By Tim Blanchard
Did you know the County Community Development and Planning Department (CDPD) has proposed a significant expansion of its code enforcement authority?
I suspect that most citizens and land owners are not aware of the proposal currently before the Planning Commission that would dramatically change and increase the power of the CDPD regulate almost everything we do on our land.
Ask yourself:
- Should the CDPD Director become the County “Safety Czar,” empowered to identify, investigate and order correction of “any condition” he believes “is likely to create a hazard to the public safety, health or welfare, to the environment, or to public or private property”?
- Should CDPD be authorized to impose penalties, escalating from $500 to over $30,000 per day, without court approval, for alleged building and land use code violations (including new critical areas and shoreline provisions)?
- Should land owners be required to pay an appeal fee of $2300 to challenge a penalty of $500, or stop work order?
- Should the burden of proof shift to owners based solely upon a “notice of violation” from CDPD? (Since when is “because I said so” sufficient to establish potentially criminal violations?)
- Should the CDPD be allowed to enter your property, without even asking first?
- Should we allow increased CDPD penalties to “provide a potential source of revenue” for the County?
- What evidence is there that CDPD has tried using the existing enforcement code without success, or that the draconian measures proposed are needed?
- Most important, how will this affect our community?
We should all support enforcement of the law, but expanding regulator discretion, increasing penalties to raise revenue, and ignoring principles of fundamental fairness is no way to engender support from law-abiding citizens.
The Planning Commission has decided not to take further testimony on this issue, but it is not too late to do something about it. If you have the same concerns that I do, please consider calling members of the Planning Commission and attending the Planning Commission meeting on the proposal, Friday, July 22, 2011, 8:30 a.m., Islanders Bank Annex, Friday Harbor.
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I agree with Tim Blanchard’s that the proposed code enforcement ideas are Draconian and unfair and unnecessary.
Tim Blanchard’s Guest Opinion on the Proposed Code Enforcement Ordinance is inaccurate. To check his facts you must first find the proposed ordinance on the County website: https://www.co.san-juan.wa.us/cdp/default.aspx?dept=CDP&listname=CodeEnforcement
A stronger system of code enforcement is needed in San Juan County because the current system is dysfunctional. It is widely known that codes and regulations are rarely enforced. Monetary penalties are minimal to non-existent. Therefore, the codes, regulations, and permit parameters are widely ignored. For example, many docks have been built significantly larger than permitted.
Fact checking Tim Blanchard’s opinions:
1. No appeal fee (of $2300 or other value) is listed in the proposed ordinance.
2. A “Warning Notice,” with an opportunity to correct the violation by a certain date, is given before the “Notice of Violation.” There are no monetary penalties during this phase.
3. After a “Notice of Violation,” 30 days are given to file an appeal. There are no monetary penalties accruing during the appeals process. If the property owner looses the appeal before the Hearing Examiner, then monetary penalties begin to accrue from the date of the decision.
4. The “over $30,000 per day” number would be for a violation that was uncorrected for more than 200 days. As explained in point number two, above, the are no monetary penalties during the “Warning Notice” period.
5. As for entering your property, “without even asking first,” this applies only if there is an immediate danger to people or property caused by the violation. Otherwise the Constitution and laws of the United States and the state of Washington apply for entry onto your property. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause.
6. The penalties are not designed to “provide a potential source of revenue for the county.” The penalties are designed to increase compliance with our county regulations and codes. In other counties, such a system of monetary penalties has resulted in a rapid increase in code compliance and an insignificant increase in county revenues in the long-term.
Just what we don’t need. Another set of laws, rules and regulations in local government to implement the laws, rules and regulations we already have on the books. If we can’t enforce the laws, rules and regulations we allready have on the books, how are we proposing we can enforce a whole new set of more stringent and un-enforceable laws, rules and regulations?
Reminds me of the guy who decided he could make a living by raising vegatables and selling them at the farmer’s market. When they were ready for harvest, he loaded them in his pick-up and sure enough he sold the whole load in a few hours. At the end of the season, he added up the cost of raising his crop, the expense of the pick-up and his sales and guess what? He was loseing money. So… to solve the problem for the next year he decided that what he needed was a bigger truck.
Hey, we have to do something, right? Let’s get a bigger truck so we can lose more money faster. That’s what all government is doing these days. Do we have to follow suit?
Charlie Binford
Deer Harbor
Janet, I apologize for commenting on this issue before reading your comments, and do earnestly hope you are not suggesting we need a new and stronger set of laws,rules and regulations simply because the present set of laws, rules and regulations are dysfunctional. If so, what other “dysfunctional” aspects of island life do you suggest we replace? May I cast my vote for the Ferry System?
Charlie Binford
Deer Harbor
There’s nothing dysfunctional about the County enforcement code; there’s something seriously dysfunctional with the County. As noted elsewhere, the County already has the warning notice, stop work order, $1000 per day fines and power to get injunctions against landowners who defy the building and land use codes. The County simply has not done so. Calling for more power and money when you haven’t even made a serious effort under existing law is illogical. Obviously, there are other agendas at work here. BTW, there IS an appeal fee in the new proposal; at current County rates, it’s $2300.
The questions I raised, which are not the only problems with the proposed Code Enforcement rules, do not misrepresent any facts. Let’s check Ms. Alderton’s fact checking point-by-point:
1. The CDPD Code Enforcement proposal would allow penalties based on administrative determinations of the Director of CDPD and current County Ordinance No. 34-2010 sets the fee “Appeal of Administrative Determination” at $2300. In any event, I believe that it is inconsistent with fairness and fundamental due process to require a fee to defend oneself against governmental allegations of wrongdoing.
2. The CDPD proposal actually states only that “the Director may provide a warning notice,” but no notice is actually required by the proposal. See proposed Section 7(1) (emphasis added). Our current code requires warning, but the CDPD proposal is seeking to eliminate this important protection. See current SJCC 18.100.010 and 18.100.040.
3. This statement is accurate, but does not appear to relate to any of the questions that I suggested.
4. This statement is accurate, but does not address my questions. If we are really concerned about the violations, why not seek injunctive relief to stop or prevent them instead of seeking money penalties while allowing an alleged violation to continue? Indeed, if Ms Alderton is correct that “[i]t is widely known that codes and regulations are rarely enforced,” it proves too much. Why aren’t they being enforced?
5. Our current code allows the County to seek an search warrant only after it has been denied access to the property, see SJCC 18.100.040(B), but the CDPD wants to eliminate that protection an allow the Director to seek a warrant without first asking for permission and allow the Director to enter immediately without the constitutional protection of a warrant by simply alleging “an immediate hazard to . . . property.”
6. I do not know the source for the assertions in Ms. Alderton’s point number 6, but the quote in my question comes from the CDPD Staff Report to the Planning Commission dated May 6, 2011. Nothing in the staff report explains how the proposed level of penalties was determined, however, or why the current penalties of “up to $1000 per day” would not be sufficient if the County were actually seeking to enforce our current rules. See SJCC 18.100.060(A).
I hope that this exchange of questions is helpful. More important, I believe that it demonstrates that additional public questions and comments are warranted regarding this proposal and I hope that the Planning Commission with recognize this and agree to reopen public testimony so that it can have the benefit of public comment regarding how we want to treat our neighbors in San Juan County.
I urge anyone with concerns regarding the pending proposal to attend the Planning Commission Meeting on Friday. They may not let you testify, but you can let them know that they should by being there.
I just received a note from Lynda Guernsey in CDPD (LyndaG@sanjuanco.com) indicating that the meeting place has changed:
“Subject: Change of Location for 7.22.11
Hi,
Due to some confusion, the location of the Planning Commission’s continued for deliberations only meeting regarding Code Enforcement amendments, scheduled for Islander’s Bank Annex, has been changed to the San Juan Island Grange, 152 First Street, Friday Harbor. The start time is the same, 8:30 a.m.
We have contacted the press, changed the agenda on the County website, posted signs at the bank and county offices. It should be on the County website under Notices as soon as our Information person can do that. We have also told some folks who have called or come in.”
This County enforcement plan would promote indirect and unchecked controls over the use of our property through threats of financial obligations and extreme regulations. In fact, we need to roll back some of the 2009 regulations that were passed without clarity. Property rights are a non partisan issue, and they are a human rights issue, and those rights are not protected by these proposed regulations.
It would be arbitrary and immoral to have our County allow laws to be passed that would put a higher criminal and financial cost on its citizens, for building and construction issues and concerns, than other offensive acts to society, such as theft, murder, and rape. Where are the protections for our citizens in this document? As Patrick Henry said, “The Constitution is not an instrument for government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government, lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” We need to ask our Council to protect our Constitutional rights, and to have laws that reinforce those rights, rather than diminish them.
I hope to see many of you at the Planning Commission meeting on this proposal, Friday, July 22, 2011, 8:30 a.m., San Juan Grange Hall at 152 First Street, Friday Harbor.
Take care, I care,
Frank
Cities and counties across the US, as a result of the collapse of the construction boom, have issued clipboards to former inspectors and ordered them into the field to find and cite code violators. This gambit generates construction permit fees, rebuilding construction work, and code violation fines.