Josephine County moves to re-establish solid waste enforcement program

Josephine County commissioners on March 31 agreed to take immediate steps to re-establish a solid waste enforcement program after county officials told the board the county currently lacks a functional enforcement structure to handle public complaints.

Chair Ron Smith opened the discussion, saying the county has seen a growing number of public complaints about solid waste issues and “no active enforcement program” is in place to address them. The conversation included staff from Community Development, Public Health, Finance, Human Resources, the Solid Waste program and legal counsel.

Legal counsel Leah Harper provided a historical overview, telling commissioners that enforcement was once managed in Environmental Health within Public Health and at times relied on voluntary compliance, hearings officer actions and County-led cleanups followed by lien-based cost recovery. Harper said the governing code—adopted in 1990 and amended in 1994—continues to assign responsibility for solid waste enforcement to Environmental Health under Public Health.

Frank Wharregard of Community Development said a prior Board action moved a solid-waste-related position to Community Development because of overlap with land-use and code work, but that transfer was not codified by ordinance; when the incumbent left, the function effectively reverted to Public Health as described in County code.

Janet Fredrickson of Public Health said recent administrative changes and the elimination of positions left her department without the staffing or the dedicated funding needed to resume enforcement work. Ruth Nelson, Finance Director, said discretionary franchise revenues collected for solid waste have been deposited into the General Fund and used for broader county operations; she added that state solid waste grants require annual application and are not guaranteed. Trent Carpenter, Solid Waste, told the board that re-establishing an active program would strengthen the county’s ability to compete for future grant funding.

Commissioners debated where the function should be placed organizationally, noting advantages to both Public Health (technical environmental-health expertise and alignment with existing code) and Community Development (land-use and code-enforcement experience). The board also discussed an operational limitation in the current code that requires complaints to be submitted by three unrelated individuals within a defined proximity before enforcement action may begin; commissioners said that requirement could limit the county’s ability to respond to legitimate single-resident complaints and may merit review.

Michelle Shaw, Human Resources Director, said HR can draft or update a job description and initiate recruitment, while noting applicable union and hiring procedures. Across the discussion, commissioners emphasized that restoring enforcement capability is the immediate priority and that the permanent organizational home for the function can be reviewed after the program is re-established.

The board reached consensus on the following next steps: direct staff to pursue available grant funding for solid waste enforcement; develop or update a job description for a solid waste enforcement position and bring forward a Personnel Requisition for Board consideration; and prepare a letter of intent from the Board to support program re-establishment and funding efforts. No formal motion or roll-call vote was recorded; the action was recorded as a consensus direction to staff.

The meeting adjourned at 11:20 a.m. The number of individual public complaints cited during the discussion was not specified in the transcript.