Sisters resident urges Deschutes County to intervene in eight-year code enforcement dispute

A Sisters resident told the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners on Jan. 15 that he has been engaged in an eight-year dispute with the county’s building official and asked the board to intervene.

"This is a very, frustrating situation that I've been dealing with for 8 years," said Mark Dickens, who identified himself as a Sisters resident. He asked the county to "listen to my side of the story" and invited commissioners to a meeting he planned the next day with David Doyle and Stephanie Marshall, whom he described as a hearings officer involved earlier in the case.

Dickens described the dispute as driven by a building official "acting way outside the law, the code," and said he has documented his concerns. He said the matter involved a $150 permit and subsequent fines. "This has wasted tens of 1,000 of dollars of county resources in staff time, legal time," he said.

He told the board the county had threatened his mortgage holder over the fines and that the lender filed a foreclosure action; he said he went to a federal bankruptcy judge and had the fines stripped away. "So that has wiped the this the county out. They have no position now," he said.

Dickens asked for the county to become involved and said he hoped a commissioner or staff member would attend his meeting the following day. Commissioners responded briefly, thanking him for his testimony and saying they would talk further.

No action or formal response is recorded in the meeting transcript beyond the invitation to discuss the matter further; this was recorded as a public comment during the citizen input portion of the meeting.