Corte Madera raises select administrative fines to $1,000 to deter dumping, tree removal and illicit runoff

The Corte Madera Town Council voted to allow the council to set administrative-citation penalties by resolution and adopted a revised schedule raising fines for a handful of high-impact offenses to $1,000. Planning manager Michael Moriarty told the council the change is intended to make penalties meaningful for problems that the prior low tiers did not deter.

"The fines must be meaningful, proportional, and adoptable," Moriarty said, identifying illegal dumping on public property, vandalism at parks, unauthorized removal of protected trees, illicit stormwater discharges and continued stop-work-order violations as priority sections for the increase.

Under the adopted approach, the ordinance removes hard-coded dollar tiers from Corte Madera Municipal Code chapter 9.05 and delegates the numeric schedule to a council resolution. Town counsel and staff recommended eliminating the phrase "up to" from the resolution so the schedule would specify the $1,000 amount for the targeted sections rather than leaving discretionary ceilings.

Council members asked staff about comparability with other jurisdictions and enforcement practicality. Town counsel said state law constrains administrative-citation ceilings but that other remedies (civil penalties, misdemeanor prosecution and replacement-value claims) remain available for particularly egregious acts; staff said the town will continue to emphasize correction of behavior rather than revenue generation.

The council voted to introduce the ordinance with the town/city wording correction and adopted the amended resolution (roll-call vote: unanimous of members present). The ordinance introduction and the resolution were advanced in the same motion so staff may return with a finalized ordinance adoption on the regular calendar.