Independent Neighborhood News & Talking Points
3 Apr
The big daily newspaper’s onslaught against Willow Glen continued Monday morning with a needlessly negative article about warring neighbors and a “junkyard” on the eastern half of Willow Glen Way. The article actually relates an important story about the City of San Jose’s long-running legal battle with one of your neighbors. The problem could have been expressed without bashing the neighborhood, but the paper couldn’t pass up the chance:
The turmoil has boiled over into a full-fledged neighborhood controversy.
Willow Glen is a tightly knit community. Homeowners take pride in the area’s reputation as a safe, family-friendly corner of San Jose. It’s a place where the lawns are manicured and the streets are mostly free of potholes.
But it’s also a place where residents lash out at their neighbors for having a portable basketball hoop on the street or call the police when someone cuts down a tree on private property.
“Full-fledged neighborhood controversy” …. ? The aforementioned basketball hoop and the current blight incident had not been previously reported in any neighborhood media outlet (not WGx, not the WG Times, not the WG Resident), nor has the issue come before a neighborhood assocation or even been the subject any notable prior discussion on the WGNA eList.
The City of San Jose has said that the tree-cutting incident was illegal and so is the backyard junkyard, as clarified by City Attorney Rick Doyle. So too, the streetside basketball hoop, which was only news because of the City’s pending NCAA hosting duties.
Right or wrong, these incidents occur everywhere …. but they are apparently only “news” in Willow Glen.
3 Responses for "Merc Finds More Problems in WG"
So one day after running the inflammatory article, the SJ Mercury News ran a much more appropriate news story about the pending resolution between the City and the property owners.
Tuesday’s article was straight-forward, and made no comments about Willow Glen other than were necessary to define the property’s location.
WGx suggests that Joshua Molina (Monday’s author) could learn something from Rodney Foo (Tuesday’s reporter).
WGx is “right on” to complain about the negative article by the Mercury News regarding the prosecution of a property owner for failing to comply with our city’s municipal codes and laws.
On another local blog (San Jose Inside), someone known only as “Single Gal” went even further by claiming that Willow Glen residents were unfairly receiving assistance from the city’s code enforcement department.
Following is a note I posted in response to this charge:
“As Vice-Chair of the San Jose Appeals Hearing Board - a quasi-judicial board that hears appeals to code enforcement violations - let me provide Single Gal with a little insight as to how code enforcement can be a cost-effective way for city residents to partner with city officials in improving the quality of life in San Jose.
Neighborhood residents know that vigorous code enforcement helps to protect investments in our property, preserves the character of our neighborhoods and protects the health and safety of all our residents. Enforcement of our city’s municipal codes and land-use requirements should always be fair and unbiased. Quite simply, if your property is in compliance with the city’s municipal codes, then you have nothing to worry about.
The goal of code enforcement is to help all property owners maintain compliance and they utilize a range of enforcement methods (citation, administrative penalties, abatement, prosecution, etc.) Residents don’t have to bring blight charges against other residents - the city utilizes enforcement methods to ensure that all property owners are in compliance with our municipal codes and laws.
In my experience, the vast majority of property owners who learn that their property is in violation of a municipal code are more than willing to correct the problem in a timely fashion. In most cases, the property owner is simply unaware of the governing municipal code with most property owners welcoming the information.
With our city’s limited financial resources, we could never hire enough code enforcement inspectors to monitor every property. Thus, I wish that our city would put more resources into cost-effective outreach and education programs so that all property owners could make their own corrections without having to face a code enforcement inspector.
Single Gal theorizes that our city disproportionately enforces municipal codes in the Willow Glen neighborhood. Yet, I can assure her that every neighborhood in San Jose takes advantage of the code enforcement department.
If you want to learn more about how code enforcement can help improve your neighborhood, go to http://www.sanjoseca.gov/codeEnforcement.”
Willow Glen has long been a ‘rolling junkyard.’ I am happy that Code Enforcement is in place; ie; towing the trash in the form of ‘parked cars on public streets’ -creating an example for the element that tries desperately to distress the area.
Leave a reply