Maplewood City Manager Marty Corcoran said in a call to 40 South on Thursday that the city is willing to defend itself in court against an allegation that one of its ordinances is racist.
Corcoran said the suit doesn’t mention a specific case; is general allegations. He said the 10-year-old ordinance is “proper” and the city “vehemently” denies acting in a racist manner. (See the complete ordinance on the city website.)
The charge was filed two weeks ago by Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council with the Missouri Human Rights Commission, and was dismissed, which is standard procedure. The suit was filed immediately after that. Maplewood received it Tuesday afternoon.
Corcoran said when the city receives a complaint against a resident both the resident and anyone with a complaint are given the right to testify in a hearing. Sometimes the person with the complaint doesn’t show up, sometimes they both show up, sometimes no one shows up.
The ordinance regarding nuisances, Declaration of acts or conditions
What happened in Glen Carbon IL. Is a good reason to have such an ordinance. I bet most of the nuisance cases are domestic disputes in apartment complexes where walls are paper thin and neighbors call the police because of the yelling and a$$ kicking is taking place no charges are pressed then it happens again.
Kicking them out of their home wouldn’t have prevented what happened…
Maybe not but if it was addressed early enough it could have been avoided I guess if there is a problem property near you where there was over 50 disturbance calls it would be ok.
Just can’t please anyone in St. Louis today. So glad I’m moving to another state.
Annoy? Really? You can be a nuisance for “annoying” someone? I find a lot of things annoying. Should I start complaining? I find the color of your house annoying. I will complain. That makes you a nuisance. I find your yard sign annoying. I shall complain.
Subsection 17, item H: .
More than two instances within a 180-day period of incidents of harassing or intimidating behavior, such as by blocking the path of persons passing by, making rude comments, or comments intended to frighten nearby inhabitants or persons passing by the property;
So, what that says to me is that if you are on your porch and somebody is walking down the sidewalk and you say anything at all to them, if they think it is “rude” you have committed a violation of this ordinance. Twice in 180 days and your property is now a nuisance property. Seems like a very clear violation of the 1st amendment of the United States Constitution.
Exactly what Mark said. Whether or not it was put in place with racist intent is immaterial. It is way to broad and is ripe for abuse.
Whether it’s racist or not is a separate issue. The law itself has a lot of potential for abuse and should be repealed.