County considers officer to enforce regulations
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According to the job description, the officer will be empowered to investigate and enforce a number of regulatory acts already in place in the county, including:
‘ Warren County Junkyard/Scrapyard and Landfill Regulations Act of 2000
‘ Criminal littering
‘ Revised Airport Zoning Regulations
‘ Warren County Mobile Home Park Regulations Act of 2000
‘ Warren County Regional Planning Commission regulations
‘ Subdivision Regulations for Warren County Planning Region
‘ Regulation of Sexually Oriented Adult Businesses in Warren County
The officer will also be responsible for any future acts passed by the Warren County Commission.
County Executive John Pelham says these regulations have been in effect for some time, but had no teeth because there was no one specifically empowered to enforce them, or any guidelines for what sort of penalties would be in place for those who violate them.
‘There are several regulations and acts in Warren County that have already been passed,’ Pelham said, ‘that we have just not had the ability to enforce because we do not have an employee assigned to do that.
‘And we are not proposing to pass anything new,’ Pelham added. ‘Just to enforce what’s already on the books. We have a junkyard ordinance that was passed in 2000, for instance, but we have never put together any specific guidelines as far as enforcement, penalties, or procedures to follow in enforcing them. We have a mobile home park ordinance, we have an adult-oriented business board which we established after we came into office, so we need the ability to enforce that if somebody opens up a business without the proper authorization. We have zoning restrictions for our airport that have been on the books for years.
‘We just have a lot of ordinances that have been passed that our commission, over the years, have seen a need for,’ Pelham continued. ‘They drafted these resolutions or passed a private act on behalf of Warren County, yet we’ve never incorporated all of these things together to give a specific employee of the county the teeth to go out and enforce them. So that’s what we’ve done with this job description.’
Pelham says he feels these regulations were developed and passed for the good of the county, and need to be enforced.
‘What has brought this to the fore has been the fact that we have locations within our county that we really need to clean up,’ Pelham said. ‘So that’s what we’re hoping to do with this environmental officer. We need to be aware of the overall appearance of our community. When people travel around in our county do they see places that are junked up and trashed up that cast a bad reflection on our entire community? There has to be some kind of restriction on this. We’re just trying to do what we think is best for the county.’
Pelham says the initial work on the position is being done by the Policy and Personnel Committee and there are a number of items still to be worked out, including the type of penalties and fines that will be levied on violators, but once that is done a resolution to create the position will be presented to the full commission for approval.
‘We have been working with our county attorney,’ Pelham said, ‘and once we get all of the details worked out we will try to get a revised copy, with all the changes that need to be made, out to every commissioner for them to look at. Once that’s done, we hope to have a resolution to present to the commission at its February meeting.’