The county’s building and fire official presented updated fire-inspection procedures and a stepped notice-and-fee schedule to the Personnel Committee on Jan. 30, and the committee approved moving the policy forward.
The revision sets a sequence of three notices before a summons: an initial contact, a follow-up, and a third notice; if there is no response, staff will pursue enforcement including a $200 surcharge in addition to prior fees, the official said. For logistics, staff proposed sending the interim notices on a monthly cadence rather than every two weeks so staff work can be batched. “I would like to switch that to 1 month,” the presenter said when explaining the timing change.
The committee discussed exemptions and fee applicability. Committee members and staff agreed not to charge churches and debated whether to charge municipal buildings; staff said municipal permit and inspection practices vary and that most municipal compliance work would continue without a fee. The committee approved the suggested policy language and fee schedule and asked staff to flag municipality records in the inspection system where appropriate.
Committee members also discussed operational questions such as whether an order to remedy is required before issuing a summons if staff show up for a scheduled inspection and the property is unoccupied; staff said they will follow up to clarify enforcement steps but noted the schedule included a surprise visit near the final notice date. The committee asked staff to circulate the finalized procedures and to notify stakeholders, including a public email list used by the inspection office.
The committee’s action was a policy-setting motion to adopt the procedure and fee schedule as presented, with staff assigned to finalize language, confirm municipal exemptions, and implement the monthly-notice workflow in the inspection system.