Homeless in Arizona

And sadly Tempe City Councilman Kolby Granville sounds like he is going to use the police powers of Tempe to force his silly, irrational neat freak rules on the rest of us

Source

Tempe home survey yields new code enforcement

By Dianna M. Náñez The Republic | azcentral.com Mon Jun 10, 2013 9:09 AM

Tempe is relying on a recent survey of 640 residential properties as the basis for a new approach to residential code enforcement that will focus code inspectors on violations in neighborhoods north of Baseline Road.

According to Tempe officials, the survey showed that houses in that region had more potential code violations than ones south of Baseline.

But the locations of the properties north of Baseline remain a mystery because Tempe has not decided whether to release the taxpayer-funded database. Invoking the state Public Records Law, The Arizona Republic requested the survey Tuesday, but as of Thursday, the city said it had not decided whether to release the study to the public. [Yea, F*** those public record laws. We are the royal rulers of Tempe and we are above the law!!!!]

Tempe spokeswoman Nikki Ripley said Tempe needed time to discuss concerns the city had about releasing addresses of potential violations noted in the survey, which was managed by Tempe workers. [Sorry Nikki - Messy yard violations are public records!!! What's your problem??? Don't you want the city of Tempe to seem like the jackbooted thugs you are????]

The city declined to make Lisa Collins, Tempe’s interim community development director, available for comment.

Councilman Kolby Granville spearheaded the plan to study Tempe’s blighted residential and commercial properties through his and Councilman Joel Navarro’s committee for neighborhoods and education.

Collins and Tempe Code Enforcement Manager Jeff Tamulevich handled the public survey of residential properties, Granville said.

Last week, a Tempe news release touted the new approach to code enforcement. It spotlighted the survey and money in the city’s proposed budget to hire at least three temporary residential-code-enforcement inspectors, who would focus on “proactively seeking out and resolving code violations at homes north of Baseline Road.”

Residents have long complained that houses rented by the scores of Arizona State University students who live in Tempe are rundown eyesores used as moneymakers for property owners who do not live in the neighborhood.

During the economic downturn, many of the homes were left vacant because of foreclosures, joining undeveloped commercial lots with overgrown weeds and dead foliage in blotting the city’s neighborhood landscape.

Rundown properties and city budget constraints in the wake of the recession made for the perfect storm. Tempe had mounting code violations and fewer inspectors to deal with the problem.

In an e-mail Wednesday to The Republic, Collins wrote that cost-saving measures that began in 2009 depleted the ranks of the Tempe Code Enforcement Division. Before the staff reductions, there were 13 full-time and six temporary part-time code-compliance inspectors, Collins wrote. Today, there are seven full-time and one temporary part-time inspectors, she added.

Granville said he hopes the new staff will help Tempe make up lost ground on blighted properties, which he believes would raise property values across the community.

“Our goal is if you drive a neighborhood, at what point do you think, ‘I’d live here,’ ” he said. “It’s not ‘Leave It to Beaver’ land; it’s not perfect. But it’s the way I’d expect my neighbors to maintain their community.

The taxpayer-funded survey seemed the best way to analyze the Code Compliance Department’s problems so that if money is spent it would be directed efficiently and effectively, he said.

“To arrive at a new standard to be applied citywide, code-enforcement staff undertook an extensive survey of existing properties across Tempe,” according to the news release. The goal was to analyze the existing condition of Tempe residential properties, and Tempe could evaluate the overall condition of such sites, Granville said.

Tempe studied 640 of the 31,620 single-family residences in the city, according to the city news release. Granville said that home addresses for inspection were selected randomly.

Each house was inspected for Tempe’s six most common code violations: weeds, dead vegetation, unregistered vehicles, illegal parking, lack of building maintenance and debris visible from the street.

Tempe found 409 residences with at least one code violation. But the city did not issue citations on any of the homes, Granville said.

Granville said that Tempe established a scoring system to evaluate the extent of each violation, ranging from 1 to 5, with 5 being no violation and 1 being the worst violation.

Tempe also rated each home for aesthetic value, ranging from 1 to 3. A 3 rating equated to: “That looks good. I like that. I’d live there. A 2 rating equated to: “I’ve got no opinion. It’s OK.” And a 1 rating equated to: “That looks ugly. That looks boring.” [That is totally outrageous!!!! In addition to shaking down residents for unconstitutional messy yard crimes the royal rulers of Tempe now expect us to maintain beautiful homes????]

According to Tempe public records of the May council strategy session where the survey was discussed, the aesthetic value was rated because “it was recognized that a property could have no violations of the Zoning and Development Code or City Code, but still be an unappealing property.”

The best possible score a home could receive was a 30 for no violations.

The citywide average of all the scores was 27.52. Scores north of Baseline averaged from 26.34 to 26.70. Scoring south of Baseline averaged from 28.29 to 29.31.

Granville said that the city has recommended a goal of reaching a ZIP code average of 28.25.

“Staff will attempt to achieve that goal in part through proactive code-enforcement patrols over the next year by supplementing existing staff with the requested new staff, if approved,” according to the Tempe news release.

Granville said that without the survey, Tempe would not have the data to realize that the majority of code violations were in areas of Tempe north of Baseline. That realization, he said, helps Tempe target money to where it will make the biggest difference.

South Tempe residents will still have code-enforcement officers but the focus would be on neighborhoods with bigger blight problems, he said.

“For me personally, I don’t want Tempe to take on the role of an overzealous homeowners association,” he said. [Yea, I am not a nut job who is overzealous messy yard cop who snitches on people for trivial messy yard violations, but somebody has to do the job so it is me ... He sounds like one of those jerks who says "I am not a racist", but then can ramble on for hours telling you how what Black folks should do to make their race better.] “What I want us to do is make sure that neighborhoods take care of their property enough so that it doesn’t affect the property values of their neighbors surrounding them.” [Yea, when you translate that to English it means I am an overzealous nut job who wants to turn anybody I can into the messy yard police so I can force them to maintain their home like I would maintain my home!!!!]

Granville said the plan is for Tempe to conduct the residential-property survey each year to determine whether neighborhoods are improving.

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Tempe code violations

Tempe Councilman Kolby Granville walks a neighborhood near University and McClintock drives and calls in a possible residential code violation.

At a glance

Here are the homes with at least one code violation found in a Tempe survey of 640 residential properties. The information, broken down by ZIP code, was provided by Tempe City Councilman Kolby Granville.

>>85281: 101 of 127 homes surveyed.

>>85282: 184 of 229 homes surveyed.

>>85283: 90 of 165 homes surveyed.

>>85284: 34 of 119 homes surveyed.

Tempe to go beyond their unconstitutional messy yard laws???

Survey: Aesthetically, Tempe homes fall short

By Dianna M. Náñez The Republic | azcentral.com

Thu Jun 13, 2013 12:21 PM

Hoping to evaluate homes that might not violate city code but still are regarded by city inspectors as having an unappealing “aesthetic value,” Tempe recently surveyed 640 residential properties and found that not one of the city’s four ZIP codes averaged even an “OK” rating.

Results were presented at a City Council strategy session, according to a May 7 public staff report.

About 25 houses received the coveted perfect rating.

Tempe’s scoring of each home for aesthetic value ranged from 1 to 3, according to the staff report.

A 3 rating equated to: “That looks good. I like that. I’d live there.”

A 2 rating equated to: “I’ve got no opinion. It’s OK.”

And a 1 rating equated to: “That looks ugly. That looks boring.” [Does Tempe City Councilman Kolby Granville who seems to be a clone of Felix Unger in the Odd Couple want to put these people in jail???]

Tempe reported that the citywide average for “aesthetic value” is 1.74.

Some residents were uncomfortable with the city conducting a subjective rating. The Arizona Republic asked them to weigh in on the survey.

Hollie Schineller, who has lived in Tempe for more than a decade with her husband, Freddie, and their children, took issue with the aesthetic-value rating. Schineller lives in a house south of Baseline Road where the survey said there were fewer issues with code-enforcement violations.

“An aesthetic value on anything, I think, sounds really subjective,” Schineller said. “Something that is aesthetically pleasing can be completely offensive to somebody else.”

Neighborhoods north of Baseline in Tempe were found to have more issues, which the city said it would address by adding at least three temporary code-enforcement inspectors to monitor those neighborhoods for code violations.

Tempe City Councilman Kolby Granville, who spearheaded efforts to deal with residential code enforcement, said that the aesthetic value was not used as part of the scoring system to evaluate problem neighborhoods. [Tempe City Councilman Kolby Granville sounds like the nut job neat freak Felix Unger who was played by Tony Randall in the Odd Couple. And sadly Tempe City Councilman Kolby Granville sounds like he is going to use the police powers of Tempe to force his silly, irrational neat freak rules on the rest of us]

Rather, it was used to determine whether there are issues at homes that might be unappealing but not in violation of city code. The city may find that changes should be made to the code to improve neighborhoods’ aesthetic value.

For example, Granville said that people who own their home do not have to landscape it per city code. They can have dirt instead of a lawn, as long as it has no weeds, he said. [So does next freak Tempe City Councilman Kolby Granville want to make it illegal to rent homes which have dirt instead of a lawn???]

Corporate welfare at Tempe Town Lake!!!!

Corporate welfare at Tempe Town Toilet!!!!

1) A large part of the time the park is not open to the public, but used for events to raise money for the royal rulers of Tempe. And these events are expensive to attend and most of the working class people that live in Tempe can't afford to attend the events, despite the fact that these people were forced to pay for Tempe Town Toilet with their hard earned tax dollars.

2) These events cause huge traffic jams and parking problems in the downtown Tempe area

3) When these events are concerts they routinely keep people awake late at night in the entire downtown area, and as far north as Roosevelt Road in Scottsdale which is also Continental Drive in Tempe. I am not sure how far south the concerts can be heard.

Also check out:

Source

Tempe to weigh revising Town Lake plan

By Dianna M. Náñez The Republic | azcentral.com

Tue Jul 30, 2013 12:10 AM

The Tempe City Council took a leap of faith more than a decade ago when it sank $44.8 million into building a 2 1/2-mile-long lake in the desert.

The council hoped that risking the debt to create high-profile waterfront property would pay off in the long run for Tempe, then a landlocked city desperate for new development.

But 14 years after the lake opened in 1999, city finance officials say Tempe is faced with a reality check that Town Lake is far from reaching the city’s development goals.

Tonight, the council is expected to consider revising a financing plan for Town Lake.

City finance officials have said the revised plan would give developers a financial break on their share of costs tied to the man-made lake [i.e. - stiff us taxpayers with the cost], make private development more affordable [i.e. stiff us taxpayers with the cost] and, ultimately, advance Tempe’s plans to secure sufficient lakeshore private development to ease the hefty public costs of maintaining Town Lake. [now the last phrase certainly is an oxymoron - give tax dollars private developers to lower the cost to taxpayers - now that's an impossibility - the more we give them the more it costs us]

But critics argue that taxpayers have long carried the financial burden for private lake development.

The new plan offers no guarantee that economic breaks for developers will actually spur construction, argue Joe Pospicil and Art Jacobs, two longtime Tempe residents who regularly question city finances and criticize lake expenses.

If approved, the revised plan also would shift the burden of paying for a new west-end lake dam, which the city has estimated will cost at least $37.4 million, to Tempe taxpayers, freeing developers from sharing the expense to replace the dam. [That a fancy way of saying give boatloads of our hard earned tax dollars out in corporate welfare rich corporations - the rich corporations that give bribes, oops, I mean campaign contributions to the members of the Tempe City Council]

Approval of the city proposal would mark the second time a Tempe City Council, aiming to drive development, has tweaked the original 1995 lake-financing plan in favor of developers. The first was in 1997.

Mayor Mark Mitchell said he believes the proposal merits more time in the public realm so that council members may gain sufficient community feedback. [Translation - he wants to make it look like the taxpayers approve of the members of the Tempe City Council giving boatloads of our cash to the rich corporations that gave the members of the Tempe City Council bribes, oops, I mean campaign contributions]

But it remains to be seen whether Mitchell’s colleagues agree that the council has a responsibility to arrange future forums for the public to question and comment on the proposal.

As of Monday, the proposed changes were included on the agenda for today’s council meeting.

The finance proposal is not set for a two-hearing process, which would have allowed for public comment at the first hearing and then required a vote and a second opportunity for public comment at a future council meeting.

That means the council could choose to approve the revised Town Lake financing plan with little opportunity for public input.

But before the council agenda was posted on the city’s website Friday, Mitchell said he still had questions about the financing plan.

“When we initially developed the lake, we had a plan, but it’s a working document,” he said. “We might change it, we might not. (But) we’ll have enough time to thoroughly review (any formal changes).” [translation - we know how to run your life better then you do, but if we screw it up don't blame us]

Mitchell said he expects staff today to merely explain the long-term impact of the proposed changes. [That pretty simple Mayor Mitchell, you and the other royal members of the Tempe City Council will be giving our hard earned tax dollars out as corporate welfare for years to come to corporations that give you bribes, oops, I mean campaign contributions]

The proposed finance changes were triggered by an economic reality check, Roger Hallsted, the city finance analyst for the Rio Salado Community Facilities District, told The Arizona Republic.

“From all of our original projections, (we were) thinking really by about this time ... the lake would be built out,” Hallsted said.

Tempe’s goal is for private development on 120 acres to generate assessment fees covering 60 percent of annual operations costs. [So us taxpayers will be forced to pay for 40 percent of the developers costs]

But a Republic analysis last year revealed that in the 13 years since the lake was filled, private development still only covered about 20 percent of operation and maintenance costs, well below the 60 percent envisioned in the original city plan. [So in stead of us taxpayers being stuck with paying 40 percent of the developers costs, we are stuck with paying 80 percent of the developers costs - if you ask me us taxpayers are getting screwed on this deal]

Tempe taxpayers have and continue to pay the majority of the $2 million to $3 million in annual costs for operations and maintenance as well as most of the bill for the $44.8 million in original construction costs. [translation - us taxpayers are getting screwed - also did you know that the city of Tempe spends more on Tempe Town Toilet, aka Tempe Town Lake then on all the other parks in Tempe combined???]

Private investment has spurred construction of about 24 acres of condos, high-rise office and commercial space around the lake. Town Lake supporters blame the recession for slower-than-expected development. [Well why didn't the freaking geniuses on the Tempe City Council figure out this??? I guess they were too busy taking bribes, oops, I mean campaign contributions from the rich developers]

The proposed changes to the financing plan are aimed at making land surrounding Town Lake more attractive to private development, Hallsted said. [yea, like giving then 10 times as much corporate welfare as originally planned]

If the council approves the changes, Town Lake developers would pay less toward their share of payments for the original construction costs. [And us taxpayers get screwed again and will have to make up the difference]

The proposal emanated from Tempe’s Enhanced Services Commission, Tempe Finance Manager Ken Jones said. [It sounds more like it came from the developers who will be getting the corporate welfare if you ask me!!!!]

The commission includes representation from Jones; Town Lake developers; Nancy Hormann, the president of the group that manages the downtown Tempe district; and Arizona State University, which owns and is attempting to develop acres of lakeshore property. [yes I was right, it did come from the developers who will are getting the corporate welfare!!!!]

A Republic review of public records from the commission meetings shows that commission members have spent the past year discussing development and maintenance plans for the lake.

At a January meeting, Jones asked for “the logic behind asking the council to cover the cost of replacing the dams,” according to public records of the meeting. [If you remember it was the idiots on the Tempe City Council who get screwed on the damn. The accepted a worthless ORAL 30 year guarantee on the damn, which failed after 10 years causing us taxpayers to get stuck with the replacement costs]

Hallsted said shifting the cost of the dams from being a shared debt with private developers to a taxpayer-only-funded cost is the result of the original rubber dam deteriorating years earlier than expected. [yea, like I just said]

“These new dams, at $38 million to $50 million, if we were to put that in at the true cost, just the (Town Lake) infrastructure replacement budget would have gone from $531,000 (annually) to $2 million,” he said.

The city had to face facts, he said, that it would have to shoulder the dam’s cost rather than “bankrupting every single (lake) property owner,” Hallsted said. [f*ck you!!!! bankrupt the developers for making dumb decisions, not the taxpayers. Or let the members of the Tempe City Council pay for the whole thing.]

The commission questioned whether it’s “more expensive to build at the lake than anywhere else in the Valley” and whether the city was “willing to offer an incentive to level the playing field,” according to public meeting records. [Well maybe the idiots on the Tempe City Council should not have build the lake, since it is a money losing experience]

The commission recommended a plan that would lower an annual “holding fee” of sorts that developers pay until they build on their lake property. [translation - make the taxpayers pay more of the developers expenses - i.e. more corporate welfare for the rich corporations building stuff on Tempe Town Toilet]

If the revised plan is approved, that fee would be reduced from the current 5 percent to the rate of inflation, which is currently 2.2 percent, Hallsted said. [which the Tempe taxpayers will pay]

The financing proposal also includes lowering the annual interest rate developers pay over the 25 years they are allowed to pay back their share of lake construction. [again, which the Tempe taxpayers will pay]

The current interest rate is 5 percent, and the proposal would lower it to 3.64 percent, Hallsted said. He added that the proposal calls for the council to make the rate reduction retroactive to July 1, 2009.

If the council approves rolling back the fee, developers that have built existing commercial and residential development at the lake would receive credits on biannual debt payments they are currently making. [and us taxpayers will be stuck with even bigger bills. Of course the members of the Tempe City Council will get to keep the bribes, oops, I mean campaign contributions they accepted from the developers of property at Tempe Town Toilet]

While critics worry that taxpayers are funding too much of the cost for Town Lake, Hallsted reasons that the revised plan will establish a realistic financing plan for the lake and encourage development that will help pay a greater share of the lake’s annual operations and maintenance costs. [why expect the developers to pay for their costs, when they can give small bribes, oops, I mean small campaign contributions to the Tempe City Council members who will stiff the taxpayers with the bill]

“The key thing,” he said, “is being fair to the citizens, but try to make it more enticing for developers to come in.” [translation - the key to this is SCREWING the taxpayers and forcing them to pay the developers bills]