Compliance will become watchword for county

Though it may not happen in July, County Administrator Roman Gastesi says he is still set on “changing the culture” in the county’s code enforcement department.

The first part of that is a proposed name change from code enforcement to code compliance, or some derivative of that.

“The intent is to begin looking for compliance from residents here rather than looking to enforce issues that may arise,” he said.

Gastesi conducted a series of town-hall style meetings early last year to listen to citizen input about the job being done by county government and what those same citizens would like to see changed.

One of the areas most maligned by local residents was code enforcement.

“My vision is to create a more user-friendly, customer-oriented code compliance department operation,” said Gastesi.

New Growth Management Director Christine Hurley has been urging her staff to come up with new policies and procedures to assist in that culture change.

“She’s hit the ground running, but she’s had a lot of issues to deal with, and this is just one of those. I want to give her a chance to design a program that meets the vision,” said Gastesi.

He said he wants code officers to spend more time talking to customers, “going into educational mode,” than in writing citations to be acted on by the special magistrate.

“I think it sends a message to everyone, our citizens and our staff, that we are in this together. We want to make people understand the reasons for the rules and why we have to seek compliance,” said Gastesi.

One of the primary complaints Gastesi heard during his series of meetings was the adversarial attitude of code officers.

He was told more than once that if the officer had simply gotten out of the car and conversed with the business or property owner, much time would have been saved.

“With safety being paramount, that is an area I would like to see enhanced,” said Gastesi. “I think, however, that very words code enforcement automatically brings about an antagonistic situation.”

He further explained, “We will never put our code officers in a situation where they don’t feel safe. If that’s the case, we’ll go the citation route. Of course, we then have to wonder why there is a fear for safety among our employees.”

He said he’s seen some movement toward a “kinder, gentler” code operation in recent months, “but we’re not there yet.”

He envisions more personal visits to citizens who may have, unknowingly, a code violation, or even those who should know and ignore.

“Our goal is compliance by whatever means. If that means we just talk to people and never cite them, then that’s a way to achieve compliance,” he said.

The process he envisions could also include courtesy letters to those found not in compliance in some fashion.

“Maybe we just send a letter telling the property owner that an inspector was by and saw this or that, but we include a remedy plan, or an invitation for a conversation to discuss a remedy plan that includes the nature of the violation and what it takes to correct it,” said Gastesi.

Hurley has already implemented some internal policies whereby staffers review permits, or situations not quite up to snuff, through each department in her division so that a comprehensive remedy plan can be proposed before the code action even begins.

That review might also serve to catch some issues that aren’t actual violations prior to a citation being issued, saving the county staff time and money, keeping the case off of the special magistrate’s docket, and giving the property owners a break from the red tape involved in the former scenarios.

“It is more important that we, as a county government, achieve compliance than put people through code proceedings,” said Gastesi. “I hope that the name change indicates our willingness to do that.”

No Comments »