Code enforcement falls under the auspices of the Community Development Department, whose director, Rick Coel, worked on what he called a “conceptual draft” of the new Chapter 13 over the last several months with County Counsel Anita Grant, former Code Enforcement Manager Voris Brumfield and Chief Building Official David Jezek.
The new chapter, Coel told the board, has additional steps meant to shorten and streamline the abatement process from about four months to three months. It also creates a way for the department to recover administrative costs that accrue while trying to get property owners to comply.
Currently, property owners receive a courtesy letter giving them 30 days to clean up their property, then a notice of nuisance is posted on the property, followed by a notice to abate the nuisance and a staff report forward to the Board of Supervisors. The board then holds a hearing and approves the abatement order, which gives the owner another 30 days to clean up their property, Coel said.
If the property owner doesn't comply, Coel said Community Development solicits bids from a contractor, the property is cleaned up and staff goes back to the board for an assessment lien on the property.
The new process would send the owner a courtesy notification which would immediately start the clock, with a 30-day grace period on fees if the owner complies, said Coel.
At the end of that grace period, the notice of nuisance abatement and the order to abate would be posted, essentially combining two former steps into one, he explained.
The owner would have a 10-day appeal period, with the appeal to be heard by a hearing officer – who could be a department head not involved in the abatement – or the Board of Supervisors, depending on the case's severity. Cases with fees of $1,000 or less would be handled at the department level, based on the new guidelines.
Coel said an abatement officer then would be given jurisdiction to abate the nuisance, a notice of assessment would be prepared and taken to the supervisors for an assessment lien hearing.
Administrative costs – beginning after the first 30 days when the property owner failed to abate the nuisance – would be recovered by placing a lien against the property, Coel said.
“We see this as a really good tool to encourage voluntary compliance,” said Coel.
He said other departments – such as Environmental Health and Special Districts – are reviewing the proposed chapter, which Coel wanted to set up as a uniform code so other departments in the county can use it for things like grading and stormwater abatements.
The changes, Coel said, are “pretty significant,” but he added, “the current code is over 40 years old and really needs some work to get up to what our expectations are for present.”
Supervisor Rob Brown said that when they create ordinances they have to understand that the same people won't be in charge in 10 or 20 years.
“Looking back on some the staff we've had in the past, I wouldn't want them having this flexibility,” Brown said, adding that they've had situations where staffers acted on their own, and he was concerned that the new chapter wouldn't protect the county from those circumstances.
“I was going to say the exact same thing,” said Supervisor Denise Rushing.
“The ability to walk onto someone's property, spend money to do work, is an awesome government power,” she said, and something the county has to be “very, very, very careful” with using.
Rushing also brought up the mention of weeds in the document. “We're a county so we're going to have lots and lots of weeds on property,” she said, explaining that the kind of nuisance weeds created – whether visual, fire danger or from the standpoint of invasive species – needed to be spelled out.
Coel said weeds were mentioned to aid fire districts, which must deal with weed abatement.
Supervisor Jeff Smith said he believed the board should make the final decisions on major cases, but added, “Being able to do cost recovery has been a long time coming.”
Coel assured the board during the discussion that if someone is making an honest effort to clean up their property, Community Development will be flexible with them.
Brown said sometimes there is disconnect between code enforcement officers and property owners. Coel said that's largely a management issue, and the department head will need to remain involved. Brown replied that it's great if Coel is the department head, but he's known of others he wouldn't want to see have that power.
Coel told the board that all abatement cases currently come to them for a final decision, and Grant said the board needed to decide if they still wanted to do that.
By consensus, the supervisors agreed that anything with fees of over $1,000 should come back to them.
Building and Safety facing cuts
After the Chapter 13 discussion, Coel and Jezek stayed on to request the board's permission to bring back a formal plan for staffing cuts in the Building and Safety Division, which has seen dropping revenue.
“We've been crunching a lot of numbers over the last couple of months,” said Coel, and the division's revenues aren't coming in anywhere close to projections.
He said they estimated that, based on current trends, the division would be $100,000 short. “If that happens our reserve funding will be virtually eliminated.”
Coel said the division currently has eight positions, two of which are funded by outside revenue sources. The payroll is roughly $38,000 a month, Coel said, and revenues “are just not keeping up.”
He added, “I feel strongly that adjustments need to be made. We've reduced costs everywhere we can.”
Now, all that remains is to reduce staffing, Coel said.
The decision comes just as there has been a resurgence in permit activity. Over the previous five days they had eight applications for new dwellings, with revenue for those five days at $18,000, Coel said. Another $6,000 in permits is expected to come in over the next several days.
“It's a hopeful sign, we hope to see more of that, but it's too little, too late in terms of the staff numbers,” Coel said.
Brown told Coel, “I admire you for bringing this to us because this is going to be tough, and unfortunately this is probably the beginning of a trend in a lot of departments that we are going to have to face.”
The budget issues are not happening gradually, but quickly, Brown said. “I support what you're trying to do here.”
Smith said he thinks “it's going to get tougher before it gets better,” and that they needed to start giving layoff notices now.
He said he remembered when they had a lot of building reserves, and asked how much had been used.
County Administrator Kelly Cox replied, “Almost all of it,” estimating that over the years it had dwindled from about $800,000.
“We can't do it any longer here,” Cox said, with the situation being directly related to revenue. Like Coel, Cox concluded that the economy hasn't turned around quickly enough.
Smith said he doesn't want to get to the point where they have zero reserves, and Coel agreed.
Smith told Coel to bring back what he needed to do to address the situation.
“We have a couple of strategies and one that's preferred,” said Coel.
He said he would return in two weeks with a plan, which he's been discussing with Human Resources.
Brown moved to give conceptual approve to the plan, which the board approved 4-0. Board Chair Anthony Farrington was absent.
In other board action Tuesday, the supervisors approved Smith's choice of Bob Malley to succeed Gary Briggs as the District 2 representative on the Lake County Planning Commission.
“Even though we've disagreed on things, that's a good thing,” said Smith.
The board gave final approval for its members to receive $700 stipends resulting from the county not having to pay health insurance last November and December, and approved a final draft of guidelines for department heads' use of paid administrative leave for employees.
Supervisors also approved using $4,250 in funding that had been set aside for a Lucerne water study to support a community garden in the town, heard Rushing's presentation on an economic development training she attended on behalf of the county, received an update on the Mental Health Department's financial situation and approved the purchase of a new pickup for the Public Works Department.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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