I am writing in regards to the old Lete's Used Car's property on North Pearl Street. A community member with an ax to grind and credibility issues recently wrote a letter to the editor calling this property an "eyesore.”
This property is anything but an eyesore. The problem that we have in this community is that code enforcement goes after some of the most petty, foolish and trivial things and people that don't do anything to deserve it.
Yes, there are vehicles on this property. Yes, they all run. So I guess I just fail to see why these people are being treated like criminals by the city for leasing a piece of property and parking their vehicles on it. Is it a crime now to own vehicles? Is it a crime now to lease property? Is it a crime now to participate in lawful business transactions? As long as the vehicles are legally and rightfully theirs and as long as the bill is paid on the property they are parked on, what's really the issue here?
The people who leased this property have put up privacy screening at the direction of the city. They have done their due diligence to park the vehicles neatly. Things are not littered or thrown about the lot.
So why are we wasting our tax dollars giving these hard-working people a bad time when we have issues like Blakeslee Junction? How many drug houses are on our streets code or law enforcement does nothing about?
Penalizing people for being responsible tenants with vehicles isn't right. The biggest kick in the pants of all here is this place was a used car lot for decades. Why is it OK for the Lete family to park vehicles on the same property and sell them for years, but it's wrong for these people?
Hypocrisy.
So this whole issue is a waste of our time, tax dollars and resources. It's time that the City of Centralia stops stomping on the little guy. Code enforcement needs to leave these people alone. They are doing nothing wrong. They shouldn't have ever allowed it to be a car lot in the past if they didn't want cars parked there.
Gary Mitchell
Centralia
