Was this. . . . .?

A background to this conversation is Illegal Boarding Houses and Update on the Illegal Boarding House

Note that in April 2005 this place was first written about on the blog.

"City of Tampa Code Enforcement cited them in early 2004 for failure to cease operation of illegal rooming house and found guilty by the Code Enforcement Board on 8/18/04. Due to non-compliance, fines of $60.00 a day were levied from 9/23/04. Additionally they were cited in early 2003 for: Failure to Remove accumulations of junk, trash and debris from property and right of way; Failure to make repairs of walls, doors, doors frames, eaves, floor coverings, electrical fixtures in rear of building; Failure to repair or remove unsound shed. They were found guilty on 9/15/04 and have had fines of $30.00 a day from 11/04/04. As of 4/20/05 the current fines for both citations could be $16,550. The City may be exploring foreclosure."

There were multiple conversations with Bill Doherty and the neighborhood leadership throughout the process about the nuisance that this place presented. He agreed. He understood clearly why it was an illegal rooming house. He suggested that the neighborhood push the City Attorney's office on getting the foreclosure process moving along.

On July 25 2005 it was noted on the blog: "Regardless of which license they have, since 9/23/04 they still are still facing fines of $60.00 a day after being found guilty by the Code Enforcement Board for failing to cease operation of illegal rooming house.This facility now could be foreclosed by the City. Yet this has not happened. So Clifford Hill continues to operate illegally. Why has the City not shut this facility down?"

The foreclosure process was not going anywhere because the one person handling foreclosures was overwhelmed. Other staff were expected to be hired but had not been. Also the amount of the fines at that time were not enough to make it a high priority item.

Then in January 2006 area supervisor Harold Scott and his manager Bill Doherty mistakenly concluded the zoning violation was not correct and close the case. At this time the fines would have been up to $29,000 just for the illegal rooming house violation. What happened? What made them decide the zoning violation was incorrect . . . after 15 months? After being found guilty by the code board? Nothing had changed. This place was still operating illegally with multiple people living there.

Was this incompetence? Or was this something else?

However since this place can not stop itself from being a code violation factory they got cited again for accumulation issues in March 2006 and again for being an illegal boarding house. The process had to start all over again.

The day Code was to reinspect the place, Harold Scott was looking for a letter of support from Zoning to back up the violation. To ensure the inspection was going to occur properly the neighborhood facilitated that process. Yes. The neighborhood facilitated that process. The neighborhood had to get two parts of the city government to speak to each other.

Was this incompetence or something else?

Later on TV Harold Scott is quoted as saying that Code has no way of knowing how many people live there. He apparently went into Code court saying the same thing

Interesting since the FLDE website listed 13 to 16 sex offenders living there.

Interesting since Tampa Police Department runs the Sexual Predator Identification Program (SPIN) "officers conduct at home verifications of the sexual offender or predator's residence." Verfification of how many people lived there could have come from one phone call to the SPIN Officer.

Interesting since many of the offenders were on felony probation. These probationers are on a more intensive probation and often get at home visits by their Florida Department of Corrections Probation Officers. Call the Probation could have verified whether those offenders indeed lived there.

I might expect a rookie code inspector not to know these things. I would expect a long serving supervisor to know these things.

Was this incompetence or something else?

I used to work for the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services years and years ago. I know how to conduct an investigation and how to use collateral sources of information to build a case. I know how to use various private and public databases to obtain information.

Why doesn't Code know how to do this?

Especially since Code is now led by former TPD deputy police chief Curtis Lane. You would think he would have imparted his knowledge in investigations to his staff. Of course this former narcotics officer did not know what pot looked like so perhaps that would explain why.

Was this incompetence or something else?