ESTÚPIDO SAVANNAH - Friday, June 19, 2009 2:43:26 AM
People who own crap houses shouldn’t throw crap.
I kinda missed the whole property maintenance teapot tempest that blew up this week. I was more concerned with how embarrassing the whole STALK MILEY thing was becoming for those of us who really thought Savannah was cooler than that.
Anywho, I apparently missed a fine article by Ms. Conn on Sunday exposing Michael Brown’s ridiculous excuses for letting his properties simply fall apart.
BTW there are two Michael Brown’s of note in Savannah, our City Manager and someone generously described as a “developer”. Ms. Conn’s article was about the latter.
She had already left council chambers today when Mayor Otis Johnson and others on council praised her work. I too would like to applaud her thoroughness and tenacity in taking on a subject that everyone is aware of but no one has the babymakers to tackle.
For his part, NOT-city-manager Mr. Brown fired back with an editorial that was published on Thursday in which he voiced his shock at the size of the article about his transgressions:
“I am amazed that a front page article is seven and a half times the coverage of the critical election in Iran and seven times the coverage of North Korea's nuclear threat.”
Mr. Brown I say to you that our LOCAL media needs to concern itself with LOCAL threats and you certainly qualify as a local threat.
Then he tries to negate Ms. Conn’s piece by suggesting it exaggerated the situation:
“The three properties on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Anderson Street and others mentioned represent less than 10 percent (of property holdings), not "nearly half" as stated. The other 90 percent are restored and provide for successful businesses and residences.”
And here is where Ms. Conn did leave a breach in her defenses. She should have published all of the properties in which Mr. Brown is involved. She should have also included pictures over time to show just what he means by “restored”.
Hey! I’ve got an idea! Why don’t I do that right now?
Here are all the properties listed on SAGIS for the two companies Ms. Conn mentioned in her piece:
1. 0 W 32ND ST – Vacant Lot
2. 628 MARTIN LUTHER KING - Vacant Lot
3. 8 W VICTORY DR – Run Down Beauty Salon
4. 418 W ANDERSON ST – Shell of House
5. 414 W ANDERSON ST – Shell of House
6. 2705 BULL ST – Vacant Store
7. 2013 W BAY ST – Vacant Lot
8. 1907 W BAY ST Vacant Lot
9. 1316 MARTIN LUTHER KING – Shell of Business - pics in paper
10. 1312 MARTIN LUTHER KING – Restored
11. 112 W BROUGHTON ST – Clothing Store
12. 110 BARNARD ST 501 – Weird inaccessible top portion of high price condo building
13. 803 WHITAKER ST – As pretty as the Mansion if it was restored which it is not.
14. 109 MARTIN LUTHER KING – Former location of Café Metropol/CRAP condition for YEARS
15. 2017 W BAY ST – Vacant Lot
16. 17 W BROUGHTON ST – Restored Retail
17. 0 MARTIN LUTHER KING – Vacant Lot
18. 116 W CONGRESS ST – former location of Sorry Charlie’s/Structurally Unsafe
Now you can decide for yourself if Mr. Brown is truly in the business of restoration or simply sits on properties and allows them to decay.
Come to think of it, this type of article maybe once a month would be an excellent way for the city to inform the residents of just exactly who is responsible for the blight among us.