City looks at hiring person to enforce residential codes
Don’t mow your lawn? Have
abandoned vehicles taking up
space? Is your yard filled with
junk? Do your neighbor problems
relate to any of the above?
If the answer to any of those
questions is yes, the city may soon
have a solution. Officials are
considering hiring a property
maintenance inspector whose
function would be to attend to
those and other types of codes
violations.
According to a preliminary job
description as the cost of hiring
such a person was discussed in
city budget meetings last week,
the purpose of the job would be to
employ a person to perform
specialized work functions associated
with enforcing city codes and
ordinances related to litter, overgrowth,
abandoned vehicles, unfit
structures and dump sites.
For example, the city has a code
that specifies how high the grass
may be, which is up to 12 inches,
and even has a code that says
having a poisonous plant in your
yard is illegal. The city also has
codes regulating unfit structures.
Those and other laws make up for
pages of laws and procedures.
Codes director
Jim Brock
said while the
city has
attempted to
enforce those
codes in the
past, such
responsibilities
have been
shifted from
between the
codes and the
fire department
for years.
“We would get behind and they
would put it in the fire department
and then they would put it back
here,” Brock said. “It was whoever
had time to do it and it got to
where neither party had time to do
it so they recommended hiring
somebody.”
The position is one that could be
either full or part time, which has
yet to be determined by city officials
as they comb through the
city’s budget requests for 2004
2005. Officials said the idea has
been tossed around for years.
“We’ve spent a lot of time talking
about the appearance of our
community and yet we haven’t
really done specific things,” Mayor
Royce Davenport said. “We’ve
talked about it in general terms
and it has not been properly
enforced, and in some cases we
need to pass some new codes to
enable it to be enforced.”
Davenport also said the position
has to first be scrutinized by
several city officials and their
respective committees before
becoming reality, but said the idea
is to have a betterlooking
McMinnville.
“The intent is to have a more
attractive, safer and healthier
community and that’s what this
person’s area would be in – the
basics like keeping houses in
livable conditions, or having a
decent appearance from the street,
or eliminating areas of high grass,
trash and abandoned vehicles,” he
added.
Officials said they would ideally
seek someone with the right
personality style who could withstand
grumbling when the laws
are enforced, as well as someone
who would work compassionately
with a variety of citizens.
Davenport indicated some of
level of training could be in store.
“We’re going to give them some
training and they could take some
courses at the state level, but they
don’t need to be fully trained as a
building inspector and all the
nuances of buildings to determine
if grass is 12 inches high and that
kind of thing,” Davenport said.