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Council receives Community Preservation update; staff to expand CityDetect cameras and seek abatement/legal contracts
Summary
City staff outlined code‑enforcement reorganization, CityDetect camera deployment and RFPs for legal counsel and abatement contractors; staff reported 2025 enforcement totals including ~37,000 parking citations, 2,764 code cases and 410 towed vehicles.
City staff gave an extended Community Preservation presentation describing recent reorganization, data-driven enforcement and planned procurements to strengthen code enforcement.
Justin Hillman, the city’s Community Preservation manager, explained the team’s emphasis on education and voluntary compliance and outlined enforcement work across parking, mobile-home inspections, residential rental inspections, commercial property enforcement and abandoned-vacant-lot cases. Staff cited 2025 operational figures: about 37,000 parking citations, 410 vehicles towed, 2,764 code enforcement cases received and 1,922 nuisance cases closed.
Hillman described CityDetect — an AI-enabled camera system mounted in staff vehicles that automatically flags potential violations and generates heat maps to prioritize inspections. Item CC6 on the consent calendar would fund additional cameras for street sweepers to augment targeted enforcement. Hillman said the cameras reduce staff field time; one camera-assisted sweep inspected more than 100 properties in roughly 30 minutes versus about two and a half hours of manual inspections.
Staff also briefed council on a vacant property registration and compliance ordinance launched in January that mailed 1,400 notices to property owners, and on a new ADU loan assistance program and pre‑approved ADU plans. To support abatement work, staff said the city will solicit an RFP for a code enforcement attorney and for abatement contractors.
Council asked staff to investigate adding on-scene body-worn cameras for community-preservation officers and to publish data‑use and retention policies for CityDetect footage; the mayor directed staff to draft a transparency policy for public review. A member of the public asked whether CityDetect uses facial recognition; staff and the mayor said they will clarify policy and retention on the city website.
"Code enforcement is a fundamental public service that directly supports the city's priorities of protecting public health and safety," Hillman said during the presentation.
