Trash court was in session, and for Robin Patterson, that meant an opportunity to solemnly swear, in effect, I am not a slob.
Patterson didn't have to be in that downtown Baltimore hearing room. He could have simply paid the $50 fine for the garbage spotted behind his Northwest Baltimore home. But the maintenance worker says money is tight. Besides, he felt wrongly accused, so he had demanded a hearing.
"I clean my yard twice a week," he explained with a note of indignation to Administrative Judge Patricia D. Welch. As for the relatively small bunch of scattered papers shown in a photo, well, that was an act of God: "I can't help if the wind is blowing."
Welch gently admonished him to be tidier. "You might have to do it a little more often; that level of trash is unacceptable," she said. Then she found him guilty but, given his show of sincerity, cut the fine to $35.
For some property owners, fighting these citations - and the fines that range from $25 to $500 a pop - is as much about affordability as innocence. "People just don't have the money to pay them," said Sandra E. Baker, executive director of the quasi-judicial Environmental Control Board, as trash court is officially and more aptly called.
"That's what I hear all the time," she said. "They come here because they want to get a mitigation [such as a lower fine]. In many cases they do, as long as they don't have a long list of citations on their property."
Administrative judges rule on citations issued by seven city agencies, such as animal control and the Health Department. On this day, all 28 cases stemmed from violations written by housing code enforcement officers, many in Baltimore's northwest reaches.
Trooping to the Fayette Street hearing room generally paid off. By day's end, $1,920 in fines had been upheld. But the judge had forgiven $1,580 by way of reductions.
Property owners had been rung up for myriad violations - putting trash out on non-collection days, not securing trash in lidded cans, letting garbage accumulate, improperly setting out bulk items like mattresses, having a vehicle without front tags.
One by one, alleged scofflaws entered the hearing room hoping for dismissal or a lighter fine. It was a stuffy, windowless space made even warmer by exhaust from a projector.
Each property owner sat alone at a shiny wooden table that had a microphone. The code enforcement officer sat at a similar table. Both faced Welch, whose short gray hair matched her pantsuit. She peered out through oval glassesand spoke in an unfailingly soothing tone.
