PNAR’s Tom Blanton Fighting Oppressive Code Enforcement Crackdown

Tom Blanton does one of the best daily roundups of government oppression and outrages stories on the Internet.  His Project for a New American Revolution has been an inspiration for me and thousands of other folks over the years.  Tom is the one of the best headline writers I know;  and I am often amused to see how he improves the headlines on the articles of mine that he links to.   For instance, USA Today titled my piece today “Education goals are getting resegregated.”  Tom’s headline was “The Bigotry of Low Expectations is Real” – the perfect mockery of George W. Bush’s prattling on No Child Left Behind. (Unfortunately, the Obama team is using simply hokum.)

Here’s part of Tom’s summary of the code enforcement fight:

I live in Rudd’s Trailer Park on Jefferson Davis Highway in south Richmond. It has been a trailer park for over 50 years. Many of the older trailers here are not very nice, but the owners who live in them have made them livable. For reasons that aren’t clear, the City of Richmond seems to be determined to shut this place down and displace the residents.

 A large number of Hispanic people live here, many with young children. The children are beautiful and well-behaved. My experience is that they are friendly, polite and respectful. The parents often have trouble speaking English, but the children are fluent. There are a few African-Americans and a good number of older white people, many of whom are not in good health. None of these people are wealthy, but they do own their own trailer and perhaps a vehicle. Many of the vehicles are worth as much or more than the trailers.

 Should the City close down Rudd’s Trailer Park, there will be little notice given and because it can cost $2,000 or more to move a trailer, many people may have to abandon their trailers. In some cases, it might cost more to move the trailer than the trailer is worth – if a place can be found to move it to. Either way, this is quite a hardship to people who are already struggling to get by and may have health and family issues to deal with also.

 The City contends that many of the trailers in the park have code violations, and this may be true. The City generally demands that code violations be dealt within 30 days. Sometimes extensions are granted, but this is up to the City’s discretion. These code enforcement inspections have taken place before, but this time the City seems more determined to shut down the trailer park rather than promote public safety…

Tom’s write-up includes links to email the Richmond code enforcers and city council.

Perhaps there are some other legal or PR tactics that could be used to thwart this government crackdown?

Tom has done great work for freedom for many years.  He doesn’t deserve to be in the govt. crosshairs.

Rudd’s Trailer Park, 1954:

An example of Tom’s political artwork: