Ups and downs

 

You may remember a while back when an Atlantan name of Everett Tripodis had his house town down by the city – erroneously VG Article   due to a similarity in addresses (Lawton Avenue vs, Lawton Street). The city had the gall to SUE Mr. Tripodis for the demolition costs. Well, it just keeps getting better and better:

FOX 5 first reported on Susan Hodgson, who found that her home was demolished accidentally by a construction company in early October.

Hodgson recently visited the property to find a notice from the city of Atlanta threatening to issue citations because of the mess and for not filing the proper permits for the structure’s demolition.

Seems the construction company is neither being responsive, nor cleaning up the mess they left, so Ms. Hodgson tried going to the city of Atlanta.

“The Department of City Planning, Office of Buildings issued a Notice of Correction on the property on November 2, 2023, with a correction end date of November 16, 2023. The correction notice affords the property owner the opportunity to bring the property into compliance. No citation has been issued to date. The structure on the property was demolished without a permit which is a violation of city code. The property owner is responsible for their property and for any violations that occur pertaining to that property.

“The demolition of the property without the owner’s consent or knowledge is not a matter for the City of Atlanta. This is considered a civil matter between the property owner and the alleged responsible party.”

Fox5

The company came onto her property without permission, totally destroyed her house with no consent from the owner, and it’s a civil matter only? It’s not a crime? Bet if you walked up to an Atlanta police station and heaved a brick through a window, they would probably cite you for trespassing, criminal mischief, criminal property destruction, and host of other ‘civil’ crimes. Probably come up with some you’ve never heard of before, too. Maybe the oh-so-concerned local pols like Stacey Abrams ought to, you know,  actually get involved on their voters’ behalf.

 

 

Now to the up side of the morning:  Twelve years ago, a former Wall Street banker name of Randall Atkins bought an old coal mine thinking for his $2,000,000 the place might be made to turn a profit. What the hey…we’re all solar and wind now, but there  were still then, and now, lots of coal-burning power plants. Then there’s that proverbial “rest of the story”:

Several years after Atkins bought the Brook Mine, government researchers came around asking if they could run some tests to see if the ground contained something called “rare-earth elements.” When Atkins acquired the mine, he says he “didn’t know the difference between rare earths and rare coins.”

When he got the test results, including some as recently as September, he says he was surprised and humbled: His sleepy mine contains what might be the largest so-called unconventional rare-earth deposit in the U.S., according to government researchers.

At current market prices, it could be worth around $37 billion.

Republic of Mining

First new large rare earth find in the US since 1952. Longer than many, probably most, of you have been alive I suspect. And you wonder how the rich get richer. Nice to see someone get lucky after those deprived Wall Street years…

 

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Economy