Like the battle to improve our city cemeteries, the battle of eradicating city blight is both a quality of life issue as well as an ethical issue that I take personally and want to help this city fix. And like with the cemeteries, the main goal I would like to achieve is to bring respect and funding to those organizations who are trying to fix this problem but are being placed on starvation diets while having their departments swept under the media attention rug so that the city can focus on shiny new toys that bring with them a false sense of progress towards correcting the city’s main problems.

Last February, 2013 I started the blog FightTheBlight.Blogspot.Com. I also had an article published in the City-CountyObserver detailing the mission behind this blog. Inspired by the Courier&Press’ recent articles, I humbly request that the CCO, republish this article which originally appeared on the CCO on February 5th (http://citycountyobserver.com/2013/02/05/24799/).  As a way of thanking the Building Commission for their work on correcting the problem of the Old Frontier Liquor Building’s roof, I also request that the CCO either republish separately or publish as a footnote the follow up article that appeared on April 22  (https://city-countyobserver.com/2013/04/22/fight-the-blight-outlaw-the-sprawl/) which shows the fixed roof.

I’m  thankful for the CCO and C&P’s blight articles they both are currently running, I am also thankful for the following actions that have taken place in the past few months…

* While debating whether to construct the downtown hotel or not, Third Ward Councilmember Stephanie Brinkerhoff Riley raised the question of using these funds towards addressing dilapidated structures instead (Point 3: https://city-countyobserver.com/2013/09/18/breaking-news-stephanie-brinkerhoff-riley-to-vote-no-on-hotel-proposal/ )

* According to the mayor’s post budget press conference, approximately $500,000 is included in the coming year’s budget for addressing blighted properties. Although this is down from the $650,000 requested last year, it is still a great step in the right direction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsuxEzaHDS0

* Last Saturday, Phyllip Davis invited me out to a project he had set up with the help of Community One and Grace & Faith Community Church. The project involved putting a new roof on the garage for an elderly couple that would otherwise be unable to undertake such a project.

This project, which is aimed at helping those who can’t maintain their homes due to poor health or finances, was completed in just half of a day and all of us who participated got more out of the project than even the recipient themselves. Thanks to citizens like Phyllip, we can keep blight in check and unable to strike those in our community who are less fortunate.

Obviously, one city facing this same problem to the exponential power is the city of Detroit, which I have been following closely in the past few months. Urban sprawl has completely obliterated the city of Detroit. It has gotten so bad that San Francisco, Manhattan, and Boston could ALL fit within the city of Detroit’s boundaries (http://membracid.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/1215_landdetroit.jpg). As a result, the city has failed miserably at maintaining its never ending infrastructure.

After decades of sprawl and decay, the city of Detroit has finally begun to bring a lot of energy and excitement to their crusade to eliminate urban blight. Not only has the federal government and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder committed $52 million dollars in funds to demolish nearly 4,000 homes (http://www.freep.com/article/20130826/NEWS01/308260115/), Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert has pledged to tear down every single blighted house in Detroit. He has also reportedly considered erecting a countdown board to track the city’s progress (http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/6587/dan_gilbert_is_planning_to_demolish_every_last_abandoned_building_in_detroit#.UosPatKsiSo). With the formation of a blight task force, Detroit is proving that both government and private business owners can come together to solve what once was considered Mission Impossible.

Moving forward, I would like to reiterate that I hope the city of Evansville continues to handle this issue delicately by treating each house individually and personally. While most blighted homes may indeed be in a state of disrepair, there are still some that aren’t and have great architecture. The two houses that come to mind first are the ones at 210 and 214 W. Michigan. In fact, 214 W. Michigan was featured this week by the C&P (http://www.courierpress.com/photos/galleries/2013/nov/16/vacant-homes-gallery-no-1/40114/).

Although, I am thoroughly excited about the passion Mr. Gilbert has brought to Detroit’s efforts to fight the blight, I also want to stress that if such fight the blight fever were ever brought to Evansville it should be accompanied by a respect for those structures that have architecture uniqueness and can possibly serve our community better by being restored instead of demolished. For other such structures, let’s fire up the countdown board.

The most important thing I would like to stress to city officials and city residents is that we must continue to keep the battle of fighting the blight as a top priority. As I said previously, this is one issue that is bringing all of us together. Whether you are with the C&P or CCO, we can all fight the blight and we all have shown we can come together to accomplish this. And that, is what I want to see here in Evansville.

THIS LETTER TO THE EDITOR BY JORDAN BAER WAS POSTED BY CITY COUNTY OBSERVER  WITHOUT OPINION, BAIS OR EDITING.

Popular search engine to pay Indiana more than $354,570

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller announced a multistate settlement agreement today with Google Inc. for allegedly overriding Safari’s internet browser security settings to collect valuable user information.

Through its DoubleClick advertising platform, Google generates revenue by facilitating the transmission of third-party cookies — small files set in Internet users’ Web browsers that allow third-party advertisers to gather information about those users, including, depending on the type of cookie, their Web surfing habits.

Zoeller along with the Attorneys General of 36 States and the District of Columbia accused Google of circumventing the privacy settings which would have blocked all third party cookies. Zoeller said the company’s actions were in violation of state consumer protection and related computer privacy laws.

“Google allegedly circumvented Safari’s default privacy settings – without consumers’ consent – to allow third-party advertisers to set cookies in order to better target advertisements to consumers,” Zoeller said. “Unsuspecting Safari users continued to believe that cookies were automatically blocked. Today’s settlement underscores the continuing need for states to ensure consumers’ privacy remains protected.”

Apple’s Safari Web browser generally blocks third-party cookies in its default privacy settings, including cookies used by DoubleClick to track a consumer’s browsing history. From June 1, 2011 until Feb. 15, 2012, Google altered its DoubleClick coding to circumvent the Safari default privacy settings, without consumers’ knowledge or consent, enabling advertisers to set third-party cookies on consumers’ Safari browsers. Google disabled this coding method in February 2012 after the practice was widely reported on the Internet and in media.

In order to resolve the allegations, Google agreed to pay the attorneys general $17 million and Indiana’s share is $354,573. Google also agreed to injunctive relief that requires it to do the following:

• Not to override a browser’s cookie blocking settings without the consumer’s consent or unless it is necessary to so in order to detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.
• Not misrepresent or omit material information to consumers about how Google serves advertisements to their browsers.
• Improve the information it provides to consumers regarding cookies, their purposes, and how they can be managed by consumers using Google’s products or services.
• Maintain systems designed to ensure the expiration of the third-party cookies placed on Safari browsers while their default settings had been circumvented.