Stephen Joost: Springfield hero -- watch this!!!

[sheclown]

Please take a moment to watch the agenda meeting.  It will warm the hearts of Springfield's residents.

http://www.coj.net/city-council/city-council-meetings-online/2014-council-video-archive.aspx

the agenda meeting from April 8th

Stephen Joost speaks on the citations:  6:38 

He attended the last Urban Core CPAC meeting and reports back to the city council some of Springfield's concerns regarding this -- citations from MDDC

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,21163.0.html

Joost

1) we need to catch our breath

2) there has been an over-reach

3) they get no response

4) its a problem -- for the community  -- I saw the pictures -- I'm concerned  -- half Mandarin would be written up

5) can we take up an emergency action?

Bishop in response:

1) it is a difficult position to be in we don't want to micromanage MCCD

2) when you go from zero to 100 something is going on

3) ask chief to come down and address it -- it will send a message -- if there is over-zealous enforcement, we need to know what is going on

Crescimbini

I want to make sure everyone understands it is a lot of neighborhoods -- we've taken a position on blight -- MCCD isn't enforcing anything this body didn't put on the books -- In Arlington, a woman got cited for yard trash set up for pickup.  If we are going to point a finger, we need to stand in front of a mirror. 

Springfield brought up photos of the lots to the blight commission -- code showed a different picture that had much more debris -- conflicting information

Lumb:

Springfield is the squeaky wheel.  It is not beyond the realm of possibility that MCCD didn't ramp it up due to preservation activism.  Brings up rolling fines.  this is the problem we are dealing with .  It is frustrating.  While the RE market remains in the tough, there needs to be common sense application. 

Gulliford:

Overlay -- can one amend overlay to allow for a different treatment of code violations?  A modification of standards??

Hypothetical for the future.  The standards could be set in a developed neighborhood -- there is justification for standards to be different in Springfield.

Bishop:

You can't legislate common sense.  How we get that message accross I don't know.  How do you tweak that code?

Gulliford:

Going back to the peeling paint, you give them more latitude. 

This really should be in committee if someone wants to address this.

Jones:

The best place to address this is in the blight committee. 

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for thank you emails:

Joost@coj.net

[avs]

I dont have whatever software is required to watch it.  Is your transcript the whole thing?

[sheclown]

No. Can you access on the Coj site ?

[avs]

yes, i tried to click the link on coj to watch the video but its not working on my computer

[strider]

Lots of things on the COJ site only seems to work well or at all with Explorer.

Lumb was pretty good to it seems. Recognized that it could be "payback".

[Springfielder]

I cannot get it to play either 

[peestandingup]

It's because they're still encoding their videos in wmv format. Jesus, even Microsoft (it's creator) has moved away from that.

[spuwho]

It's because they're still encoding their videos in wmv format. Jesus, even Microsoft (it's creator) has moved away from that.

Not to detract, but COJ still uses WME 9, probably because they can batch them up, which has been replaced by Expression Encoder which supports H.264.

MSFT is even deprecating Expression now, so what ever they use, its the H.264/Mpeg4 support they need.

Even Adobe Flash Encoder supports MP4.

Email the COJ IT Manager and let em know.

[sheclown]

and on a related note:

I'm very encouraged by the dialogue and intrigued by CM Gulliford's idea of a different standard of treatment by MCCD for historic houses using the overlay.  (Although the building codes and HPC are not related to the overlay and have exceptions made for historic properties, so the actual overlay involvement may not be necessary).

Point is that the current code enforcement practices as they relate to Springfield are OBVIOUSLY not working.  Old houses need more elbow room, more time to work on, less stringent condemnation practices, they are works in progress and need to be treated as such.

A wonderful plan -- I think it could work and I think it would go a long way to pacify a "squeaky wheel"

Regardless, this girl is glad to see the council talk ...Springfield.