PART THREE
http://www.ftimes.com/main.asp?SectionI ... leID=43882
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
PART THREE: COMMUNITY AESTHETICS
Failure to Obey Local Nuisance Ordinances 'Not Just a Cultural Thing'
Kate Meadows
Staff writer
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
A VOICE FROM THE SHADOWS
Hispanic male, 38
Where are you from? I'm from Guadalajara, Mexico.
Why did you move to Frankfort? My family was struggling day after day in Mexico. My children needed to go to school. They needed clothes and food like everybody else does. That's when I decided to come to the United States. Life just kind of brought me here to Frankfort.
How did you get here? I was brought here in a car. Crossing the border was not difficult for me.
Why are you here? I was born and raised in a little village in Mexico. It was a place where there was no light, telephone, or drinkable water. I spent most of my childhood in the fields. I don't want that for my kids. That's why I'm here, to provide for my family, and give my children what I never had.
What are your goals? To survive in this hunted nightmare. I want to take care of my family in Mexico (financially) and make sure they have food on the table and a nice warm bed to sleep in at night.
Where do you work? I work at a company in Lebanon.
How much money do you make? I make $8.25 per hour.
Have you tried to become documented? If not, why? No. Becoming legal in this country is out of my reach.
Where do you live? I live in Frankfort.
Do you own or rent? I rent.
If you rent, how much do you pay for rent? I pay $450 monthly for a room.
Why do you stay here? The possibilities of giving my family what they need would be much lower if I returned to Mexico. This is hard for me because my kids don't understand that even though I miss them so much, I have to stay here and sacrifice our time together so they can have more than I ever did.
Do you feel welcome? No. But I'm not here to feel welcome. I'm here to survive just like any other immigrant.
Do you know you are breaking the law? Do you see it that way? Yes. But I'm not sure if I see it that way. I have the right to provide for my family and if I see a job in the U.S. that pays well, I'm taking that chance because, after all, that's what I came here for, to work.
Are you involved in illegal activities here? No.
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PERCEPTION: Illegal aliens are ruining the aesthetics in our community by ignoring local ordinances intended to maintain safe and well-kept neighborhoods.
When asked if they have seen butchered goats hanging from trees, Frankfort Police officers and city administrators nod.
Killing a goat for a Sunday meal is a common tradition in Spanish-speaking cultures.
Many people in Frankfort complain that an inflow of illegal immigrants has weakened the city's aesthetic quality. Lawns cluttered with junk cars and run-down houses are often attributed to illegal immigrants.
Yet, long-time citizens are responsible for the same unsightly eyesores, even stringing up a dead deer on the front porch.
Whether Frankfort's aesthetic decline is due to a shift in demographics or a complacency shared by residents of all origins is not clear.
Perhaps, as some leaders contend, residents' failure to obey local nuisance ordinances is as much about city pride as it is about understanding the community's rules.
Apparently, no one can pinpoint exactly why these problems persist. Neither can anyone prove they are the fault entirely of an immigration influx, officials say.
"A lot of ordinances are broken across the board," Police Chief Jeff Danner says.
Frankfort's former building inspector Bud McQuade adds, "It's not just a cultural thing."
Complaint: Housing
Many of the city's structures contribute to its overall aesthetic distress.
In just his short time in office, Mayor Chris Pippenger said, he has been made aware of buildings where roofs are caving in.
Entire areas of town are deteriorating, too, he says.
But, he is quick to add, "I'm not going to say it's because of Hispanics."
Data provided by the building inspector's office shows that property maintenance complaints spiked to 1,077 in 2006, from just over 300 in 2004. They were down slightly last year, to 921.
As the city building inspector, McQuade said he adhered to the codes which, above all, requires the inspector to foster safe living quarters.
"It saddens me that we have become lethargic," he said, "not taking care of properties as we should. ... We kind of got away from maintaining the neighborhood look."
Seeing that residents, regardless of their legal status, live in safe structures is crucial, McQuade said.
Building inspector Chuck Toney, who assumed office in January, agrees, stressing that building code violations have nothing to do with ethnicity.
As he settles into office, he said, he will continue to address problems with run-down properties and overcrowded housing. Both are challenges, but Frankfort is not alone in its fight.
Mayor Gene Beach of Marshalltown, Iowa, says every community has rental properties that aren't well cared for.
"I can't blame the Hispanics. I blame more the slum landlords," Beach said.
When the Swift meat packing plant in Marshalltown began to hire large numbers of Mexican workers in the 1990s, apartments became crammed with young Mexican men, he said.
"That was a little disconcerting to the population," Beach said.
But when the workers' families began to immigrate to the Midwest community, they bought houses all over town, which stimulated the local economy and added diversity, he said.
Austin, Minn., Mayor Tom Stiehm says he's looking into updating city ordinances for renters to curb a problem with shabby-looking properties. A possible ordinance would require landlords to know to whom they are renting and how many people live in a unit.
"Right now, you can have 30 people living in an apartment," Stiehm said, because there is no rule against it there.
While the problem cannot be blamed on just one cultural group, "A lot of people are going to complain just because there are Hispanics living in a house," he says.
Closer to home, Logansport Mayor Mike Fincher says it's important that landlords be held accountable for the properties they rent. A big reason multiple families live in single dwellings is landlords allow it, he says.
As local governments strive to make changes in ordinances to better enforce civil rules, it is a balancing act, says Fincher. And when it comes to adhering to the rules, no one is perfect.
"It's people being people, regardless of cultural background," he says. "We have to be very careful not to discriminate against anyone."
In Frankfort, a problem with large groups of people occupying housing units has caused community officials to consider redefining the term "family" in the city ordinances.
According to Toney, "family" is defined as: "An individual or two or more people related by blood or marriage or a group of not more than eight persons who need not be related, living in a unit."
But others, like Don and Marsha Rapp, who operate Rapp Rental Properties in Frankfort, say the problem is not as major as leaders make it out to be.
That's because most landlords provide leases that outline the rules for renting their properties. At least that's the case for landlords who belong to the Clinton County Property Manager's Association, including the Rapps.
"The majority of us that have leases, it specifies exactly who is living in building," Don Rapp said.
Rapp admits he has been questioned about the number of people living in an apartment before.
He received one complaint that 10 to 15 families were living in one of his four-unit buildings. According to the lease agreement, just one family was living in each unit, and each family had children.
Rapp believes the complainant made an off-beat assumption about the number of people living in the building because of the number of vehicles that were parked out front.
"There's 12 vehicles," Rapp said. "But to just go by and look at number of vehicles, they're getting a false impression."
Complaint: Parking & Junk
Reports of improper parking and cluttered yards are growing in Frankfort.
In 2007, for example, Frankfort Police fielded 84 reports of people parking on lawns. Parking against traffic flow, on lawns and sidewalks and in alleys are the most common complaints, according to data provided by the Frankfort Police Department.
But according to local leaders, that's a sign of increasing affluence in the community and has nothing to do with cultural differences.
Police Chief Danner points out that three or four cars per household is not unusual. His household, he admits, is a case in point, with as many as four vehicles parked outside at a time.
Over the years in Frankfort, Toney said, he has noticed junk piling up in people's yards. And Pippenger reports seeing a significant amount of trash in the streets.
Lately, administrators have seen an increased number of makeshift trash receptacles constructed of wood and chicken wire often left in people's front yards.
McQuade advocated against keeping such containers in open areas.
"It wasn't what we wanted people driving through Frankfort to remember us by," he said, stressing, "By no stretch of the imagination was it a Hispanic issue."
Toney said that under his administration, there is currently no penalty for having a homemade receptacle, and he sees two sides to the complaints.
"Some people would call them eyesores," he said. "Others say they are at least helping (Frankfort) by keeping trash in a container."
In Marshalltown, Iowa, Beach believes Hispanics are responsible for the majority of front yard parking in his community.
But as for junky properties, "I think our Anglos are probably the biggest offenders," Beach said.
In Austin, Minn., the only parking-related problem seems to be vehicles on lawns, its mayor said, adding it's also common for people to leave car parts scattered across the yard.
City council members sift through complaints like that at every meeting, Stiehm said.
Then, those blamed for the problems are notified and have 10 days to fix it. Problems that go unattended get added to the owner's property tax bill.
The city of Logansport has implemented ordinances to protect the image of the community, said Fincher. Code enforcement officers drive through the streets every day looking for problems. The ordinances allow the officers to point out problems to residents, and residents then have a grace period to take care of the infraction.
"Either they fix it, or we fix it for them," Fincher said.
Complaint: Farm Animals in City Limits
Data today shows that complaints against farm animals are not as problematic for the city as they were a decade ago. But the complaints haven't ceased completely.
In 2006, Frankfort Police issued nine tickets for noisy or odorous animals. Six tickets were issued in 2007. One ticket was issued in 2006 for having livestock in the city limits. No comparable data was available for 2007.
In Marshalltown, Iowa, chickens have been raised and butchered in the city limits.
"We had chicken problems," Beach said, until leaders explained that killing animals on residential property was not OK.
The problems caused leaders to write a new city ordinance, prohibiting chickens on in-town property.
"It was almost comical," Beach said, adding that the animal problems have dwindled with enforcement of the new ordinance.
Similar animal problems are dwindling here, too, says McQuade, who remembers when raising goats or chickens in residential yards was a common complaint.
Looking ahead
Beach said his city's image has changed due to demographics. But just how it has changed depends on who's talking.
"Certain people look at us and say we're much more rich and diverse. Then there are others who say we have a black eye because of all these immigrants," he said.
Implementing city programs to help immigrants assimilate into the community has proved effective in Logansport.
But what works for one city might not work for another, Fincher is careful to point out.
"It depends on the attitude of the people," Fincher said.
In Frankfort, some leaders advocate bringing experts in from outside the community to talk about their studies related to the effects of immigration.
Other leaders say Frankfort should work out its kinks on its own, from within.
But across the board, the message seems to be that keeping the city clean is primarily a matter of education for all segments of the population.
When people understand what's expected of them, they're more likely to follow the rules, McQuade says.
Toney agrees, noting his mission is to continue to enforce the ordinances and keep residents accountable.
"People want uniformity," he says.
Part of that education, Police Chief Danner says, is understanding that city employees have jobs to do. Sometimes, those who enforce the law are seen as the bad guys.
"But it's our job," Danner emphasizes.
And to live together in community, everyone has a job to do. For some, it's enforcing the rules. For others, it's obeying the rules.
But everyone, no matter what age, color, gender or ethnicity, has a responsibility to learn the rules.
Still, says Danner, "You can't force pride upon people."
That is true regardless of whether those people are home-grown residents or immigrants - long-time or newly transplanted.