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Residents and some council members push back on complaint-based code enforcement proposal
Summary
Public commenters and multiple council members warned that shifting to a complaint-based code enforcement model and cutting roughly 11.5 FTEs would reduce proactive upkeep and degrade neighborhood conditions; staff said the pilot showed many observed violations would go unwritten under complaint-only rules.
Public comment and council discussion at the July 28 workshop focused heavily on a staff proposal to shift code enforcement toward a complaint-based model that would reduce active casework and remove roughly 11.5 FTEs from community development in some scenarios. Pat Stasio told the council: "That's crazy ... it can't just be shifted to complaint based," arguing many residents will not file complaints and that inspectors should continue whole-street enforcement when visiting properties.
City staff described a pilot week that observed 816 violations while receiving only 91 citizen complaints in the same period, and warned that a complaint-based model would produce a lag in service and leave many violations unaddressed. Council discussion split: some members said the city should protect neighborhood conditions and were reluctant to cut proactive code enforcement, while others noted fiscal pressure and urged staff to provide options showing where cuts could be made across departments without disproportionately targeting a single program.
The council did not vote on the enforcement model but asked staff to include impacts of any complaint-based option when returning with the budget scenarios on Aug. 25. That follow-up will need to include quantifiable service-level impacts and options to redeploy any displaced staff internally where possible.
