Enforce Existing Nuisance Laws to Clean Up Neighborhoods

This is what you call trying to re-invent the wheel for publicity sake. http://krqe.com/2016/10/25/proposed-vacant-building-ordinance-getting-significant-changes/

In 2004 when I was a Deputy City Attorney and head of the Safe City Strike Force and when the City was taking aggressive enforcement actions against  nuisance properties, both residential and commercial,  the City enacted the Vacant Building Maintenance Act.  It actually requires property owners to register their vacant buildings, repair them and keep them maintained. The Albuquerque Uniform Housing Code and the Albuquerque Commercial Building Codes also have numerous provisions allowing city enforcement actions against  both residential and commercial properties that endanger the public health, safety,  and welfare and that are blighted properties.

Under existing ordinances, civil and criminal action can be taken against property owners and the properties  that have become a nuisance and a danger to public safety.  Under existing city ordinances, property owners can be cited for code violations in not maintaining their properties up to city codes.  Additionally, Albuquerque has one of the strongest Nuisance Abatement Ordinances in the country that allowed the Safe  City Strike Force to take aggressive code enforcement action against blighted properties, both residential and commercial, that had become nuisances and magnets of crime resulting in calls for service to APD and a drain on police resources.

Existing ordinances allowed the Safe City Strike Force to take  enforcement actions against approximately 1,000 residential properties a year and  over  50 motels along central, vacant strip malls, entire residential areas,  hundreds of blighted commercial and residential properties and properties use to commit crimes such as meth labs, drug houses and violent criminal activity. The City also had available funds that were used to condemn and tear down structures that were beyond repair.

Rather than trying to enact ordinances already on the books to garner publicity and favor, the City Council should provide sufficient funding to enforce existing ordinances that have proven effective in the past.

 

 

This entry was posted in Opinions by . Bookmark the permalink.

About

Pete Dinelli was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is of Italian and Hispanic descent. He is a 1970 graduate of Del Norte High School, a 1974 graduate of Eastern New Mexico University with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and a 1977 graduate of St. Mary's School of Law, San Antonio, Texas. Pete has a 40 year history of community involvement and service as an elected and appointed official and as a practicing attorney in Albuquerque. Pete and his wife Betty Case Dinelli have been married since 1984 and they have two adult sons, Mark, who is an attorney and George, who is an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). Pete has been a licensed New Mexico attorney since 1978. Pete has over 27 years of municipal and state government service. Pete’s service to Albuquerque has been extensive. He has been an elected Albuquerque City Councilor, serving as Vice President. He has served as a Worker’s Compensation Judge with Statewide jurisdiction. Pete has been a prosecutor for 15 years and has served as a Bernalillo County Chief Deputy District Attorney, as an Assistant Attorney General and Assistant District Attorney and as a Deputy City Attorney. For eight years, Pete was employed with the City of Albuquerque both as a Deputy City Attorney and Chief Public Safety Officer overseeing the city departments of police, fire, 911 emergency call center and the emergency operations center. While with the City of Albuquerque Legal Department, Pete served as Director of the Safe City Strike Force and Interim Director of the 911 Emergency Operations Center. Pete’s community involvement includes being a past President of the Albuquerque Kiwanis Club, past President of the Our Lady of Fatima School Board, and Board of Directors of the Albuquerque Museum Foundation.