PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles City Council had agreed that code compliance should be a higher priority.
Exactly how to pay for a code enforcement program has yet to be decided.
Six council members agreed by consensus Tuesday to direct staff to pursue an option that involves hiring two part-time police support service officers — plus a half-time city attorney — to address such common complaints as junk vehicles, overgrown weeds and grass, animal control and noise.
The city has been without a code compliance officer since 2013 and without a code compliance program since 2016.
“Ultimately it does come down to a resource issue,” City Manager Nathan West said in a council work session Tuesday.
“I think we’ve heard clearly that there’s a consensus for the city staff to begin finding revenue sources and looking in the direction of resolution that involves Option 3.”
Option 3, titled “Code Compliance is a Priority — Do More,” adds minor infractions to the city’s nuisance code to encourage voluntary compliance and seeks additional revenue to pay for the effort.
Option 1 was to do less about code compliance and Option 2 was to maintain the status quo.
Formal action on code compliance will occur at a future council meeting.
Council member Michael Merideth was absent from the work session and Mayor Sissi Bruch, who was attending a conference in San Diego, participated by speakerphone.
“We’re going to have difficult budget decisions if we decide to go down this path,” Council member Mike French said.
“There are going to be people in the community rightly concerned about property rights, to make sure that we strike the right balance. My basic comment on that is neighbors have property rights, too.”
City Attorney Bill Bloor, Community and Economic Development Director Allyson Brekke, Deputy Chief of Police Jason Viada and Chief of Police Brian Smith briefed the council on the history and current status of code compliance in the city.
Each said their department had not kept up with public demand for code enforcement.
“It’s always interesting when I interact with a community member and they’re surprised the city doesn’t have a person such as a code compliance officer on staff,” Brekke said.
Bloor gave examples of common complaints the city has received in the past 12 months.
They are weed control/tall grass, leash laws/animal control, noise, jake brakes, people camping or living in motorhomes, environmental damage like tree mutilation in city right of way, human excrement and sign code violations.
“People have expectations, but they’re not necessarily seeing the results that they want to see,” Bloor said. “Part of this has to do with staffing.”
The city’s parking enforcement officer spends a portion of his time on junk and abandoned vehicle abatement.
The number of junk vehicles removed has climbed from 95 in 2014 to 265 last year, Smith said.
“While we’re trying to figure out how to make lemonade out of lemons, the problem is getting worse,” Smith said. “We’re getting more non-compliance.”
Despite the recent announcement that the McKinley Paper Co. mill on Ediz Hook will begin operations by next September, West warned the council that the city cannot add staff without making cuts.
“I think it’s important to know that the revenue picture is not such that we will have the ability to add new positions and responsibilities unless we look at other programs to eliminate, or unless we move down the road of taking a look, again, at some of the priorities that we talked about earlier in the year,” West said.
“But I do think the opportunity is there to look at additional revenue sources that might potentially fund this program.”
Council member Cherie Kidd said the do-more option “makes sense” for the city.
Adding minor infractions to existing code, Kidd added, would “help people realize that they can’t just flagrantly abuse their property.”
“Our neighborhood property values can be lowered if we have one mess right in the middle of it,” Kidd said.
“[For] most home owners, that’s the largest investment we have. So in order to make our city have the highest value, I think it’s important that we encourage that people keep up their property.”
French, Kidd and others expressed concerns about property owners who may be elderly or otherwise unable to maintain their property.
West said local service clubs have a strong track record of painting homes and maintaining lawns.
“I have confidence that city staff will implement [Option 3] recognizing that not everyone is intentionally violating the code and some people may need help that’s different from what we traditionally think of as enforcement,” Council member Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin said.
Schromen-Wawrin suggested an online complaint form that could generate a map of where the complaints are originating.
French said there is a danger in making the process “too easy.”
“It removes conversations with neighbors,” French said.
“It removes conversations at the counter with city expertise.”
West said it is important for the city to be in communication with both parties.
“I have seen a great deal of situations where we have retaliatory interests between neighbors and a desire for the city to get in the middle of some substantial disagreements,” West said.
Bruch, who joined the council in 2012, said there were fewer complaints about nuisance violations when the city had a robust code enforcement program.
“I think if we invest in some code compliance, I think we’ll see some of the issues go down, and then I think we would need less code compliance,” Bruch said.
“I can see this as a wave, an on-and-off kind of thing, but I really appreciate the look into revising some of our code so that it’s clear and concise so people can expect and know that if it’s a rule, they’ll know we’ll enforce it.”
Schromen-Wawrin said he shared Bruch’s concern about paying for Option 3.
“It’s all fun to talk about what we want to do,” Schromen-Wawrin said.
“It’s not fun to talk about what we’re not going to do as a consequence of that. So that’s a topic for later in the year, but that’s the challenge of putting the budget together.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsula dailynews.com.
