner will then be billed several hundred dollars as a discouragement to having the city be your lawnkeeping service. We dont want to be in the lawnkeeping service, Bridges said.

Demolition

The public nuisance and demolition lists are meant to give the inspections department more options to deal with the worst properties in the city. However, fixing up buildings or having them torn down takes time.

There are myriad opportunities to get these things taken care of, none of which are real fast, Bridges said.

In 2018, when council leaders revived the demolition program, Bridges presented a ranking of 50 or so buildings that had major structural failures or had otherwise deteriorated past the point of repair. As of September, inspections staff had started with a list of the top 13 houses, a complex process of notifying the owners, negotiating to have them repair or demolish it themselves if possible, looking at tax liens, and conducting asbestos surveys. When property owners are unable to fix or demolish the building, the city steps in.

Before the city pays to raze a building, we want to give everybody as much opportunity as we can to get it taken care of themselves, he said. If were having to tear something down, it should not be a fast process unless its an imminent danger to the public.

Budget is another issue. Projects range from $5,000 to up to $27,500 each, Bridges said. In this fiscal year, which began in July 2019, there is $15,000 allocated for demolition in the city budget, plus $10,000 in carryover funds from 2018.

Demolition is not cheap, he said. We dont have a big line item to tear things down.There are a lot of things that need to be addressed in order to do it right.

These include complying with regulations from the Department of Environmental Quality and properly disposing of materials containing asbestos in licensed landfills.

At the September council meeting, Bridges presented a list of the next 12 properties for demolition, but more money will need to be added to the budget before they can be addressed.

Kim Barto Meeks is a reporter for the Martinsville Bulletin. She can be reached at 276-638-8801.

Here is the original post:
City of Martinsville's inspectors face hundreds of assignments each month in fighting blight and unsafe building conditions - Martinsville Bulletin