It's time to start saying NO with a heavy hand to this illegal construction madness.
Well, I'm not sure how you define rural, but to me cars and trucks for example are built primarily by the city folks. Gas for those refined in cities. It is why the country went thru the industrial revolution - why other countries strive for it.How so?
By a wide margin us rural people are the most capable of going full closed loop self sustainment with the least difficulty. Our money works just fine amongst ourselves and the vast majority of goods we need to survive comfortably come from our own rural regions of every state.
Food, water, electrical production, oil, coal, financial institutions, service industry, transportation. If we don't have to produce products to support millions of city people our lives become so much simpler cheaper and easier to handle.
Farmers do not have to farm anywhere near the acreages they do. Electrical generation systems have far less load to supply, rural water resources that are tapped into to serve cities are freed up, oil and gas production and refining requirements drop way off.
To be honest form a life long lived rural citizen the urban half of our populations kinda a parasite on our collective backs.
So what exactly do the blue areas have that we can not produce or manage locally ourselves that we cannot live without?
Where I come from we have every bit of the modern conveniences any city person has only far more room and less cost to do it with. Running water, flushing toilets, lectic' light flipswitch thingies on the walls, the works! Heck, even the old hound dog chews on one O' them manufactured bone thingies too!
And there's nothing uglier than a muddy city street in the middle of winter.Where I come from we have every bit of the modern conveniences any city person has only far more room and less cost to do it with. Running water, flushing toilets, lectic' light flipswitch thingies on the walls, the works! Heck, even the old hound dog chews on one O' them manufactured bone thingies too!
The only reason some oil refineries are in cities if because the city grew up around them. Out here they are outside the defined city limits and even a that our cities barely brake the 100K population level.
And yea, I know the vast majority of city born and raised people think what you have in your picture is the standard of living outside the city. Its not. Most of us live better than the average city person when it comes to general life conveniences and all around ownership of stuff.
In city person terms the guy who owns the $100K vehicle as a daily driver is seen as well off. In our rural way of life the average nobody has one or more buildings the size of a small apartment complex full of machines that cost $100K or multiple times over that each!
So yea, we really don't put much faith in the accuracy of how the big city person sees us.
Really? Isn't that the kind of thing repubs are usually fond of doing? You know, the whole, "less regulations" thing?
You just can't help but be wrong, can you? Even I am not as ugly as a muddy city street in the middle of winter.
First, read about the history of Oakland. It is one of corruption from its founding. Mayors of both parties have been involved. However, in the last 30+ years they have been Democrats. More on point, if you bother to read about the background for that disaster, there have been numerous citations and complaints about the sub-standard conditions, legitimate code violations, and illegal aliens crammed into uninhabitable quarters, and so forth. All of that blind-eye enforcement of existing safety codes was provided by Democrat administrations. Were they paid off? Follow the money.
Yes, the previous Republican administration cut enforcement funding so the current inspector had to prioritize. Check the facts.
Why didn't the current crop of politicos reverse such a egregious error?
Because they would have to raise taxes. No citizens reelect a tax raising administration.
The building inspector was at the property last month before the fire so it was a priority. The people inside were hiding according to reports and didn't answer so he couldn't go inside to actually inspect the fire trap. That's when buildings are RED TAGGED for a safety hazard in most cities if the property has a long history of violations like this one did. This is not about enforcement funding, this is about actually doing your job to reduce the possibility of a mass casualty event because you walk away. I know these types of fire are thankfully rare but this was not a random event of unforeseen circumstances.
“I think we have to take responsibility and certainly our staff members that had that task were not as responsive or assertive as necessary,” said Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo on Monday.
He and others said that the city had been aware of safety and fire hazards at the warehouse for more than two years. Neighbors and former residents have told The Times that they had contacted the city about trash and debris piled up outside the warehouse as well as their concerns about unsafe conditions there.
...
Responding to multiple complaints from neighboring businesses and residents, a city building inspector went to the warehouse on Nov. 17 to investigate but could not get access inside the building, Gallo and city officials said.
Victims of the Oakland warehouse fire: Who they were
“The only question that is still outstanding for me, the administration has to tell us, well, what happened to the code inspector? Why did he just knock on the door and not pursue?” Gallo said Monday. “This thing has been going on for 2 1/2 years.”
Police were repeatedly called to thewarehouse to address complaints, according to one former resident. Those reports could not be confirmed to The Times on Sunday by Oakland police.
these jobs used to be done by Fire Marshalls or P.E.s and now they are done by someone promoted from the pothole repair crew. Did he knock and walk away or did he fill out his month of reports on the 29th of November with a long list of excuses why he didn't clear his docket that month and assures he'll have something to do next month to quell any talk of further staff reductions in the department and he can feed himself for another month.
kv
If that's the case, the inspector can be sure of 3 squares a day and a cot for the rest of his life.
Lame excuses for a gundeck.
I'm just saying that communities get what they pay for. Whether under trained/unqualified cops or lazy/spineless code inspectors.
You keep saying it's pay but I see little evidence of that as the root cause. I do see plenty of evidence that people have been allowed get away with such gross violations that it boggled the minds of even the uninformed visitors and tenants of the warehouse. These inspections have plenty of advance notice to the owners, managers and occupants before they happen so everyone knows the rules in advance.
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