Duh!!! Thats because the laws are selectively enforced! which makes them unconstitutional! Original Article Chandler neighborhoods want city to fight blight Low staffing and rapid growth to blame for inaction, police say Eugene Mulero The Arizona Republic Apr. 15, 2006 12:00 AM CHANDLER - Residents in some of the city's oldest neighborhoods say progress that is evident in other parts of the city is passing them by. The city has upgraded a few roads and parks in these neighborhoods without homeowners associations. But activists from communities like Galveston, Silk Stocking, Amberwood North and California Street say they are fed up with complaining to police and the city about run-down properties and not seeing changes. They want less talk and more action and say police only respond to signs of blight and slum when they're called repeatedly. "There's no way my people can be pro-active," Sgt. Gregg Carr told homeowners at this month's Congress of Neighborhoods conference. "There are 87,000 housing units and just a few of us." He said lack of staffing and the city's booming growth has spread his eight-member Neighborhood Services Department thin, making it difficult to crack down on slum properties. In addition, Carr said his crew doesn't work weekends, when many of the complaints are lodged. Sandi Whitten, a neighborhoods specialist who works with Carr, recently told the Neighborhood Advisory Committee that her colleagues are "as busy as we can be." However, Carr says the department doesn't have a specific way of breaking down the complaints they do receive to quantify problem hotspots or spot trends. Besides phone calls, complaints also can be filed online at the Police Department's Web site. When they are, Carr said, they sometimes aren't routed to his department. That's not good enough for Kevin Van Winkle. "We need accountability from the city, because this is unacceptable," Van Winkle said. "Somebody has to come out and fix this neighborhood." For several years, Van Winkle has called police and met with officials to bring attention to his neighborhood's run-down areas. He lives in Park Manors on Nebraska Street, west of Arizona Avenue behind Chandler High School. After he registered Park Manors less than a year ago with Chandler's neighborhoods programs, he was told Park Manors would split a $1.2 million grant with another neighborhood for a "revitalization" project. This is similar to what happened two years ago in the Galveston neighborhood, west of Arizona Avenue. In that case, the project was called "rejuvenation," but Galveston residents still debate whether rejuvenation was successful. "They came and cleaned some yards and alleyways, but we still have many of the problems we had before," said Gerald Daniels, a longtime Galveston resident. Daniels and Van Winkle say the focus should be on housing codes. Carr said current codes can be vague and sometimes unenforceable. He is working with a group of residents and city employees - known as Neighborhoods In Action - to rewrite the Neighborhood Standards and Maintenance portion of the city code. The group's goal is to create Chandler's first rental-housing code to require landlords to furnish owner and tenant information, give the city authority to inspect rented properties and limit the number of people in one dwelling. Carr said the city often gets complaints of 20 to 30 tenants living in one house but lacks adequate laws to eliminate overcrowding.