An interesting commentary on the belmar411.com website. The idea is to
target via the web, "problem" houses/landlords.
The Belmar Rental 411.com Web site does nothing but further prove that
Belmar is using public funds to contribute to a pattern of segregation
between homeowners and landlords who rent their homes to summer renters.
It amazes me that Belmar, which in 2001 was fined $14,000 in New
Jersey Superior Court for violating the federal Fair Housing Act,
continues to push the envelope with its Rental 411.com Web site hosted
on our municipal Web site using taxpayer dollars.
Attorneys general throughout the United States have been fighting
housing segregation for years, but it is now OK for a public entity to
violate property owners' civil rights.
If you're only a landlord/taxpayer and rent your home out in the
summer, you're now added to a special Belmar Web site list. All the
other property owners in Belmar won't make it.
The Web site allows anyone to zoom in on a satellite picture of the
borough's 320 summer rental homes to a street-level view of selected
homes. Those viewing the site can click on the selected homes
earmarked with a color and a window opens up displaying: the property
owner's name, property location, number of noise violations, picture
of the landlord's property and amount of bond that has been posted due
to violations. Some pictures are of the homeowner's garbage cans, etc.
The Rental 411 Web site is reminiscent of how Hitler's Germany would
most likely have segregated its population using today's technology.
The site further assigns the rentals into colors and
characterizations: the cop with the night stick (very bad), red (bad),
yellow (close to bad) and blue ( good).
Absent from the Rental 411 Web site are things that people in Belmar
would really like to see. Maybe orange could be used to flag the
properties where drugs have been found or where a recent arrest was
made. Black could flag a list of properties where sex offenders are
living, and gray a list of wife beaters' homes. Maybe a passport image
could be placed over the homes where illegal immigrants are known to
be living, since they tax the schools with their children. Purple
could flag the restaurants where the Board of Health found violations.
Brown could flag properties of year-round homeowners who rake their
leaves in the street. Bright green could flag the public officials'
homes, who are paid high salaries to think of Web sites such as this
one. A beer bottle character with a rose could be used to flag all the
bars in town that have been given sweet deals instead of closure.
Foreign flags could be set up to identify the Irish, Italians and
every other nationality. Maybe a new deadbeat character could be
designed to designate the homes and property owners who owe the town
back taxes, water bills or are deadbeat dads.
Where will it end? Once a pattern of segregation is supported by your
local government, you and every citizen of the United States are the
ones who are impacted and at risk. It's only time before you make the
next list of segregation.
Lastly, just how new is the information on the Rental 411's site? I
was astonished to see the home of a friend, Robert Sullivan, a veteran
Jersey City police officer, on the red or bad list. Especially, since
he has not rented his home in more than two years and died in the
spring of 2006.
Not only is segregation going on in Belmar, but there is a lack of
respect for its citizens who have met the supreme commander after
years of public service.
Kevin J. Devine
BELMAR
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