SB Now

BRING BACK BAUDE !!

I agree bring back Baude, I once worked in the Police Department and like Wayne Harp but he knows nothing about code enforcement and wont in the limited time he is there. Even Penman praised Baude as the best Code Enforcement Director ever. Why are we paying two people for one position in a budget crises and laying off city employees, just stupid. Fred Wilson has never been a part of San Bernardino and obviously only cares about himself and covering is heiny. In six months of Harp pay the city hire 2 recreation workers for a year. Wayne how many shots do you want at the public trough.

Has Morris turned on Baude? Baude has been loyal to Morris and all the sudden he supports Wayne Harp as interim even though Harp supported Penman for Mayor. Why isn't Morris calling for Baude to be returned, is this called sell out.

I believe that Baude should have gotten the 6 months or $1000 fine - that said the DA decided not to do so. So with that said Glenn should be taken off this leave and given his job back in Code Enforcement. When he was in charge of Code Enforcement, he was a top notch official. But as long as Glenn won't take one for the team, he isn't going to come back!

Thank God that Marianne Milligan is leaving Code Enforcement! Whether it is Glenn Baude or Wayne Harp maybe now we can get this city looking better.

Baude is obviously on the way out.

Thank god our city isn't in the midst of a budget crisis otherwise we wouldn't be able to afford to hire an interim director for $65 an hour.

"Harp to the rescue". To the resue of what or who?

In my opinion, Glenn Baude is the best Code Enforcement Director the City of San Bernardino ever had.

If he had remained doing the job of Director of Code Enforcement 100% of the time, I do not believe that department, nor the City's overall appearance, would be in the respective conditions each is in today.

Wayne Harp did endorse me for Mayor but remained neutral during the City Attorney election while he was working as a contract employee for the Police Department.

Mayor Morris strongly supported Chief Harp's hire as interim Code Compliance Director. In fact, it was the Mayor who informed me of the decision to hire Chief Harp and he had quite a genuine smile on his face when he told me. I returned that smile with equal sincerity.

It is to our Mayor's credit that he would recognize Harp's accomplishments and qualifications and support his appointment despite Harp supporting a different candidate for Mayor in the '05 -'06 election.

Wayne Harp has been a great public servant and I believe he will do as good a (temporary) job for us in Code Enforcement as he did in his full-time career as a police officer and manager.

We are lucky to have him today, and we were lucky to have had Glenn Baude as our full-time Director of Code Enforcement while he was actively in 100% charge of that department.

Jim Penman

The city looks the way it does because 60-70% of the places are older rental homes. Most of the owners do not live in the area and just want to collect paychecks without putting any money into their properties. The tenants do not have an investment and do not care if the lawn is dead, trash gets left out or broken down vehicles are in the driveway.

THEN ADD THAT TO

All the foreclosed properties with green pools, unmaintained lawns and shrubs. Banks are not going to want to keep the properties clean

THEN ADD THAT TO

High homeless population and gangs and kids that get into these Foreclosed houses.

COUPLE THAT WITH

Neighborhoods with people that just want to complain and do not want to get involved with neighborhood. They want to complain but do not want to put in effort.

THEN ADD IN

The budget crisis with different priorities

VIOLA

You have problems with City of San Bernardino

Hey Ron D.,

Getting rid of the slumlords isn't going to happen anytime soon.....as for the foreclosures that will take awhile as well. If Code Enforcement was doing their job everything you listed wouldn't be an issue and.....

You forgot to add the Code Enforcement Officers that don't get out of their air-conditioned cars to check the complaints.

Because if they did get out of their cars to check, and not just drive down the street they might do a better job.

Maybe they should be proactive and list houses that need citations instead of driving blindly through the neighborhoods.

Maybe if they stopped and spoke with the neighbors they could find out more about the houses that need citations.

Then we wouldn't have houses that the Deputy Code Enforcement Director promised would be boarded within a week but the Code Enforcement Officer was too lazy to inspect.

Then we wouldn't have empty lots where it took getting Hazmat involved to make Code Enforcement do their job.

I guess those guys in Code are too busy tearing down people's buildings without notifying them.

I guess that is the problem with San Bernardino.

Maybe Mr. Baude should also be blamed for the over all low morale of city employees in general

Wilson is in Hawaii taking in the sun (the real sun not the newspaper. Did the city send money to send Harp to Hawaii or his the Sun (the paper) wrong with their facts as normal

I have known Glenn Baude since he first started with Code Enforcment 10 years ago. And I have spoken to him several times while he has been on admin leave. He inherited a dysfunctional department and came in under difficult circumstances. He remembered one of the few people who reached out to help him was Jim Penman, and at that time he considered him a friend. Over the years Penman because of politics has put Glenn in difficult situations basically as a ping pong ball between the Mayor and the City Attorney and the relationship has deteriorated. Now there is rumors Jim Penman wants him fired at the same time he is saying Glenn was the best Code Enforcement Director we have ever had.

Glenn would not be happy if he knew I wrote this but I am very sure he does not read this blog stuff. I have talked to him several times over the last couple of weeks and I have prayed with him. He allows me to pray with him over his department and welfare of his employees, over Operation Phoenix and how it must continue to help our city and the next generation of youth. He prays for the Mayor who he greatly admires and wishes for his sake that he had not run for Mayor after 30 distinguished years on the bench to know be treated the way he has been lately by the people he only wants to do good for. But most of all he prays for the little girl and for Mike Miller's soul. I have to pray for Glenn by myself because he will not pray with me for him. He is confused by all that has gone and doesn't understand why many people he called friend in government including councilmembers and even the city manager have stabbed him in the back or not stood up for him. Especially when he has worked so hard and did what he could to support them in the past. He also is hurt and doesn't understand what has happened and why telling the truth got him in trouble. I pray for him as many pastors he has befriended to and many people he as helped do. He tells me he can take care of hisself and to save my prayers for those who need it much more. Please join me on August 18 at the council meeting to support Glenn. Glenn if you do read this please don't be mad I only said it because I just had to say something because you deserve much better treatment than you are getting, you are not alone.

Wasn't Glenn Baude's picture on that lattice thing at city hall? You know the one for some awards they gave out for best manager or something?

2nd Ward Resident,

Are you volunteering at any of the Police or Code Programs? If not then you need to get your lazy butt in action.

The whole city is in sad shape. 20 code officers and 350 police officers can not save it alone. It takes the people.

I think everything below 30th (including city hall) should be a part of the Lakes Projects. That will fix the need for Police and Code Officers and Fire.

Ron your comments about 2nd Ward Resident are misguided. I know this person personally and they are one of the few citizens in the city that tries to effect change.

Code Enforcement is not dong a good job, largely in part to lack of leadership and not utilizing the arsenal of tools available to them. Have the properties cleaned up by your contracted vendor, then liening the property. Thereby costing the city no money on the back end to clean up this place.

My personal experience with code enforcement has largely been with Venus Williams. To use your words, "needs to get her lazy butt in action". My belief is, when Milligan is gone we can hire a couple more officers, she is also certainly dead weight.

Ron hopefully things will get better under the new leadership.

Gee Ron did you take that personally? It wasn’t meant toward you, just some of your co-workers. Tag a couple extra cars for me next time you work....

I'm sorry but everything south of the 30 wouldn't look the way it does if the city government would do something about the out-of-town slum lords and Code Enforcement should be a major weapon however I have found the personnel I interface with in this office to be indolent and slothful. The sad thing is that I didn’t think this of Code Enforcement until a year or two ago. And I’m not the only city volunteer that thinks this – it is common knowledge in City Hall that things need to change in Code Enforcement.

I am an active volunteer in this city and I don’t see you doing that. Wait, you don’t live in San Bernardino, just a county pocket right? Are you volunteering in your community?

And as for the Lakes and Steams project the city couldn’t even get that going. And that would make your job a lot easier – you’d get to stay in your air conditioned car. Is that why your department started knocking down building without notifying the owners? Getting a head start?

To just wonderin':
Glenn Baude was nominated for Manager of the Year by city employees and was honored at an awards banquet while he was off on administrative leave. Although he was order off on leave he attended the banquet to honor three other officers who were nominated for outstanding work. It doesn't sound much like a manager who should be in trouble but it does sound like a great department. This department has also been recognized nationally for its efforts. Congratualation to the Code Enforcement Department.

South of 30th will be a cess pool even if city government gets involved.

People in low income areas get FREE GRANT MONEY to fix their houses/properties and look wonderful. In less than 3-6 months, those properties are destroyed. Those loans are up to $5-15K, FREEEEEEEEEEEEE and their property goes back to substandard. No amount of Code Enforcement is going to fix a "problem" that a person does not see as a "problem."

Glenn Baude is a great guy and leader/manager/dad. He has had to "bandaid" alot of the city's problems.

You are absolutely right about Milligan. She needs to move on. She is extremely intelligent and educated. She belongs in a better city that is on par with education, sophistication and charm. She would do great things to beautiful cities such as Upland and Claremont. She has so much talent and strength and unfortunately she got stuck in San Bernardino. Her talents are wasted here and I hope she finds a very nice place to work.

As for Venus Williams, she has faithfully served her city for more than two decades. She takes pride in her city and is a very valuable asset to Code Enforcement.

I do volunteer and am continuing my education.

Unfortunately, today were talks about next years budget. There will be no $$$$ and the city will be in alot more financial mess.

A resident bet me that in under 5 years, the Feds will investigating the city for corruption and will probably have to take it over.

Ron you live in a cloud.

The majority of the people in the area you are talking about are renters. They live a hand-to-mouth existence. They aren't going to spend any money on the facade of these places and neither will the landlords - they are squeezing every penny out of them to spend on their expensive homes out of this city.

Marianne ignores problems that are on her plate. She doesn't respond to phone calls, e-mails or in person visits to the Code Enforcement office. This does not sound like the glowing employee you describe.

Venus can't be bothered to get out of her car to check properties that have been called in. If you try to approach her, she drives off. Maybe it's time for her to retire after decades of faithful service.....

Glenn is a good Code Enforcement Director. What all of this has to do with him being a good dad?

Maybe you should schedule a meeting with Esther, Dennis, Tobin, Wendy and Rikke to discuss their cesspool wards. I'm sure they would love to hear your take on how you and Code Enforcement have given up on that part of the city.

Then again I've spoke with residents above the 30 and they agree that Code Enforcement hasn't been doing their job even in that part of the city.

Did you watch the last City Council meeting? There were at least four speakers that were talking about the lackluster performance of Code Enforcement.

CJ,

I guess you disagree with my assessment and that is fine. I do not need to take it personally but I do want to challenge the citizens and city employees (including management) to get involved with cleaning up the city.

I am not sure of the circumstances surrounding Venus driving by BUT if it is a lack of landscaping, dead grass or high weeds call, there is no reason for her to do more than simply take a picture then send a notice when she gets back to the office. Then again you can always call the office and leave a message for her. The city spent millions (guesstimate) on a new computer system (CRM)without consulting the departments that you can use to get ahold of her (or any department for that fact).

As for Glenn Baude being a great Dad, it has everything to do with being a good manager and a great director.

The council has done ride alongs with the Senior Code Enforcement Officers.

CJ's comment:
"The majority of the people in the area you are talking about are renters. They live a hand-to-mouth existence. They aren't going to spend any money on the facade of these places and neither will the landlords - they are squeezing every penny out of them to spend on their expensive homes out of this city."

Your comment about "Hand to Mouth existence" is not a reason to have lots of junk and debris, broken down cars, lack of landscaping or any other violation (code, criminal or otherwise). I have seen immaculate properties with people that have no money. They CHOSE to make a difference in their areas. Extreme poverty is not an excuse for living in filth. The owners of this property are still responsible and should be held accountable for the property. Period. The city, code, fire and police do not have the funding to fix every property in San Bernardino. We do issues citations, take properties to hearings and in extreme health and safety issues take a property to warrant. Code, Police, Building & Safety, Fire can not "force" the property owner or the renter(s) to fix problems. They can use the citations and hearings to have judge/hearing officer tell them they have to clean it but the ultimate responsibility for change is on the owner/renter(s). This may change as EDA is starting to do receiverships.

The city is always open to new suggestions.

-Ron

Harp doesn't know how to use a computer and most ocmplaints are received by computer and tracked by computer.

Ron...
EDA is starting to do receiverships?! They don't even collect for relocation costs that they incur. Where are you getting your information?

It was brought up in a meeting as a solution for blighted foreclosed/vacant homes.