Post in Roseville / Code program educates residents

2008 Jun 09 22:20 UTC

Ken,

Glad you asked for thoughts.

I find the city council and city manager to be somewhat hypocritical on this
issue in general.  You know the phrase about not throwing stones in glass
houses?  Well it applies here.

I drive by several of our parks on a regular basis and the first thing I see
are the massive ugly dumpsters sitting right out in the open.  It is funny that
all of us lowly residents are supposed to have our garbage cans shielded from
public view but the city can leave dumpsters the size of small cars just
sitting out in the middle of parking lots.

Then I recall the GT building, I believe that was the name, which sat on the
southeast corner of County Road C and Fairview for many years.  The city owned
that dump also.  Again, the rules don't apply to city hall.  Finally when they
did that water project which ended up flooding out and destroying that nice
family's home in that neighborhood, they tore down the GT building.

Then take a drive past the public works yard.  If I'm not mistaken, it looks
like a lot of outdoor storage exists there.  Try doing that on your personal
property and see what happens.  While I have not done any in-depth study of
this specific issue, I have this sneaking suspicion that activities in our
public works yard would not be allowed on commercial properties.  In other
words, only the city can have a "yard" operation.

If memory serves correct, the city also had a dumping ground that still exists
or existed for many years up until the last few years over by 280.

For those who remember the old city hall building.  Remember the weed patches
and disgusting landscaping that existed as you walked in to the building?  One
resident who sat on that Imagine Roseville steering committee always commented
to me how trashy that looked.

Then I drive by some of the Twin Lakes properties.  They have looked like a
scene out of Beirut, Lebanon for over a decade.  Well the property owners there
have deep pockets so the rules don't apply to them either.

Then remember the Deb Bloom pillars constructed by the city in violation of the
line of sight rules on Larpenteur and Lexington?

How about some of the unsightly equipment that can be seen from certain views
on the roof of city hall that was never shielded from public view?  Apparently
other businesses have had to shield their equipment.  Apparently some staff
"interpretation" gave the city a loophole to ignore this standard.

I just remember these issues off the top of my head in the time it took me to
type this all out.  Give me an hour to think about this and I am sure I could
easily double the list.

So the pattern appears to be that the rules only to us regular people, and not
the city or those with deep pockets.