4/2/2008 9:29:00 AM Council ends most discretion in code enforcement
Joshua Bennun is one of several residents who have been urging the Port Townsend City Council to be more stringent on code enforcement. On March 31, the council voted 6-0 with Mark Welch absent and excused to mandate stricter enforcement. - Photo by Barney Burke
After months of complaints from residents, and debates over how much discretion to give staff, the Port Townsend City Council decided that "shall" is a better approach than "should" when it comes to zoning and building code violations.
The second reading of the ordinance passed 6-0 March 31, with Mark Welch absent and excused.
City Attorney John Watts and City Manager David Timmons had recommended that staff be given discretion in dealing with violations because some violations involve novice homeowners, not contractors who should know better.
Watts said a law mandating enforcement in every instance is "unprecedented" and could present legal problems for the city. Only Washington's domestic violence law requires an arrest in almost every instance, he said, but even that law does not require prosecution.
Timmons noted that city police made 3,727 traffic stops in 2007, but only 820 of those incidents (22 percent) resulted in an arrest or a citation. "Imagine what it would be like if we ticketed everybody [based on neighborhood traffic complaints]," he said.
But the council, which previously rescinded a 2001 resolution directing staff to lighten up on enforcement in favor of facilitating development, decided that a stricter approach is needed.
Welch was out of town Monday but sent a letter urging his colleagues not to make the pendulum swing too far.
"The world is never as clear, or black and white, as the ink on an ordinance," Welch wrote. "Otherwise, our judicial system could be replaced by a computer, dispensing justice like so much sausage from a nozzle."
Although some residents who have complained about lax enforcement have suggested that the city has never issued a "stop work" order or levied a fine, city records show otherwise.
In 1993, Madge Wallin built a wall without a permit at her Fillmore Street home. A judge fined Wallin $100 a day starting in 1999, and she owned about $239,000 at the time of her death in 2005.
In 2004, the city issued a stop-work order to former councilors Vern Garrison and Bill Wolcott when they did some hillside grading for a downtown condominium project without a permit.
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