This is a tale of the city of Madison. It is a tale of contempt and corruption. It is a tale of destruction and rebirth. It tells the story of how one semi-literate
tea bagger nearly destroyed an entire East Side Madison neighborhood and the
lengths that decent citizens had to go to, to stop him.
On Madison’s working class East Side, tucked behind the
Gardner’s Bakery lie’s the Hawthorne neighborhood. Built out of filled marshes after the Korean
War, the area is a mixture of owned and rented properties. Anchored by the Hawthorne Middle School it is
a quiet and peaceful working class neighborhood. It is a safe neighborhood where people can
let their children play and get along with their neighbors. A tranquil, affordable place to live, raise
children and be content with life. Well…….at
least it used to be.
Two miles away on the near North Side of Madison is Graedel
Court, more of a driveway than a street.
Only about a hundred yards long and with only a few homes on it, it lies
just off of Northport Drive. And it is
home to the tea bagger that nearly destroyed the Hawthorne neighborhood. He certainly did a lot of damage to it as
well as changing the lives of many people who live there. Which is amazing considering that he only
owns one rental property in the Hawthorne neighborhood. A small side by side duplex, one of three
identical one’s, sitting non-descriptively on a corner.
I am aware of all this because this is my former neighborhood,
and I love it dearly, friendly place where most everyone knows everyone else
who lives there. The neighbors gather
every evening after work to discuss the matters that fill their lives. They help each other with leaf raking in the
fall and snow shoveling in the winter.
And they all know the name of Jeffrey Pulley, the tea bagger who lives
on Graedel Court.
Somehow in his own mind, Jeffrey D Pulley probably considers
himself to be a good person, a responsible landlord and a reputable small
business owner and a responsible citizen.
Which is amazing considering that dozens if not hundreds of residents of
the Hawthorne neighborhood consider him to be a crack head, a slum lord and a
criminal of the lowest possible character.
They see in Jeff Pulley as a one man wrecking crew that lowered their
property values, flooded the neighborhood with crime and have made them afraid
to walk the streets at night.
Pulley runs a one man plumbing outfit out of an old mini-van
and his home. He used the profit from
that business to help him purchase interest in the rental duplex mentioned
above as well as a few other properties around Madison. And the troubles started nearly from day one
with his rental business. The duplex in
the Hawthorne neighborhood was registered with the city as just that, a
duplex. Two – two bedroom apartments
contained within a single structure.
Immediately he went to work in the basement of the structure, framing
out two new apartments which he never intended to license for human
habitation.
One of those basement
apartments was never completed. The other
a small one bedroom unit, he didn’t manage to basically complete, although it
fell far short of building code and safety regulations required. But codes and laws and safety regulations
mean nothing to a tea bagger. Pulley tried
advertising the illegal basement apartment, which had rodent and insect issues. In the spring when the snow thawed, or
whenever a heavy summer rain would hit, water would flow across the apartment
floor from the cracked and dilapidated foundation. Unabashed, Pulley simply decided to make the
most of the situation; he rented out the apartment to some undocumented workers
that had helped him in his plumbing business.
But undocumented or not they quickly began to complain about
the terrible living conditions. At only
fifty dollars a person per month they tried to make the most of it. At times upwards of a dozen migrants used the
apartment as a place to briefly sleep and shower before heading off to a twelve
or sixteen hour workday. They tried to
stick it out there, needing to save their wages to send home to their families,
not to spend it on more suitable and expensive living arrangements. And so they tried to make do, fixing what
they could themselves, asking Pulley for help with some things they couldn’t fix. That help never came though from Pulley.
Whenever they brought up conditions in the apartment they
were threatened with serious legal repercussions and so they kept quiet. They kept quiet as the mold grew within the
walls making the air nearly unbreathable.
They kept quiet as the water flowed across the floor and they kept quiet
as the inadequate heating system failed to keep the temperature above fifty
degree’s in the winter. They kept quiet
as they made other arrangements and moved out, one by one, to more habitable accommodations. And all the while the neighbors watched and
wondered, but for some reason never reported what they saw happening.
This is what allowed Pulley’s activity to continue on for so
long. They minded their own business
even though they were aware that things were not quite kosher. After all they have told me, they felt no
need to intrude in someone else’s business and it wasn’t affecting them, not
very much and not just yet. The
apartment sat empty for awhile until good fortune fell upon him. A business associate knew someone desperately
looking for an apartment…any apartment that he could afford. We will simply call this person “Rich” and he
was in a bit of a bind. He was dependent
on Social Security as his only form of income, having been diagnosed with
paranoid-schizophrenia. He was trying to
escape the crime and conditions at Braxton Place, the end of the line housing
for many people with nowhere else to turn in Madison. Government run, if you could call it that, it
was somewhere between a prison and a asylum in its living conditions. Crime ridden, dirty and violent with a long
history of such, it was an unfortunate home for many people with no other
option.
Rich moved in aware of the conditions, but feeling that he
could improve the situation and make the dark and dank basement apartment into
a home. After all he was content to live
simply and without many conveniences, he just wanted a place to live in and be
left alone. Meanwhile the folks who had inhabited
the upstairs apartments had become sick and tired of the illegal conditions in
the building and decided to move out in search of greener pastures.
Unfazed, Pulley found some new tenants for the two ground
floor, two bedroom apartments. First he
moved in a recently paroled felon, just released from prison for drug
trafficking. This person quickly went
back to the only life he knew and within a week the duplex became a 24 quick
stop crack house, quiet and unnoticed in the little neighborhood by the
elementary school. Confrontations between
crack buyers and residents of the neighborhood soon escalated though, as can be
easily predicted. Soon matters were so
out of hand and the criminal activity so blatant and rampant that the police
took notice. And so the dealer aware of
his probation situation, moved out to stay away from all the legal commotion.
He was quickly replaced by another young couple that was
also in the business of dealing drugs.
Less than a month later this person was shot in the face during a deal
gone wrong. Lucky to still be alive
although missing an eye and looking at years of reconstructive surgeries, he
continued to operate out of the duplex.
Meanwhile Jeffrey Pulley moved another dealer into the next door
apartment in the duplex. After legal
troubles caused them to flee back to Chicago, Jeff Pulley moved even more crack
dealers into the building.
And so things went on, month after month, year after
year. Squad cars and ambulances became a
common site. One afternoon residents
returned from work to find the neighborhood cordoned off with a police SWAT
team moving in. The next door neighbor
to the Pulleys rental found a sniper on their roof as a federal warrant was
being served against a high profile drug trafficker. And the crack dealers came and they
went. Sometimes moving out in the middle
of the night, sometimes being hauled off in handcuffs.
And the neighborhood suffered and suffered at the hands of
Jeffrey D Pulley. Cars and homes were
broken into, vandalism became rampant.
Fences were installed as well as security systems and video cameras and
lights. Property values went down even
as property taxes were going up. Police
patrols increased exponentially as the once quiet neighborhood became listed as
a “neighborhood in distress” The gang
units rolled through in unmarked squad cars at all hours. Screaming and fighting in the streets became
a nightly occurrence, all because of one lone tea bagger….Jeff Pulley.
Neighbors once content to let sleeping dogs lie, were now
calling the police regularly. And crack
dealer after crack dealer was brought into the neighborhood by Pulley. It soon became apparent that it was always
crack, which made people finally start to realize the nature of Pulleys
motivation to always have a dealer available on his rental property. Police talked to him, a citizen’s watch group
was formed and confronted Pulley, still nothing ever changed, he had to have
his crack dealers around. But not of
course on Graedel Court where he and his family lived.
Finally even Jeff Pulley had to admit that the situation he
created was getting far out of control.
And so he did what any tea bagger slum lord would do….he blamed somebody
else. He claimed to Rich the victim of
schizophrenia living in the little basement apartment that it was his entire
fault. He blamed Rich for telling other
people in the neighborhood what he overheard happening above his head in the
crack apartments day after day, night after night. He blamed the police calls on the neighbors
who had spoken with Rich. He blamed Rich
for the police calls. He blamed Rich’s
friends for the calls that were made to the police because they were afraid for
Rich’s safety and well-being.
Rich being schizophrenic and not having many options just
tried to stay as quiet as possible and keep his head down. And Pulley having finally cowed Rich into
near paralysis took matters even further.
He told Rich that if he wanted to avoid serious trouble that he better
stay locked up inside his apartment. He
was told that he couldn’t have family or friends over to see him, out of fear
of increased police calls that were threatening to have the slumlords property
claimed and shut down as a hazard by the city of Madison.
When I learned of what was happening with my friend Rich
from my old East Side Madison neighborhood I contacted the Tenant Resource
Center and they were very helpful. I
also contacted the city housing inspector and the police and told them that
Rich was nearly a prisoner of Jeff Pulleys.
I called the Department of Trade and Consumer Protection and had they
look into Jeffrey D Pulley. And lo and
behold Jeff promised to stop his illegal retribution against Rich, he promised the
police and the government agencies that had all been alerted to his awful activities. Not surprisingly these groups all told me that they had previous experience with Pulley. I and my old neighborhood seemed like they
had been saved, that life would return to its peaceful norm in the little East
Side Neighborhood. That children could
safely play outside again and that folks could safely walk down the street at
night.
I went back for a visit last week to see my old friend Rich,
there was a sign taped on the door from Jeff Pulley which read “Nobody is
allowed to see the tenant in the basement apartment” That lying tea bagger Jeff
Pulley, up to his old tricks again. I
have to admit that once I saw it, although my hopes were dashed, that I wasn’t really
surprised. Expecting change from the tea
party radicals and the greed driven agenda they follow without regard for the
laws of the land or their fellow man, is like expecting the sun not to set or
water to flow uphill.
Phone calls were made again, but not to the health
inspectors, not to the building inspectors and not to the police. And they were not made by me. The neighbors
got together and took a van down to Graedel Court. They commented on Pulley the tea baggers
house, on how vulnerable it looked as it sat there. Surrounded by dried up debris left over from
the summer’s drought and heat wave, they commented on how all that dried up
material just looked like a serious fire hazard waiting to happen. They discussed the crime ridden area surrounding
the house on Graedel Court and the likelihood of something occurring there. They discussed the irony of something
terrible happening at the house on Graedel Court, after all the terrible things
that had been inflicted on them for years due to the owner of the house there. I have to admit that I was surprised when
they told me about the discussion they were having. But there was nothing much I could say to
these people who had been through so much. The situation had escalated beyond
my ability to influence it in any positive way. It would just seem karmic for
the tables to turn on the tea bagger Jeff Pulley, Scott Walkers number one fan. Who will still tell you to this day that he
is the victim in this situation, and that only a governor willing to make tough
decisions can save decent landlords like him from abuse at the hands of tenants
who have all the rights in Wisconsin.
To answer the obvious question of why "Rich" doesn't just move somewhere else, it is because in the midst of all this ugliness, he found something beautiful and sometimes rare in life. He found a home, a neighborhood where he feels that he belongs. Where he likes most everyone else and they like him and accept him for who he is. It is something that he is working on maintaining and protecting. Something that decent Wisconsin citizens deserve, and something the greed and anger driven members of the tea party simply are incapable of understanding.
It is truly an ugly situation that Jeffrey Pulley has created, and one that is very
representational of the future of Wisconsin when radical extremists like Scott
Walker are added to the picture and the law and constitution hating tools &
fools of the tea party are added as well.
One tea bagger has nearly destroyed an entire neighborhood, and now the neighborhood
is considering destroying the tea bagger.
That is the terrible and divided state we are in, one in which nobody is
going to come out the winner if things continue as they are going. I hope things get better for my friend Rich,
I hope things improve in my old neighborhood, I hope that Jeff Pulley see’s the
error of his illegal ways and changes, I hope…….
On Wisconsin!
FORWARD!!!!
