Whilst doing some relocation investigating...

[renegade]

One of the states hubby and I are looking at relocating to is SC. During a search today I sort of got off on a tangent and discovered that some cities in SC have created "livability courts". The definition of this is : "A Livability Court is a municipal court (or court of limited jurisdiction) focused on cases involving non-compliance with codes and standards about housing, waste, the environment, noise, animal control, zoning, traffic, and tourism.

The first Livability Court in the United States was created in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2002.[1] Other cities in South Carolina have since adopted Livability Courts including North Charleston, Lancaster, Greer[2] and Newberry.[3]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livability_Court

Maybe all states/towns/municipalities should start these. Might make for a lot less NFH problems.

PS...If all goes well next Tuesday I'm hoping to tell y'all that's where I'll be moving to.

[noisemaker]

Maybe all states/towns/municipalities should start these.

Some time ago in California, municipal courts were merged back into the county courts, leaving municipalities with only toothless homilies on the books about people getting along together.

My city just last week adopted a greatly expanded administrative hearings code section, where the city attorney is supposed to set up hearing procedures and qualify hearing officers, who can issue citations, inspection warrants, and impose money fines. These would be civil, not criminal, proceedings and the plaintiffs, in the main, would be city officials, inspectors from the various departments charged with enforcing various code sections. Noncompliance with an administrative decision could lead to a misdemeanor charge in county court, where criminal penalties could apply.

It is unclear whether citizen could charge citizen under this administrative procedure, or whether the complaint has to be prosecuted by a city official.

I could - and would - have used this procedure in 2008 had it been in place... but then I would have missed out on all the fun I'm currently having going through a full-blown civil suit in county court. This way I get to "out" some city and county personnel as bumbling idiots who have "been in bed" with my hayseed neighbors all these years {uncontrollable shivers at that image}.

[Bob]

In Philadelphia, we had a fashion of livability court set up occasionally (during major sporting events, Mardi Gras, Greek picnic, ethnic parades, fraternity events, etc.) where it was mostly people engaged in fights, public nudity, public sex and urination who got hauled in. Livability Court is a great concept and I agree -- it needs to take off elsewhere.

Turning criminal and code matters into civil matters is interesting, too. I'm not sure it very much impacts the bad guys, though. They hire lawyers either way.

Antisocial behavior has escallated to this level where un-neighborliness is growingly considered within some out-of-this-world norm, and what you both cited are, to me, signs of a slow recovery back to the greater society openly rejecting crap in the culture. To where good neighbors rule, and where we can emerge back out of underclass status.