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Woman fights $34,000 fine for messy yard
©Associated Press
November 27, 2002
DANIA BEACH -- A woman who spent more than a year in Vermont caring for sick relatives is fighting a $34,000 fine for leaving her yard unkempt while she was away.
Pauline Cray left this Fort Lauderdale suburb in April 2000 without notifying the city of her address in St. Albans, Vt. She went to care for her sister and niece, who both had cancer.
Cray eventually discovered she had racked up $73,000 in code enforcement fines for overgrown grass and garbage on her property. She had been fined $200 a day for more than 350 days. The city is trying to foreclose.
Cray, who was renting out the property, said she didn't receive initial notices the city sent and thought her tenant was maintaining it.
She returned to Dania Beach and hired a company to maintain the property. Cray also went before the city's code enforcement board, and it voted to reduce the fines to $2,500.
But last November the City Commission voted to raise the fine back to about $34,000 after a member said $2,500 seemed too lenient.
Cray was set to go before the commission Tuesday evening to request that the fine be reduced. She has the support of the city's mayor, Robert Chunn.
"I felt that $2,500 was fair because I cost the city its time," said Cray, who bought the house for $30,000. "But $34,000 is more than I paid for my house."
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