I'm MAD AS HELL! No Time For a Haircut Today!

The illegal fence issue from last year is still unresolved. The fence is still there. The neighbor has been...well you can read the details in this email I'm sending to Councilman Scott Galvin.

Hi Scott,

I got cited this morning by North Miami Code Enforcement Officer Gary Beswick for "overgrown alleyway or easement". I think this was triggered by the fact that the rain a couple of days ago made the kid mowing my lawn have to stop before he finished the side (14th Ave.) swale. It will be finished. The alleyway is no more "overgrown" than it's been for the last few years and looks mowed to me except in the area where my next door neighbor likes to deposit his landscaping rubble, and you can't mow there.

But in my poking around my yard today I notice some other rock/concrete/whatever rubble that had been deposited over my back fence into my yard near the southern end, closest to my neighbor, and some other rocky debris further south that could only have been put their by tossing it OVER that ILLEGAL wooden fence.

Regardless of whatever handshake agreement I made with City Manager Clarence Patterson to "drop the issue" of the illegal fence I've decided that in good conscience I can't continue to lead a double life of serving on the Board of Adjustment while allowing the flagrant disregard of the city code with that ILLEGAL fence. It didn't go through the proper variance process, and had it been cited and brought in front of the Code Enforcement Board, as a number of the members of that board fully expected, they would not have allowed it to remain as is. Nor was it likely that the Board of Adjustment would have aproved a variance.

In addition that next door neighbor has planted a ficus hedge right up against the chain link fence between our front yards. It's grown several feet through the fence, which is entirely ON MY PROPERTY, not on the property line. I don't feel like trimming my side or paying somebody to do it for me. If it's allowed to continue growing there it will destroy my fence as the branches get larger and thicker, plus depriving me of the use of a substantial part of my front yard. The only solution that I can see, and it will still cost me money, is to spray the branches extending into my yard and drench the soil on my side of the propery line with a defoliant/weed killer.

The neighbor has already caused me to avoid using my backyard because I get so distraught and upset everytime that I see that ILLEGAL fence. I don't want to hear any dumb excuses that he received an after the fact permit by paying a double permit fee. He still never came in front of the Board of Adjustment for a proper variance and I don't believe that construction of that magnitude qualifies for an adminstrative variance.

Yes, I'm MAD. I'm STEAMING PISSED OFF BIG TIME. I want that damned fence to conform to the city code. If Gary is too chicken to cite my neighbor then have Clarence fire him. I never did get reimbursed for the $125 I was charged a couple of years ago for "mowing" that narrow strip behind my rear fence. It really WAS NOT mowed because of the concrete rubble and tailings from digging all those post holes put there by the guy hext door.

I hate to say this but on the surface it looks like somebody is getting paid off to overlook one resident's violations while nitpicking another. I'm not the only one who thinks that.

I feel really bad for that neighbor. The nerve of the city telling him that he had to get rid of his ILLEGAL ROOSTERS that he was hiding behind that ILLEGAL FENCE, the ones that were waking the entire neighborhood every morning at first light. The ones that the code enforcement guy couldn't see because he's not allowed to look over the ILLEGAL FENCE.

I feel bad for him because he overpaid for that house at the peek of the real estate bubble, put a bunch of money into fixing it up, and now he probably has a mortgage that's $50,000 or more money than he could get from selling the house. He's stuck. I DON"T WANT TO BE STUCK with all this agravation.

I want that fence brought into conformity with the code. I don't want him treating my property as a convenient place to discard rubble. I don't want his ficus hedge destroying my fence. Tell Gary to cite that fence. I want that "overgrown" ficus hedge cited also.

Also, I'm not so sure how valid that citation is because Gary listed the exact same date (08/04/08) for both today's date and the re-inspection date. I have no idea when the re-inspection is. Maybe somebody should call and ask him?

Cheers,

Al

And within five minutes I received this:

Hi, Mike

Al Kaplan writes with essentially two complaints:

1. In regard to a citation he was written today
2. In regard to a fence apparently erected illegally by his neighbor to the west.

Will you kindly investigate both and let me know what options we have?

Thanks,
scott