Dear Editor,

I spend way too much time paying attention. As I drive through our communities, I have noticed a remarkable trend. It seems that our city has come under ruin. No matter what street you drive down, we are overwhelmed with people unable or unwilling to keep their property clean and tidy. The homes on Main Street are amazing. I have even seen one home who the owner made the front cleaner but the rear of the home is completely dilapidated and falling apart (at least an attempt to look nicer).

I would almost say that seven out of 10 homes are worthy of destruction and removal. The properties are no way recoverable. The more you drive through the neighborhoods, the more it seems that homes are run down, many with broken windows, grass over grown, and siding damaged or rotting. Porches are sliding off the homes on some. I have always been under the impression that when you live in a town, you must adhere to a housing code. Maybe I just am unaware of our town having a code or code enforcement. But people are attempting to build nicer and newer homes, but with so much wasted and run down properties, why would people want to build $200,000 homes, in areas where their property values would be so far diminished the moment they move in?

I love driving through downtown and seeing junk littering properties clear out to the sidewalks. Tires, mattresses, kids toys, trash and more. Just filling yards, porches and surrounding areas of the house, with Lord knows what going on inside.

I know that we have a poor economy, are living in a recession and job opportunities are few and far between, but we have to do something to recover our city. Our town is being destroyed by time. It is just ugly to drive though, ugly to look at and makes many of us uncomfortable. If there is a Codes department, we should have some dedicated people to make contact with many of these property owners and ask for the properties to be either destroyed or remodeled to meet city code. I am not saying fine people, but if the city code isn’t enforced, there should be some action taken by the city to have the property sold or bulldozed to make room for improvement to the city. We do not need “historical” properties, we need development.

Curry Russell