Readers of our blog may recall our post last August about neighbors fed up with the deplorable state of the vacant Mike's Market commercial property at El Camino and Mission. The problems were reported to County Code Enforcement and explained to Supervisor Peters' office. There was even a petition signed by 565 residents. The County has no requirement that commercial property to be occupied, opting instead to presume owners would want to do so for economic reasons. After some time, the complaints had spurred County Code Enforcement to put the property on the area's only Code Enforcement Officer's list of "his top 5 cases". A NextDoor post last November reported a conversation with the County Code Enforcement Officer as follows:

• The owner has a long history of non-compliance and fines, with fines in 2017 totaling $1100.
• A nuisance hearing on 6 counts was to be held, but after the owner complied with 4 of the 6 counts, the hearing was cancelled
• Confusion regarding signage reports via SacCounty 311 resulted in the cases being closed, then re-opened, resulting in a deadline to repair or replace signage -- which could drag on if permits were required
• Bird droppings were a potential health hazard, for which pressure washing could be required
• Graffiti would be enforced
• The donation box could not be required to be removed, even though it seems to be a driver of the site's trash and rubbish problems
• The owner was "interested in complying" and might get a fine of $491 if re-inspection so merited, in which case the matter would be referred to the District Attorney
• Previous reports and infractions about this property are public records; they go back for years.

Maybe County Code Enforcement was all over this neighborhood nuisance some 7 or 8 months ago. Maybe the property owner had a change of heart and was stimulated to fix the mess. Or maybe not. There was another NextDoor post a few days ago about problems with the parking lot, where cars doing donuts and maybe some illicit business deals were going down. And there was yet another NextDoor post last night about broken windows and bird droppings.  Does Sacramento County truly to want to make things right for the adjacent neighborhoods and the community? Or is this just another instance when the voices of hundreds of concerned constituents of Supervisorial District Three routinely get lost among the chorus of our Supervisor's 311,000 constituents?