It was a shocking embarrassment when reporters learned last week that an Augusta commissioner -- Betty Beard -- had folks living in a rental property that the city regards as unfit for human habitation.

It seemed scandalous at first blush -- and certainly it's inexcusable, especially for a public servant of Ms. Beard's caliber, to be the landlord of a house with no electricity or running water and, therefore, no heat in winter or lights at night.

"It is incorrect to have property like this," Commissioner Beard admitted to a TV news crew. "I am going to say I am very sorry it is in the condition that it is in."

On Friday, Beard told the Chronicle that she plans to close the house as soon as possible and donate the land to Paine College for the planned revitalization of the Laney-Walker area.

It's a very emotional matter for Ms. Beard -- who not only went to Paine, but who also grew up in the now-dilapidated house in question, at 924 Boyd Lane.

But as scandalous as it is to have a county commissioner referred to as a "slum lord" in news accounts, the real scandal is that there is so much blame to go around.

Tenants have some degree of responsibility -- and, indeed, with a more effective code enforcement office, these tenants might have been held accountable along with Ms. Beard: Both she and her tenants were notified of code violations back in January.

That's where the blame gets spread even more.

Rob Sherman, head of license and inspection, admits now that "I dropped the ball" after inspectors told him of problems at Beard's property.

"In this case I think we may have extended ourselves a little bit more than normal," he obliquely told a television crew last week.

We wondered precisely what that meant. So we asked Sherman if Commissioner Beard received favorable treatment from the city's code enforcement office.

"If I said 'no,' I wouldn't be telling the truth," Sherman said.

When reminded that a lot of folks wouldn't feel it's right for a commissioner to receive favorable treatment from the city, Sherman said, "It's not. I'm not going to lie to you."

Later, Sherman seemed to back off that statement, saying his office tries to give other property owners plenty of slack as well.

But therein lies a problem too. If the city is littered with similarly unfit properties, as Beard says it is -- "Property just like (hers) is all over the inner city," she told TV -- then perhaps the city needs to give people less slack. A whole lot less.

Ms. Beard notes that she wasn't paid much in rent for 924 Boyd Lane in recent years -- only about $520 since October 2007, and nothing since last August. So if she's a slum lord, she's a pretty poor one.

Still, if she was letting people live there largely rent-free out of some sense of compassion, it was horribly misguided. There's little doubt they would've been better off living most anywhere else. And, oh, there's that little thing called the law.

By the same token, the city's "compassion" in working with landlords and property owners is just as misguided. Rules are rules, laws are laws, unfit is unfit. The law needs to be applied equally and fairly across the city. Going easy on the owners of decrepit structures only enables the eyesores to exist.

City administrator Fred Russell told us Friday he's investigating the city's handling of the Beard property -- and that, "Obviously, if we didn't do it right, there's going to be some disciplinary action."

That's a good start. But the next step is to engage the entire commission, and the community, in a discussion about the state of things in Augusta's inner city. Unfit structures must be dealt with and owners and tenants held accountable.

The city must be a slum-lord-free zone.