Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's one o'clock, and we will go ahead and start today's Public Safety Committee meeting, May 7, 2013. First on our agenda is approval of the summary. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. And next on our agenda is a report from the Divisions of Code Enforcement and Law regarding the infill and redevelopment steering committee recommendations. And I'm going to open it up to Council Member Steve Kaye to introduce the item. Thank you, Chair. I wanted to provide counsel and public watching with a little bit of background and kind of context for this item. It began essentially with a feeling that there was a need to be able to provide a reasonable response to constituents who perceive either that there's a lack of effective enforcement or a lack of consistency in enforcement that favors landlords over individual owners. In order to answer those questions, we felt that three things were needed. One, clear and adequate policies and procedures for the complaints and the citations, an adequate record-keeping system that reflects the policies and the procedures, and then transparency of all of these sets of information for the public. The Infill and Redevelopment Committee, which brought this forward, took up this issue in the fall of 2011 and developed a white paper which was then sent to both the legal department and code enforcement for input. This was originally discussed by the draft in May 2012. and then in a June meeting Commissioner Mason was present to discuss these issues and in an August meeting Mr. Jarvis was present to discuss these issues. Specific recommendations for code enforcement, the legal department and council were adopted in September of 2012 and were presented to council and referred to the Public Safety Committee which is where we are today. The Public Safety Committee heard those recommendations at that time and asked for a response in six months. This is now the response that we will be getting from Mr. Jarvis. So welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon. I believe we're waiting for the PowerPoint from Jennifer. I believe she went to get it. Unless you want to – well, you have David's. Would you like to have the law department's response first? I think that would be helpful. Okay, sure, let's do that. If the law department did respond first. Sure. In a matter of time anyway. Are you on first? No, you are. I believe you're on. Great. Good afternoon. I'll be brief with my presentation. Did we find some slides, Chris? No. All right. The first recommendation of the infill committee was to rewrite Section 12-1B to make it easier to read. Go ahead and switch to Max Long, Chris. Thank goodness this isn't very long. Our response to that is that we have provided an initial draft as part of the packet. That begins on page 20. Some additional thoughts on that before you go through the task of possibly rewriting that section, which is actually the adoption of the changes to the International Property Maintenance Code from 1998, which we incorporate by reference. You all have been discussing the possibility of having code enforcement go under Commissioner Paulson. So our recommendation would be, if you are going to follow through on that, that his input into that process would probably be something that you all would want to have available before we adopted some sort of final draft. The other thing I think you should keep in mind is, and I'm not a big proponent of task force and working groups since I seem to get stuck on the best ones, but the last time the council went through a real consideration of the property maintenance codes was probably about 15 years ago when you moved off of BOCA onto the International Property Maintenance Code. And David may be a little better dressed than I am, but my understanding is you all had a working group that consisted of different members of the community as well as people from the government. For instance, you might have had somebody from the Apartment Association, Landlord Association on there to get their thoughts about this particular document being used as the boilerplate for your structural violations in code enforcement. Recommendation number two was to change some of the specific language that's in the code or make the code more specific with respect to a couple of different items. our response to that was that this level of detail normally from a legal standpoint you normally put this level of detail into some sort of guideline or administrative policy instead of the code itself and one of the other things that I think that you all may want to consider doing and it hasn't been done in quite a while is code enforcement actually has some guidelines slash policies that went to the council for adoption. I don't recall specifically when that was. I think it was back in the late 1990s. So you already have those things in place, and they have not been looked at, I don't believe, in a number of years. But that would be where we would recommend putting this type of level of detail. I think that's on page 31. Our initial thoughts on that were on page 31 of your packet. Infill recommendation number three was to request funds in the next budget cycle to hire a paralegal. Thankfully, the administration and Council has responded to our budget request the last couple years, and as a result of being able to procure a paralegal previously that devotes most of her, if not all of her time, to occupational tax-related type matters for revenue, we were able to hire a paralegal at the end of last year, Koyuki King, who is spending approximately 80% or more of her time on foreclosures, and most foreclosures that we're involved in actually involve code liens. This will be the last one, Chris. The final recommendation that was directed to the Department of Law was that in the next budget cycle that we possibly contract with a hearing officer to handle the code enforcement cases. our response to that is I think you all should be aware that there are numerous hearing officers in the government that work on different boards and the government has never paid any of them to do this I think that code enforcement is now in a cycle where they're pretty comfortable with who they have serving on these right now I think it's all volunteer pro bono attorneys one of the other concerns we have I'm not suggesting that they would be biased but a lot of people think if you are paying them to work for you that they're going to do what the government wants so there's at least this appearance of bias if you hire somebody to do it versus finding qualified volunteers and if we did move in this direction our thought would be you'd probably want to actually appropriate that from code enforcement rather than have the law department hire them So that finishes my specific responses to the things that the law department was tasked with responding to. And once again, we kind of have a working draft as part of your packet as well, which starts on page 20. And I'd be happy to answer questions or we can wait until after Mr. Jarvis does his presentation. We have a few council members signed up to speak. So thank you, David. Sure. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Barber, for coming in and making your presentation. That slide you have up there right now, if we move in that direction, it would be more appropriate to hire them from code enforcement. Are you saying that from just a budgetary perspective? I think you might want to, for instance, if they were attorneys that were going to do it, we'd be happy to be involved in that process and vetting them out. But they would actually be retained probably. I haven't given that any thought as far as who might hire it, but it's not normally part of what we would have in our budget in the law department to do because it's directly related to a different division of the government. Sure. Okay. I like that idea. I would hope, though, that the law department would have at least some role in the vetting. Sure. And then what do you think the next steps are to implement your recommendations? What do we need to do to make it happen? As far as ones directed to the law department? Yes, sir. I think the primary one that still needs some work would be what you all want to do with respect to Section 12.1 of the Code of Ordinances. That, once again, is the International Property Maintenance Code as locally modified, so to speak. And I think that you probably want to create some sort of group that you have some confidence in will address whatever issues and concerns you all have with that language to work on doing that. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Council Member Myers. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, David. My question is about slide three and the paralegal. Yes. that traditionally has been a place where there has not been sufficient staff, and that's been a holdup in the staff process. Are you now saying that you have sufficient staff? If things don't change, we're in a pretty good spot right now. Now, of course, we have other things that come into our shop. For instance, I'd rather not get into this in any detail today, But, you know, we don't know what our role is going to be or how comprehensive the collections on some of these LexServe bills are going to be, for instance. That may be something that causes us to come back to you all and say, hey, we might need some more resources because we have this new book of business coming in that we don't really do right now. But if things remain largely the same as they are now, I can represent to you all that Ms. King has been spending pretty much that percentage of her time or more on almost entirely code enforcement matters for the last six months. So I think we're pretty much caught up on where we'd like to be on filing foreclosures that meet certain criteria of code enforcement liens. And unless there's some sort of significant change in that workload, we would be comfortable with where we are right now in that process. Well, I would say that's good news, and I hope that if circumstances change that you will come back to council. What I hope we can avoid is a situation where people feel, again, that things are stalled because it's insufficient staff to move on these foreclosures. And we have been trying to – recently we've been meeting more regularly, with code enforcement to try to identify those properties that appear to be the worst ones. So that's something additional we're doing. We welcome input from you all if you all want to have some sort of quarterly type get-together to get apprised of these things rather than having to ask the division individually. That would be fine, too. Thank you. My only concern is that we not be essentially called by constituents who say this has been held up and we don't have a good explanation other than there doesn't seem to be a sufficient staff. So you're assuring me that that's not the case now? From the law department's standpoint, from what we're doing, we're in good shape. I think that there may still be potentially a resource issue on Mr. Jarvis's end. And I think there were some discussions about maybe the best place to put that additional resource. But, you know, we work kind of on the back end of what they do, so there may be a need at the front end. He may need more additional resources to get that process more streamlined. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Kaye. Council Member Lawless. Thank you very much. On the hearing officers, that's a huge stall because somebody has X number of days to appeal depending on what the offense is. And then it can take a very long time for them to go before the hearing officer. So that is very frustrating because the escalating fines can't go into place, et cetera. I have many of those situations. And if any of you all, if you haven't ever been to a code enforcement appeal hearing, I would recommend you do so sometime. But my experience is whoever loses thinks that they don't know that person's a volunteer, and whoever loses always, not always, but oftentimes thinks that the hearing officer, no matter where they came from, are in somebody's pocket. You know, this is what it is. But that is a huge problem with so many of them. And secondly, I see a lot of backlog of properties that are ready for condemnation or the lien fees. And a lot of times, you know, giving them notice that it's going up on the master commissioner's list is going to be something that's going to push them to either pay it and fix it. And I absolutely agree that we need to look at these, how we determine, because so much of what we do is, and I was just talking with Council Member Akers about that, What applies in an urban 150-year-old neighborhood in the same application for a 20-year-old subdivision or a new one, it's very, very different. And so just like the house numbering address situation, and we did get a change in the sidewalk code of ordinance, sidewalk issues. So I'm all for that, but I really want to hear from Mr. Jarvis, and we really have to do something about the fines for violations, multiple violations, and moving that process along more quickly. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lawless. And if I could turn the chair over to my vice chair. Thank you, Council Member Henson. Dave, when we go through foreclosures, we're also at the mercy of the court as far as a time frame, correct? That's correct. It really depends on a lot of different factors. If it's uncontested, it obviously goes through a lot more swiftly. if it's contested it takes more time i think typically we're finding it takes about 60 to 90 days from the time we get an order of sale in place till the time it's actually scheduled for sale that would be one delay right there is just the backlog of properties that are for sale with the master commissioner so but your typical process in a best case scenario probably take if you can the other issue is getting them served but if you can get them served right away your best-case scenario, you might have it wrapped up in under six months once you get into foreclosure. Right. And did I hear you correctly as far as you recommend that the codes be examined to bring them more up to date? Well, I think if you're going to go, it really depends on which angle. If you all are comfortable with the content of it, then I think a demand-miss approach would be fine. I'm just suggesting to you all that to my knowledge we haven't had an entire comprehensive review of this section of the code I think in I think it's been like 15 or 20 years so it's been quite a while so if you really want it to be done right and to be comfortable with it that's something you might want to consider if if you pretty much like what it says now and you just want to tweak it a little bit then what we've drafted and included in here would only have to be revised probably a little bit more and you'd be where you wanted to be. Right. I know, like Council Member Lawless mentioned, there are properties in my district that have, it seems as though we're reporting them monthly, if not more often than that, for all different kinds of violations, I mean code violations most of the time, sometimes possibly waste management set outs. I know that I can represent to you all that as far as Kentucky communities go, we're at more of the cutting edge on the code enforcement stuff. We do use the process that allows us to put our liens at the front end of the pile in court so that we can try to get the property sold and stuff. There's a lot of communities, including Louisville, that don't do that. And so they go out and place a lien on the property. It goes in the chain on the date of recordation. and they've got no real mechanism to force a sale if that's what you end up doing. So the state law allows us to do this. We've done it this way ever since that state law was put in place. But my experience from talking to other communities is we're a lot different in them and how aggressive we already are in addressing some of these issues. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair. Thank you, Councilman Hanson. Back to you. Does anyone else have any questions? Thank you, Dave. Thank you. And then I guess are we ready to move on to the presentation from David Jarvis? Thank you, David. We will try again. Again, this is a response from the recommendations from the infill and redevelopment committee. The questions are numerically structured in here, so you can either follow along with the PowerPoint or you can just read along. And then I'll just try to hit the high points on this. I'll try to be brief as well. I know you've got a big agenda today. So the first recommendation was analyze the current fine structure to determine the changes that need to be made. We did that back in 2010. If you remember, council reviewed that. We actually doubled our fines back then from $1,000 to $2,000 a month. There were certain properties around town that were just sort of paying the $1,000 as a price of doing business. So we doubled those fines, and also we added the caveat of the $10,000 fine per parcel in 2010. That was instrumental in getting the Pennington Place apartments to change hands. And if you notice, the fine schedule is currently in Chapter 12, and that will be on the next slide. But on the impact really there, there were four major properties that were changed hands because of the increase in the fine schedule and the aggressiveness of the law department in going after foreclosure. Next slide. That's the fine schedule as it is in Chapter 12 right now. This can be accessed through the website. If you go on lexanandky.gov and look under Code of Ordinances, it's in Chapter 12. Again, we doubled that along the top there. That's the number of re-inspections that we do on a property. And then along the side there is a number of violations. So you can have 21 or more violations on a property. If we've been there five times, it's a $2,000 a month civil penalty. And I think usually the magic number is about $5,000. And then we have the law department petition the property to be foreclosed upon. And then what happens, though, a lot of times, you know, we're no different than a lot of communities right now. There's a lot of foreclosures going on. The economy's been bad for a couple of years now. so it takes a long time for those to get through the court system. And if they're contested, it may take a very long time to get through the court system. So we've been experiencing that. Question two, recommendation two, review code to determine certain provisions are too restrictive. We did that as well in 2011. As Council Member Lawless said, we rewrote the sidewalk criteria to allow for more repairs versus replacement. Again, we were going through the new engineering specs for sidewalks. And I don't know if you've been over in Chevy Chase. There's probably not many sidewalks over there that would meet the criteria for new construction. So we did do that. I've had seven meetings with the law department to review and approve the code violation and guidelines for housing. Nuisance. Mike Sander and I, we've met several times on that. 24-hour emergency forms were reviewed and approved by council. If you remember, we did that back in March. That was when we do the 24-hour emergency. A lot of the set-outs like we're on Broadway and that sort of thing, so that's been reviewed and approved. Recommendation three, update the standard operating procedures, have approved by council. We have a complete updated version, and it was reviewed by Commissioner of Public Safety. We can submit that to you. I don't know how common practice that is for a committee to review SOPs. I really don't know. There may be some confusion with the SOPs. SOPs are standard operating procedures. That's our day-to-day operations, call-in policy, smoking in the vehicles. I mean, so I think maybe that recommendation probably would have been more administratively, the administrative guidelines versus standard operating guidelines. But, again, we have updated those. And if you notice, there's an example about the limit of mowing a foreclosed property three times with a $1,500 limit. Before, you know, we were having to be the lawn care company for a lot of banks. the properties would be in foreclosure and either we'd maintain them or they'd grow to be three feet tall. So now we have some guidelines, and Commissioner Mason has reviewed those and proved those. Again, there's just an example of one of the SOPs that we have. Fourth recommendation, post a link to the property maintenance code on our website. We've done that. We were recently given permission from IT to be our own internal webmaster. Before any changes for our website, they had to go through IT. We've been given that freedom now. There were some issues with ICC, that's the International Code Council, about copyright issues. They didn't want us to post a copy of the code on our website, but they were kind enough to let us post a link to their website, and it does contain a complete version of the 1998 property maintenance code. And they were really nice about it. They had archived that, but they pulled it out of archives, and now it's back on their website. So you can access the entire code from the link on our website. So that's been done. Again, post a copy of the standard operating procedures on our website. I think we could probably pick and choose some of those that we want to post. Again, I'm not sure the public would be interested in smoking in the cars and calling procedures and ergonomically correct workstations. And so, again, we may want to pick out, like, routing of trunk cars, weeds, that sort of thing. We'll post those on there. And, again, I can meet with law and see what they feel is important enough to post, you know, on the website. But that can be done. The administrative procedures, they are on our website. If you go to LexingtonKY.gov and look up Chapter 12, all of the administrative procedures are in there. The hearing officer, the time to appeal, everything is on there. Number six, post a copy of the field inspection form on our website. That has been done as well. My webmaster, Rob Walter, in-house has been working diligently on that, and he has that on there now. So we feel really good about that. Seven was make appropriate portions of the code database available to the public. The problem we have with that, we have a standalone system. We're not a web-based system. Our system was built internally by IT back in the late 90s, so really we don't have the ability to make anything available to the public from the website, but you can go on the LexCalls website, and you can track a property through a tracking number and see when it was assigned and who it was assigned to. So there is ability to track general information about a code enforcement property through LexCalls, but as far as getting to the internal workings, you can't do that currently. But again, future, with an Excel integration, we may be able to do that. We're hoping to maybe ride along the tailcoats of building inspection, planning, and maybe slide code enforcement in there. Number eight was redraft the notice and letters and sent to violators to make them more friendly and informative. We've done that. Again, that's been complete. We're currently using a 30-, a 60-, and 90-day system, and that is codified in the operating procedures that you all looked at back in 1998. Typically, you're given up 30 days to comply, 60-day final letter. 90-day, we tell you we're going to fine you. So that's the typical lifespan of a violation. If you'll remember, again, we rewrote the 24-hour emergency notice, and that's been approved by council. So those have been approved. Again, meetings with the law department approved. And we'll continue to review those and approve those as we go along. If we decide to go with a different code, if we decide to go with an internal code, however we do that, we'll strive to always be better no matter what we do. Request funds in the next budget for paralegal for the vacant property review board. We did that. The position was not funded, although we have been meeting with a few other divisions, and there may be some leeway to where that position may be better suited in social services because if we can avoid maybe the issuance of fines and placing liens, that may be better for everyone. I mean, I don't know if our mission would really be to issue as many fines as we can and to foreclose on as many properties as we can. If we could short-circuit that process of an elderly person's house falling into disrepair and then we're piling on the fines, so maybe there could be some resources there to direct them to repair fare, community action, housing and community development. We're looking at that. It says monitor the officer's files to determine if timeframes and paperwork are consistent. We do that constantly. It's ongoing, and we'll continue to do that through monthly reports. Each inspector has a monthly report printed out and given to a supervisor. Those are reviewed. There are weekly meetings with supervisors. We always bring up certain properties that we're having problems with. We recently added into this past month a monthly meeting, as David was saying. We meet with the law department now monthly. It's the first Wednesday of every month at 930 to discuss any problem properties such as Pennington, 3rd Street, 2nd Street, the ones that all come to the radar, the ones that make it to the paper, because usually there's some underlying issues there somewhere. And all actions by inspectors are reviewed by supervisor. and again, we clarified the nuisance abatement on foreclosed properties with the memo under the SOP through Commissioner Mason. 11 was followed procedures outlined in the standard operating manual for comprehensive inspections. We do do that ongoing. We actually were at a neighborhood meeting last night over on Thompson Road with a PowerPoint to explain what we do, what we're looking for, the time frames, and that again, that's in the manual that was approved back in 98 about the way that we go about sweeps, comprehensives. Of course, we take recommendations from council members that they request we do a sweep, or we'll take requests from neighborhood groups. Police department, we've done that as well. So if we've got an issue in a neighborhood, we will do a sweep, and we notify the neighborhoods and let them know we're coming. And that's it. Questions? Thank you, David. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I'd like to say I don't know how code enforcement has time for any other part of the city as much as you all respond to the 3rd District. We have two vacancies right now that we're trying to fill. Well, Godspeed. And one of the things you said was the International Property Maintenance Code. Yeah. Right. That they had to bring it out of the archives. Is that because they have updated it? No. What they do is they put out a new version of the code every two to four years, depending on what code it is. They rewrite the code because, I mean, in reality, they make changes to it. We're dealing with a property maintenance code, though, which is different than a building code. No, I'm talking about the one you said was archive. Right, exactly. There are new versions of that, but we've always felt the 98 was more comprehensive because it deals with issues in Lexington that a lot of people don't deal with. It's such an overcrowding. We have some overcrowding issues in certain areas, and the 98 version actually lays out the requirements from overcrowding. And a lot of the newer codes, they try to shy away from that. That's a whole issue they don't want to touch. And again, I see C's in the business of selling code books. I mean, that's what they do. We've always thought 98 was perfectly suited for Lexington. The other thing, you know, I was on council when we passed the escalating funds. And because there are so many properties where, oh, it's just the cost of doing business. Right. And one of the things, there is a bog in the system somewhere that we need to look at. And, for instance, there's a property where the ND1 and the lot split, and that has been going on for three years. Absolutely. And it's just outrageous. and, you know, the neighborhood, the people that have to live around it, it's a safety issue as far as I'm concerned. It's certainly an attractive nuisance. And, you know, this, a lot of times, I mean, five is a lot of violations in one inspection. Sure. So that's $100. Right. and then they may appeal it, and then they wait until the last minute to appeal it, so they've had all this time, and then they've been given 90 days, and then they get another notice and they appeal that, and it doesn't get. So I would be all for on these chronic properties to up it and up the fine escalation, But I also think maybe there's something in the new code, whatever it is, ICCC, that we're missing. So I'm all for that. But again, and there are some things that we need to look at, especially with the consent decree. Right. Because, you know, there are yards in my district that chronically will have 200 cigarette butts in the front yard. And it's up on a hill and it rolls down into the street where there's no curb. Right. So, I mean, those kinds of things, and I don't, you know, so that's, thank you very much. Well, as Mr. Barber was saying, we're very aggressive with our code enforcement. If you look at other jurisdictions around the country, and I've been to several of those, we are extremely aggressive. There are no other code enforcement divisions that have a $10,000 per parcel fine. You know, we have a whole office dedicated to code enforcement. Usually it's two or three guys that are stuck on a zoning team or even in a police department somewhere. So, I mean, we're very fortunate. And, you know, I think it shows in a lot of the nicer neighborhoods we have and stuff. Right. We're aggressive. The ones that, I mean, there are streets in my neighborhood that you'll do a sweep. You and waste management, et cetera, will do a sweep. And by the Monday following, you can't tell anybody was there. It's already so trashed. Right. And so thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Council Member Hanson. Thank you, David. Just a couple of quick questions for clarification. What's the time period between the violations to go to a property at one time? What's the next time that you will go by to see if it's been abated? Typically, well, on an abatement, on a nuisance, 14 days, two weeks. But now if it's a housing issue, 30 days. Okay. Again, there could be other circumstances. It could be 24 hours if it's an emergency violation. If we go out and there's no smoke detectors in a house, we can do a 24-hour emergency notice and go back the next day. Okay. Right. So you have a – We do. We have the flexibility. We do. Right. Okay. Next question that I get a lot at the neighborhood association meetings are especially with the foreclosures and the lawns that haven't been mowed, and the neighbors will always ask, well, can we mow the lawns? Right. What's your response? I wouldn't recommend it. I wouldn't recommend going on someone's private property. I mean, they could be injured. You don't know what's in that yard. There could be auto parts, tires, because typically that's what we see. Typically, a foreclosed property has been walked away from and they haven't been treated very well. But I would just call code enforcement. Again, we have our caveat now, our three mows and 1,500 limit. And council was great enough to give us the $200,000 budget so we can get it done. We don't want to be Bank of America's lawn care company. But then again, if it's an issue, we can take care of it. But sometimes it lasts longer than that. Sometimes foreclosure. And you know what you do. Foreclosures can go on for a long time. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. David, so what if a lawn needs to be mowed more than three times? Then what happens? Well, that's a decision that we would make depending on we would go back to whether it was a public safety issue. Is it near a school? Is it near daycare? Is it impeding the sidewalk or traffic? Is it a traffic hazard? And if we have to mow it more, we will. We'd like to have sort of a litmus test that says three and that's it. Because at least we can tell a citizen that. We will do it three times. Because, again, do we just keep on mowing these properties in our foreclosure? I mean, I totally understand. So if it's not a public safety issue, then you all are saying that at the end of three times, we're done. We're hoping that's by August and it's 105 outside. Right. You get to May, June, July. August is coming up, so we've got them three times. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for bringing in your presentation. It's awesome to have you here today. And I have a few questions for you. In terms of when you go out for a complaint like low-hanging trees, there's two issues there. Sometimes it's on the street side, so the street sweep can't come through. Sure. The other side is on the sidewalk side, so people walking, pushing baby strollers and things can't get through. When you go out and notify the property owner that they have X number of days to bring those trees into compliance, what happens next? Well, usually street trees are handled by the urban forester. That's handled through streets and roads. What we handle is sidewalk obstructions. If the bushes are out blocking the sidewalk, we'll notify them. In 14 days, we'll go out and hire a contractor and cut them back. Okay, so that same tree on the sidewalk side you would take care of, but you don't take care of the street side. That's right. Okay. What is your process? I know you said you've updated your SOPs and things. One of the issues we have in certain neighborhoods is that you guys will go out, leave the door hanger saying your trees are out of compliance. You have a certain amount of days before you go back and follow up. But then I'm not sure if that's where the ball's dropped or what because they're not getting cut by you guys. Again, that's the urban forester through streets and roads. They have an inspector, John Saylor, who goes out and does the door hanger that says trim the tree. And I don't know what their criteria is for coming back and trimming. Okay. I'm sorry, I thought you said that if there are bushes or something obstructing the sidewalk. A sidewalk obstruction, you know, a bush, not a tree. But if there's a bush growing out of a sidewalk, we'll site the property in 14 days and we'll go cut it back. But now a street tree is totally different. So you won't do a tree that's obstructing the sidewalk, only a bush? Only Bush, right. Okay. Yeah. And I think, Councilman Myers, the reason that was back when the tree board, our guys were butchering them. Okay. Right. Okay. Those are street trees. Those things are protected. And, you know, you don't want our guys cutting on them. Okay. Right. That helps me a lot, though, because I'm talking to the wrong person about that one. When you talked about on slide number nine that there may be room for social services to get involved, Have you met with the Commissioner of Social Services and asked what do you think in there? What would social services provide? Just guidance for someone maybe low income, elderly, someone that has fixed income. They receive a notice from code enforcement. Right now there's nothing that says, hey, there's a person you can call that can walk you through this process. Do you think you qualify for any kind of assistance? And we think that a social worker in social services that would be referred to from the code enforcement notice, that they could walk that citizen through that process. You know, not everyone's going to be eligible, but a lot of people would be. And we just think it would be better served to catch it on the front end before we get a property that's been cited for a year by code enforcement. Now we're at $5,000 in civil penalties, and we're going to foreclose on it because they can't paint their house. So what's the commissioner of social services? I know that they're short-staffed also, so I'm trying to understand how they would be able to. We would actually create a position in their division. And when they're not doing a code enforcement issue, they could be used for something along their lines. So we had the meeting, and she welcomed it. Commissioner Mills did. Okay. Well, if you're going to create a position to do the work, that makes sense. Right. The two vacancies that you have, what are those positions, and what's the status on that? We have a vacant housing, that would be code enforcement officer, 113N. We have a vacant nuisance control officer. We were in the process of hiring the nuisance control officer, and we've had some budgetary issues come up. We think we can put that off for another couple, three weeks and get through the links process, get through the budget, and then reexamine it at that time. We are funded. It's in my budget to have those positions. But at this time, we're just putting them on hold. I think there's even some new regulations coming through HR as well about as far as getting the list of candidates and that sort of thing. So the positions are funded? They are. So what's the holdup? I think logistics just right now. Okay. And then for me, part of the issue with code enforcement is you're redoing a lot of things here that you show, but where do you show, for example, can we get a copy of the SOPs that have been updated? Absolutely. What I'm interested in is when you've updated these, how are things tracked? So if you come out and do a sweep, certain things have been cited, certain things need to be done. You guys have to go back and re-inspect. Did you outline in the new SOPs who is responsible for making sure that the subsequent visits have been done and that either the work was completed and it was checked off or the work wasn't completed and now we start the ball rolling for the next level? Right. No, there's a file checklist, and every time they do an inspection, within that file is a file checklist. The supervisor has to approve that work. If they come back in and close the case out, they have to show a photo of the property that's been closed out, and they check off on that. So there are checks and balances all through the system. Anytime they issue a civil penalty, the photo has to be taken. The supervisor has to approve it. So, in other words, we won't let them close anything out unless it's been looked at. Okay, my time's up. If I could ask one more question, though. So the photos that are taken, do they go into the system so they're part of that file? The hard file, the paper file, yes. Right. We don't actually input them electronically. They're part of the paper file. Okay. And is there a certain amount of time that people have to close out their files? Typically, 90 days, a civil penalty has to be issued within 90 days. The computer system will kick it out and it has to be approved by a supervisor. Now, there can be multiple fines issued on a property. Again, it could be in foreclosure as well. But 90 days at the most, a property can go without a fine. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. I don't know if Council Member Kay or Acres have already spoken. They've both spoken. This is my second time. I'm concerned about social services and did you say they were, because we have the vacant property, are you suggesting that Would they be involved in the vacant property? No, not at that point. Right now we're just looking at the position. What would put them over vacant properties? You know, and that's something that's really out of my shop as well. I think the Vacant Property Review Commission was sort of in planning. I don't think code enforcement ever funded or ever was involved in the Vacant Property Review Commission. If memory serves me correct, I think Harold Tate may have spearheaded that. But Commissioner Paulson, maybe I'll answer that more than I can as well. Well, okay. Let me ask another question. The other issue is I know I've had some properties that were foreclosed and one pretty recently that was in a historic neighborhood. And they were reticent to because this poor little old lady lived there. She hadn't lived there in forever. It had holes this big in the roof. Sure. Black mold. I mean, it was a nightmare. But, you know, so the family's often, or whatever, oh, you know, she's just, you know, we don't want Mama to lose her house. So, yes, legitimately, sometimes that's an issue. But taking that position and putting it in social services, you know, There's another one over there now that we have the right to entry, hopefully passing, one where the guy has all the tires in the backyard and sits on his porch with a shotgun. Right. And that's an owner-occupied also. So I really think we need to look at that and why social services would be in that loop. And that's just from my perspective. Well, again, you know, and if it's decided that the paralegal position would be in our shop and dedicated to filing liens and foreclosures, you know, that would be fine with us. I mean, we just thought a nicer, softer approach would have been a social service aspect. Yeah, well, I'm a social worker, and I'm not going to the guy's house with the shotgun. Right, and I think the idea behind it is, again, as David has alluded to, it's not to deal with the vacant properties as much as those people who are truly – one of the things about Code Enforcement, when we balance this fine line, is for those people who are truly just sort of working the system, we want to bring the hammer. For those that are just truly in need, we need to find a way to help them. And that's really what this idea was, was would this be better served from trying to really hammer out these people or would it be better served by trying to work to get them assistance? And in the discussions with social services, the idea was that if we could link these people up, a social worker type person could link them up with the available services through nonprofits already existing in the community, that that would help those people who truly are in need of those services. And again, it's not everyone, but that's kind of the way. Is it easier for us to work with social services who are already dealing with some of these people possibly? I think that was the rationale behind it, rather than code enforcement trying to ferret out, okay, who best to deal with in these situations. Well, again, in my experience, and that's just the third district, Like either someone has stepped in and tried to help and the person, for whatever reason, mental status, et cetera, would not allow the help. Or they were, you know, they weren't particularly up front about the situation. So I can't think of, I mean, I think that certainly there are people that fall through the holes, through the cracks or the holes in the roof and floor. But, you know, when you have that kind of blight in a neighborhood, and so that's, you know, and I can't imagine why, you know, a vacant property would be in that. And, again, we need to do something about ramping up this system on these chronic offenders and look at some code issues around trash in the yards that get in the stormwater. I'm sure that's not only in the 3rd District, but it is pretty prolific in many areas, broken glass, all that stuff. So thank you very much, and thank you. Real quick, I know the Vacant Property Review Commission was brought up briefly. That has been a commission that's been around but not really been active over the last years. We are working on getting the final appointments for that commission so that we can work on those vacant properties. And, again, I don't think the idea behind this position that is being mentioned now is to deal with those vacant properties as much as it is for people who are owner-occupied in those. But the vacant property review commission will be hopefully constituted here. Legislation came out of that commission that was passed by council. Well, it's actually, well, it's not, legislation has come out of it. It is an actual commission, much as the Planning Commission is a commission. It just has not been enacted. It came about during the Newberry administration, but it has not been, actually, I don't believe they've ever actually met. So we are working on appointments to fill those positions. There are a few designated positions. You have to have specific people that fill roles, and we are working on those final appointments so that we can get it up and moving. is quickly sponsored. Yeah, and I think we can get somebody to, because they did write legislation on vacant properties. They did meet. I was involved with the writing and the re-review of that several years ago. Yeah. And where we are right now is trying to actually place, appoint the members of the vacant property review commission so that they can actually do the work that is enacted by that. Okay, thank you. And my time's up. Thank you. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. First, I want to recognize that a couple people from the Infill and Redevelopment Committee have come, and I want to thank them for coming, my co-chair Tony Barrett and Dennis Anderson. And it may be, I don't know, if they have comments after council members have spoken. I don't know if they have an interest, but they might. I just want to thank them for being here. And then turning to the substance, David, I really read your responses very differently from the way that you do. And so what I would like to do, if you don't mind, is I'm going to walk through these slides and I'm going to make some comments and I'm going to ask some questions. And I'd like you to hold or make notes or do whatever you need to do until I've finished walking through the slides and then I will ask you to respond. So if we start with number one, analyze the current fine structure. The first bullet says that's completed. It was approved by Council in 2010. The Infill and Redevelopment Committee was well aware of what happened in 2010. They recommended in the fall of 2012 that it be done again to ensure that it was working efficiently and to evaluate instances involving the worst offenders and repeat offenders, as Council Member Lawless has mentioned. So the question, which eventually I'll get to, but have you reevaluated that system, and do you have any recommendations for change? On slide three, update standard operating procedures and have them approved by council. The question here is not the administrative procedures that regulate how someone drives in their car or whether they smoke. The question was, are there any procedures written that would help someone from the outside determine whether there are criteria for determining when and how exceptions are made? And are there notes in the record that would indicate that those procedures have been followed? On slide six. I just had a curiosity about this. We asked for a response six months ago. It's actually been closer to eight. And now you say this will be done within two weeks. I'd like to know why it was not able to be completed in time for a report to this committee today. And on slide eight, it's redraft the notice and letters sent to violators. the infield committee reviewed these and you agreed to redraft them in October 2011 and you agreed again in August of 2012 specifically for the 30 60 90 day system I don't think we have that yet the 24 notices reviewed and approved by council much 2013 only applied to emergency notices for abatement and we did not have previously any form for that so that was completed and finally on slide 10 it says all actions by inspectors are reviewed and approved by a supervisor the question is this have you drafted procedures for that review who monitors that review what records are kept, and are there criteria by which those decisions are made that are relatively objective? I appreciate your comments. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Well, again, back on slide one, I've met with law on seven occasions to review the letters, to review all of the fines that are suggested. Again, if you look at us versus Louisville, We're double. We have a $10,000 per parcel civil penalty. I think that's pretty restrictive if you look at a $10,000 parcel for violation of a maintenance code. So, again, we've looked at those, and we feel they are adequate. And, again, as counsels looked at those and approved them. Now, I can't make the motion to say, okay, take all the fines and let's put them back in front of counsel, and you guys get to vote on them again. But on my end of it, I've looked at it. Law departments looked at it. We feel they're sufficient. Actually, very aggressive. Slide three, update to standard operating procedures. We'll be glad to submit a copy of those to you. And, yes, there are procedures in there that outline day-to-day operations when you deal with field inspections, when you deal with notices, re-inspects, every one of those. And we can post those on the web if you'd like. Again, there are some in there that are just sort of, I don't know, day-to-day that I don't think the public could have much interest in. But we can put those ones on there that talk about when you get an extension, what's the next step, how to route a weed complaint, how to do a board up, all of that sort of thing. And that's in there. the field inspection form again we were recently given permission by it to be our own webmaster before everything had to go through it if we made it if we made a um a request to put something on the web they had to do it for us we weren't allowed to do that we're now allowed to do that when i came up with this powerpoint along with commissioner pausen's help we had not accomplished that yet because rob walter in my office was still working on that we really had to figure out how to do it, and we've done it. Number eight, redraft the notices and letters sent. Again, the law and I have met seven times to look at these. We feel they're sufficient. Could they be more user-friendly? I guess they could, but the fact that we're going to issue a civil penalty that may lead to foreclosing on your property, I don't know how friendly we really want to be. I think we need to let you know up front that this is an issue, and we're addressing it. So I don't know on one end we say we're going to file you. On the other end we say, well, don't take us too serious. So, again, we think that they're sufficient the way they are. And the 24 notices, actually that was a 24-hour notice. That was the emergency. And, again, we've reviewed those. We've reviewed the 30, 60, 90-day, and we feel comfortable with them. The 90-day letter says, the final letter, you have three days to contact us. If you don't contact us within your 380s, we are filing a civil penalty in the amount of, and it's got the dollar amount in that letter that says, this is what we're going to fine you. Ten was the paperwork in the SOPs. Again, you talk about all actions are monitored by the supervisor. Absolutely. The SOPs lay it out, how they're to do their job, when they're to issue the fines, when they're not to give an extension or an extension, and I'll get copies of those to you all. That's it. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Akers, Council Member Stennett has not spoken. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Peggy. Thanks, Council Member Stennett. David, I also want to echo what Council Member Lawless was saying about social workers and vacant property and code enforcement. As a social worker myself, I am not interested in code enforcement or buildings falling in and porches and dangerous situations or dogs and that kind of thing. And if the property is vacant, I'm not sure that it would need a social worker intervention. But that being said, I do understand that if somebody's a hoarder or someone has physical disabilities, they can't maintain their property and they would need to be referred to social services. And I agree with that. But I wanted to ask, you mentioned when Council Member Myers was asking about the pictures, do you all maintain electronic files or only paper files? Normally paper files. Everything we do has to be in the paper form because we're subject to open records requests. I see. So you take digital pictures and then print them for the paper file. That's right. Okay. You can tell by our copier budget every year. Yeah, that's what I was just, I was like, well, if they keep an e-file and they have digital photos, they should just merge all of that electronically instead of. And back to the social worker, you know, the idea of the social worker wasn't planned to assist them, you know, with dealing with vacant properties and dogs and roofs falling in. What happens? A little old lady will get cited by code enforcement for her gutters falling off. well, then we go out in 90 days and we issue a $1,000 civil penalty. And before we know it, we're at $5,000. And if someone would have intervened six months ago and maybe got her in contact with Repair Fair, maybe we wouldn't be at the foreclosure at the courthouse steps because her gutters are falling off. That was the idea behind that. But your enforcement officers don't have those kinds of basic referrals or that kind of stuff? I mean, because it just seems like an extra step. like to, well, let me just pass you off to this department because I can't just, here's a form that has, you know, repair affair or whatever, the basic referrals for, now if it's something serious, then I can see social services, but if it's something that can be fixed on the property and the owner or tenant isn't capable of fixing it, then it seems like code enforcement could have a basic list of referrals and phone numbers, et cetera. We do. we refer to housing and community development all the time. Repair affair at times. You know, repair affair is not every year. We just thought if there was a position that was, you know, was set up to where they could assist these people. There may be, you know, we don't know all of the avenues out there to assist, you know, people with repairing their houses. And again, we really don't have time. I mean, our guys are running ragged right now. You know, they're doing probably 12, 15 inspections a day. And to have to try to follow up and meet with someone and try to get funding for them, that's just not what we do. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Merced-Dennett. Thank you, Chair. David, go back to something that Councilman Myers had asked about, about your staffing. Yes. And you have two vacant positions? We do. One nuisance, one housing. Right. As you know, I've asked about this in the last couple of weeks. I'm trying to follow, and you just said something that struck me as trying to understand the rationale for getting rid of a position in this year's budget when you said your guys are running ragged right now. That's right. So why are we getting rid of positions in housing, whether it be housing or nuisance? When we're all sitting up here explaining about the processes not being where we may want them in the future, we're all explaining about situations we're having, but we're getting rid of a code enforcement officer. I remember how hard you fought three years ago on the previous administration to get more people. So, again, help me understand why are we getting rid of somebody in next year's budget? Well, we're not really getting rid of them. We're funded for them. They're in the budget. We just haven't filled them yet. I guess we're waiting to see how the budget shakes out before we fill those positions. I would love to fund them tomorrow, and we've requested that. But, again, I understand the budget's tight right now. I'm willing to work with the administration and see where we come out of this thing. But July 1, when it's codified and ready to go, I'm going to be on HR's door trying to get those positions filled. Okay, so you're not losing? No, I was told, and I have the email in front of me, three positions. We do. One's going away. That's right, code enforcement officer. But we're keeping the two. The two that are currently vacant. We gave up that one position under Mayor Newberry. Why are we giving up in this next budget, though? Well, just the funding issue, I guess. Again, we want to do what we can to help out in the big picture of things. So help me understand why the two are vacant right now while we're waiting until July 1. Retirement. We had one go to Water Quality and one retire. Why not go ahead and hire? Again, logistically, I was just told to hold off if we could. Well, who told you that? Because I'd like to hear why. Because you just said it. Your guys are running ragged. You're doing 12 to 15 a day. There's no reason why we should have a hiring freeze in code enforcement, none whatsoever. So if someone's making that call, I think the committee has a right to know who's making that call and why. Right. Sure. So who is it? Mr. Mason, but I don't know if you can answer that or not. It's a bigger picture idea, I believe. Well, I mean, we're sitting here, and here's what the public needs to understand, and here's what the calls were getting. A $44 million surplus in 2012, fund balance. and we've narrowed it down what's left, maybe $7 million I think is left, and we're not hiring code enforcement because of budget issues. It doesn't add up. During the project preparation process, there were three vacancies. We asked him, in discussion with him, he offered up one of the vacancies to not fill. The other two, we said, let's see how the budget proceeds. I think at one point there had been an applicant pool for one of those that did not produce a satisfactory candidate. And so that's part of the glitch he's talking about in terms of the delays. Well, I mean, I hear a lot of commentary amongst my colleagues. I'm not sure that answer is acceptable. Well, again, today being May 7th, are we not out there hiring these two people? Are they advertised? We advertised for the nuisance position, and the code enforcement officer had just recently retired. But the nuisance position, we were in the process. We got a list of names. We weren't real happy with the names. And I believe there may be a new state law that says we get the entire list next time, not just the top five. Well, that's June 25th. That's right, and we're waiting anxiously. So you're waiting another 45, 50 days until June 25th for that state law change. I mean, that's a whole different answer than what we just heard. I believe we'd get a better fit. If that's the answer, then I understand that. Yeah. I believe we'd get a better fit. That's for the nuisance officer. That's right. What about the housing? You know, we could go at any time, I guess. Yeah. Well, I mean, again, I hear amongst my colleagues and myself, why aren't we moving now? I was just instructed to, you know, just let's see where we are in budget-wise. We'll get through another 45 days if we have to. Well, we've got over 30 days left in the fiscal year, and I'm not sure entering into our busiest season, and given the amount of rain we just had the last three days, you're going to be busy. Absolutely. And we're already starting to get those calls today. I think that's a serious concern. I think that's one of the areas in government we shouldn't be holding up positions on. Sure. I agree. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I'm sure my colleagues will follow up. I see the list. Yeah, thank you, Council Member Stenet. I think we have several Council Members that have smoked, smoked, spoke, excuse me. They're smoking multiple times. So I'm okay with letting them speak again if the rest of the committee members are. Well, it seems like you speak a lot. No. But if everyone's okay with it, we'll continue on. And we do have one more item that's a rather probably lengthy discussion as well, so just to make everyone aware. And this item will remain in committee. So, Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I spoke once on the other issue when our attorney was up, So this is my only second time on this one. David, I'm glad that Council Member Stenet brought up the issue because my time had run out before when we were talking about this. If you'll think back when, under the last administration, we put the money in the budget for these positions for you. Right. If you were to go back and look at the tape, I had an argument with the then Chief of Staff for the Mayor because the Council voted 15-0 to put the money in the budget to hire these people. We have listened to our constituents. We spoke to the administration and said we wanted these positions filled, and he refused to fill them. So my question to the administration in the past was, what reasonable expectation does the council have that if it authorizes and directs the administration to do something, that it gets done? And so I guess we're back to that same situation here because it's the same. Nothing's changed. We want these positions filled. So I'm going to give you one more time to say who directed you because I just heard from a commissioner that you offered up a position. Right. If you offered up a position, we know how that works to you. You're encouraged to offer up the position. Sure. You asked for the positions before. We know you want them. So who has held up the hiring of these positions? Well, I mean, we have code enforcement. I mean, I'll take the responsibility for it. We feel that this time, that with the budget, the way it hadn't played out yet, we don't know where we stand. Again, I would love to hire them. Okay, let me, because my time is going to run out. Sure. Thank you for your answer. What I guess I'm going to suggest to my colleagues is that maybe we consider making a motion to pass out of this committee, authorizing and directing the mayor and administration to fill these positions immediately. Second. So moved, and I hear a second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Finally, David, you talked about the records that you keep being paper records or dry records because you're open records level. But isn't all of government open records level? I believe. But I believe the records we keep, though, are more written. What we send up property owners, we keep a copy in the file, the photos, the re-inspects. Anytime we issue a civil penalty, we file a lien. Let's go in there. Okay, let me ask you this. Okay. We have a Liberty IMS, the Information Management System. Building Inspection uses that. They put all their records in there. The state has approved that as a way of codifying and keeping records. Can you not use that system so that it's easily available and accessible rather than a hard copy file that's very hard to access? Technically, I don't think we can. I don't think we have software to do it. I don't believe we know that it will work with the system we have. Again, we built our own system. That's where the devil in the details lies. When you build your own system, you're kind of corned. Okay. I know. Okay. Ken, I would ask that we look into this because everybody in government that has a computer has access to Liberty IMS. I realize if you're using a different system, you guys still should have access to be able to log into Liberty. and you can keep your files the way they are, the hard copy, but also to make those electronic because if people are doing open records requests, it's a lot easier to get that information if it's electronic. Absolutely. It's a lot easier to maintain it too. Sure. The last thing I'd say is I would appreciate if you would give us copies of all these things because in your presentation it talks about how you've done things, but we don't get to see that. And I'll give you an example. On the 24-hour notice, that's the one that you said was completed, but that's the one that the committee actually ended up giving you the language for that document in the process of getting it approved. So if we could see those and maybe just another set of eyes on them, maybe we'd find things even more, but I'm sure they're good the way they are. A copy of the, why don't we do the 30-60-90 letters also? That'd be great. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Council Member Myers. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, and thank you to my colleagues for allowing me to speak again. And I appreciate that you're up there taking... Getting grilled. But, and one thing before I get on that is the situation in the ND1 where the lot was divided. Right. A huge part of that was the result of the gross, egregious act by building inspection that you had no control over. And now that it's kicked into code enforcement, it still gets stalled, and I know you're doing what you can do. But that's a perfect example of we need to look at situations like that one and some others and say, what is the problem here? Because it's not you all. Right. And it is an egregious, that too, is a very horrible situation that they've been living with for almost, well, two years. Right. Right. And so that, but, and I was going to ask about the, why the electronic files, and I know you all do write those by hand, but it seems to me it might be a time for you all to go with some kind of iPad-ish thing so that you all can type those in and it all can be electronic. It's all legible and everybody can see it. Right. You know, if everybody can type, not everybody's that proficient. And that may come to fruition once we go under planning and we're part of, you know, the whole process. And we go with an Excel system. You know, it'll revolutionize what we do. Right. And it's frustrating to me, and you always reply quickly. And the other thing is I still don't understand why those positions weren't filled, and if Commissioner Mason could come up and help with that, I'd appreciate it. During the budget preparation process, we were looking at ways to keep the budget in a certain range. Who's we? The entire administration. And so in an effort to do that, I went back to all my divisions and had them reexamine some of their submissions, and we asked for him to hold off for the time being to filling those. He had one that was in process that, as we mentioned, the nuisance position, there was not suitable candidates. So how long have those positions been vacant? the nuisance position about three months and the housing about two okay so you directed him as commissioner yes yes well this preparation process would have been when were the budget meetings early early early april oh ceo hamilton would the chair recognize her please sally come on up Okay, let me start on my version of this. I'm going to read the email, if I can, because that keeps me straight, that Melissa Lugar sent to Council Member Stennett, who asked us this question. It was a good question he asked us about this. And so this is what we answered to him, because in all these budget conversations, I want to make it very clear that those people in that room, which was Bill O'Mara, myself, here she comes. She was one of them in the room. The whole room will start to come in now and fill up. Did not say, I'd like you to cut this position. That was not what happened. So, what we said was, we've looked into your question, this is to Council Member Stennett, about the elimination of a vacant code enforcement officer. And the following is what we have found. During the mayor's budget hearings for code enforcement, the director said one of the vacant code enforcement officers could be eliminated. It was his professional opinion the division could operate without this position. They had decided not to fill the position during the last fiscal year to help alleviate stress on the general fund and feel they can still operate without one in code enforcement officer. There are still two vacant positions in code enforcement in the budget. One is a code enforcement officer and the other is a nuisance control officer. The director acknowledged his intention to fill those two positions. So I do not want to leave the impression that that budget committee of which I was a part cut that code enforcement position. Thank you. Are you finished, Council Member Lawless? Well, my time's up, and I'm sure there are people that are relieved. Thank you. Thank you. I can speak real quick to the technology thing that was asked about that. Oh, just real quickly, can I apologize that Vacant Property Commission didn't meet. They just, you worked with several people that drafted the legislation, so I stand corrected in my apologies. As to the technology, that is one of the things we're hoping to move forward. David and I have been in talks, and the technology is very old. We know that the current code enforcement data system is one that was homegrown. If you talk to the IT folks, it has passed its life expectancy, so really it could die at any time. But we are looking to do things such as paperless forms. So could we put it, rather than on an iPad, maybe put it on a cell phone, put it on an iPhone or something of that sort and create a form? These are things we're looking into. I do have some software right now that we could test, and we're looking to do that. But we are trying to make it much more digital, much more electronic, to try to make it easier to track, to follow, and to have access to. We are looking to release some of that code enforcement data in the next open data release as well, so that the public will have access to what has come in, at least in a basic format. So people can see date, offense, some basic things that have come into the code enforcement database. But that is a big priority moving forward is to upgrade the database. We would hope to be able to put it into a CELA in the future, but I know this year we do not have a budget for it. But we're going to see what we can do in terms of upgrading that database and technology behind what code enforcement does in this next fiscal year as cheaply as possible. Thank you, sir. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. Okay, so it sounds like from what CAO, I'm going to say Commissioner, Hamilton said that you suggested forgoing one of the positions and that two have not been yet filled and that at the end of the last budget you didn't fill one so that you could save money in the budget. So while I understand those good intentions and management of departments and divisions, at the same time you can't stand at the mic then and say, we're overworked, we can't do our job, and when I call and ask for sweeps or I file complaints with constituents of what's happening in neighborhoods and I'm told by your officers that we don't have enough people, it's going to be a while, it's going to take a while, you can't do both things. You can't manage on bare bones and then say we can't do our job because you're choosing to manage on bare bones. Well, I'm not saying we can't do our job. What I said was we're overwhelmed right now because the time of the year it is. Right, right. You know, middle of winter. Why wouldn't you fill the two positions knowing it's spring and summer and this is the busiest time of the year? Again, you know, logistically, we can do our job. We can get by with what we have. We'll make sure of that. We're not going to let any services go unfilled. In a perfect world, we'd love to have an army of code enforcement officers. But that's not going to happen. We know that. You're saying that you can get the job done. Absolutely. But I don't think that from constituents' perspectives that you're getting the job done. And you just said that you're overwhelmed and maxed out and 12 to 15 a day. And I had your guys at my meeting last night, so I know they were there working late last night at my neighborhood meeting. So I think it's just contradictory. And so I am in agreement with my colleagues that we fill the positions now and that maybe we consider the third position reinstating into the budget. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Akers. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. I want to kind of loop back to where I started in my comments and make a few more if I can. And that is I want to start by saying that we've heard an awful lot about standard operating procedures. but in my mind the heart of what the infill and redevelopment committee has been interested in is procedures that indicate what the criteria are for making exceptions to the 30, 60, 90-day system. How do you do that? By what criteria, using what rationale, do you make exceptions to the rule that says you must do certain things within 30, 60, or 90 days? That's what we've not seen. That's what we've been asking for, and I would draw Council's attention in the packet, pages 7 through 10, which is the notes from the Infill and Redevelopment Committee in August, and I want to read just a small portion of that. In the middle of a couple of questions, I said, The goal is not to decrease flexibility but to increase consistency, accountability, transparency, and record-keeping so that anyone could review the files to determine if the action taken was reasonable and comparable to the enforcement of other properties. That's what's at the heart of the matter, consistency and enforcement, the rationale for it, the ability of counsel and other people to look at the record and see what it tells us. Now, what I know is if you look at code enforcement files, what you will see is, for example, a copy of a completion letter when the case has not even been entered into the database, so there's no record of the citation at one property. Multiple times when information has not been entered into the LexCorp system as required, multiple properties. Neighborhood meetings and door hangers when sweeps are conducted in one area, but nothing in terms of notification to a neighborhood when 14 addresses out of 26 on one street are cited. Two years without a civil penalty if you own or live in a particular property. That's two years without a civil penalty. Another property one year without a civil penalty. Another property, $1,000 civil penalty after six months. And finally, inconsistent mechanisms for enforcement with no notations in the file or procedure outlined. I have a couple other things. You can find my notes. I'm lost in the weeds myself. I did want to note that there is a standard operating procedure and set of policies that were adopted by Council in 1997. Right. One of those policies has to do with a complaint. A comprehensive notice has been generated. A 30-day notice will be issued for repairs if work is not completed at the end of 60 days, et cetera. The files simply don't reflect consistency with this policy when you look at the files. The last comment I'd like to make is that I believe that there is a fair amount of work still to be done. I don't believe that we've had the response that we either expected or hoped for, and I would like to recommend that we keep this item in committee, in this committee, until reorganization has occurred, at which time I would recommend that it go to my good friend in the planning committee, since this will, I expect, be under the planning commissioner, and that we continue to try and get what I would consider reasonable responses to reasonable requests for information and documentation that allows us to report back to constituents. Here's why that happened, and here's why that didn't happen. And you may have a perception of unfairness, but we have data and documentation that says that's not the case. Right now, we cannot defend actions, and as far as I'm concerned, that's unacceptable. Thank you. Was that a motion, Council Member K? Yes, I'll make a motion to keep it in committee. I don't think we need one. You don't need help. Clarification, is it going into planning or are you keeping it in this committee? I don't think we can move it to planning until the reorganization, so we ought to keep it here just so it's alive. And then I think at the appropriate moment we'll make a motion to move it to planning. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. David, I just want to say that I think from the reaction of everyone here that you know as well as I do that code enforcement is a critical part of protecting our neighborhoods. I think more than anything, code enforcement plays other roles. But I know my district, Council Member Myers, and I have had multiple conversations, Council Member Lawless. And when you are trying to protect neighborhoods to keep them from or maintain a high quality, but then you also have other areas that over time have just really become blighted, and to regain that character is even more difficult, and relying on code enforcement police is so very important. So I know you understand, and we'll continue to work on it, and I appreciate you being here with the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Council Member Stenet. I was just going to close on a positive note. David, we appreciate everything that you and your department do from top to bottom to be our front line, but I want to reemphasize what Council Member Hinson said. You're normally our front line. You're our number two call outside of garbage issues when we call in the Lex call. And that's not that we like having to deal with these as much as the citizen has to live next door and deal with them. But we were elected to do a job, and that's what I think we're trying to do. I think we've always supported code enforcement. When you needed more money, we got it. When you need more positions, we got it. And that's what I think we're trying to say. Tell us what you need. Tell us what your men and women of your department need to operate efficiently and effectively. So as you do this transition and move, I think it's an opportunity to build on what we've talked about here today and maybe make some changes that will help us all do our job better. So thank you for standing up here today. I know it was a tough task, but there's a lot of good that can come out of this, and we can all move forward working together. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Stenet. We'll move on to the next agenda item, which is the Division of Police Home Fleet Policy. Council Member Stenet, would you like to introduce? Thank you. Sure. As many of my colleagues know and for some of the new council members, last year during collective bargaining, it was bargained that the home fleet program would end as we knew it, and it would be a program that we would save about $800,000 a year for the four years of collective bargaining contract, which is roughly $3.2 million. And during that time, which was almost a year ago, it was being tracked once that program went into effect. and I know Commissioner Mason and Chief Bass and everyone here can speak and go into the details of the program. But this is just an update as to where we're at. Are we saving the money we anticipate on saving? And does there need to be any modification to that program as we see it standing today? So just an update, and if there's anything new to come out of it, we can take action accordingly. Thank you. Right. Thank you. Sure. As an update, this has been a consolidated effort between several entities here in the LFUCG to determine the savings with the home fleet policy change. And keep in mind, this has only been in effect since last fall, I believe September, October time frame. So it's seven months or so of data. But you can see the statistics there in terms of reduction in mileage-driven and reduction in fuel consumption. If we go to the next slide, this is actually kind of a bottom line. The estimated cost savings annualized in fuel and maintenance is going to be about $335,000. There is some new revenue that has been also included into the package where off-duty officers within Fayette County or officers that are within Fayette County who are working an off-duty job and drive their cruiser to that job pay a certain amount per month. That's bringing in on track for about $60,000 a year. and in the insurance and depreciation tallies of $268,000 and $119,000 respectively. So those totaled up on an annualized basis are coming in at about $780,000. So we're right on track with what we estimated would be the savings in terms of the home fleet change with police here in Fayette County. John Sheehan can speak much more to this chart, but it shows the monthly averages and the annual total for repairs, which is part labor and commercial, for police cruiser vehicles for the past three years. And you can see the $895,000 total for 2011, $853,000 for 2012, and $979,000 for 2013, which is a symptom of an aging fleet, which is why the capital plan has a significant amount of money in it to purchase somewhere in the vicinity of 50 or so new cruisers, which will also positively impact our gas mileage. The next slide is crime stats. I think you'd ask a question about that if you look at the totals up there for Part I crimes in the relevant periods, go from just over $17,000, under $18,000, and now back to just under $17,000. The 2011-12 crime numbers, a lot of that was driven by metal thefts. So really they're all within the same ballpark in terms of Part 1 crime, so we're not seeing a dramatic change in any one direction. The next slide shows personnel that are driving the cruisers. 167 officers reside out-of-county. 137 of those participate in the out-of-county take-home fleet program, which means they pay a certain amount for mileage to take their car to and from their residence only. And the sworn averages play a role in the entire calculation because of numbers of patrol officers especially that are out on the street. When that dips a little bit, then you're going to see some less usage. So there is some variance if you really get down into the statistics and weeds of what job sheets group and fleet have been able to derive from the data. The next slide is a summary of the out-of-county payment plan, which is averaging $9,000 a month, and the off-duty payment is about $5,000 a month. So that's the $168,000 that we're bringing in. The next slide is just a breakdown of those monthly averages. And the final slide on information tracking, the question was who is tracking this, and that's the list of the folks at the two divisions, fleet and division of police. It's tracked inside the chief's office with internal affairs in terms of the out-of-county and the off-duty officers that are making their payments every month. The Bureau of Administration, which is under Assistant Chief Stack, and then Division of Fleet and Facilities. So that's our summary of the gas savings or money savings with the take-home policy. I'm glad to answer any questions. Thank you, Commissioner. We have council members stand up. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner, thank you for that update. That's exactly what when I requested the presentation that we wanted to hear. Going back to a couple of the slides, how are we measuring the fuel consumption? We're just looking at our gas bill, basically. And she can speak to that. And then also the insurance and depreciation. Who specifically is measuring that? How is that even being measured? That is where calculations done by the previous Division of Budgeting Director. I've got his worksheet here from the negotiations that broke it down by how much personal use the vehicles were, depreciation and insurance. He looked at the total bill for general fund LFUCG insurance. The take-home fleet, he estimated some personal use and then subtracted that amount out and things. So he broke it down in all four of these categories as well. Yeah, but who is tracking that? I mean, has our insurance renewed since then? I mean, because I know Councilor Myers is in the business. I'm in that business. And that's one of the most difficult things to actually track. I mean, we can estimate what would be if this hypothetical, but is it actually occurring? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Did our insurance plan change so we know it went down? We've discussed with risk management in looking at it because really it's a cost avoidance factor. If there's less personal use driving or less driving, there's going to be less accidents presumably and those kind of things. So you're factoring in being self-insured, you're factoring in that we're not paying out on claims. So we won't be able to really identify if this worked or not until the end of the fiscal year basically or one year and see if the claims did reduce? Yes. That's what I was getting to. It's claim-based. It's claim-based, yes. Okay. I'm not in insurance. You know, I understand. No, I just want to, there has to be a mechanism or measurement, and if it's claim-based, we're assuming by that that most of the claims are made, or I don't know if it's most or how many are off duty. It's actually not most. Right. That's what I was getting to. It's actually a minority of the claims, but still in calculating how risk management looks at that. Well, as long as you are tracking it and giving it up, you know, putting a pencil to them, making sure we are saving it. Because if we're not, then obviously we need to do something else because it affects the whole budget. Right. And John, how are you tracking the fuel just basically on the pump, at the pump bill? Well, primarily we receive monthly reports from the fleet liaison with the police letting us know exactly which units are being utilized for take-homes. And based on those numbers, we go through the quantity of the fuel that's been used for specific units, and that's what we utilize. At this point, that is the best data we've got. And to be honest with you, you've only got about seven months of data, which is not even close to be sufficient to really be able to make a determination. In my opinion, you probably at least need to have close to about 24 months before you can really see a trend developing. But at this point, this is the best that we've got in terms of availability of data. And so we've been working closely with the police. As you can see, internally, they've been doing a very good job keeping track of what is going on because the issue is it's a moving target. They've got officers that retire, officers coming on, and so forth. So that's why we received this monthly list of what are the vehicles that are being impacted by the take-home. And when we calculate our potential savings, do we use a specific dollar amount for fuel? The fuel is primarily what we do is we look at that month fuel cost, and we'll get what we call a blended cost, a dollar per gallon, obviously. Good. And these are annualized numbers, right? I heard him say that. Yes. The numbers that we put in, we took the seven months data that we have, and then we consider what might be happening with the five months, considering the seasons coming up, obviously there would be more miles driven because of the operation of police and so forth. So we had to make a few assumptions, but we tried to be on the conservative side. So we were able to interpolate the data, and the best we could come up with right now is $335,000 overall. Very good. Thank you, John. Sure. Thank you for tracking this. And then maybe Chief Bassett can best the answers. I mean, I was interested on the crime stats. crime has actually gone down from this time period last year to this year. I know a lot of us feel like property crime have gone way up, yeah. But when you say reported crime, what does it mean by reported crime? And then are property crimes on a spike, you know, like your home rent burglary, stuff like that? Are we right now? And I hesitate to say this because I don't want to jinx it. The best time period that we have to compare crime data is for the first quarter of this year, with the first quarter of last year. As you remember, we changed the methodology that we used to report crimes. The FBI required it, and we went to a new system. It categorized it a little bit different, and it's really like comparing apples and oranges. So it's hard for us to make a comparison. We try to resist that at every opportunity. But comparing the first full quarter, which was the first quarter of last year, that we used under the new system with the first quarter of this year under the new system, things are looking really good. In all categories except auto larcenies, we've had four more cars stolen in the first quarter of 2013 than we did in 2012. Every other category is down. I hope this is real wood because I don't want to jinx it. We're in a good pattern. I don't want to stand up and claim victory or whatever because there's still a lot of time left to go in this year, and there are a lot of factors that affect crime. Well, thank you. I know you've worked with a lot less resources given the economy and things, So thank you. That's welcoming news, and let's hope it continues for sure. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't know who wants to answer this, whether it be the Commissioner or John Sheeter or Chief Bastin, but when you get your data at the end of the year and you look at the annual data on your insurance claims to try to figure out how much money was saved by this policy change, How will you calculate the opportunity cost of not having officers available to respond off-duty? Because that was one of the issues that was raised if they can't do the take-home. We have a log of how many calls the last few years were averaged. By off-duty? By off-duty. We have not had instances where there's been a huge back, many instances of a huge backlog of calls where officers on duty are waiting. We haven't had complaints from the citizenry. We, you know, I don't know how you calculate that in terms of a visibility in a community, but in looking at the crime stats, that one gauge doesn't tell us that there's a lack of visibility that's translating into more crime being committed. Right, but I guess maybe if you look at the number of cases where they responded off-duty and the number of backups that might happen, those two maybe will tell the story. I think we would have to drill down into that data and look at the types of calls they were doing, whether they were first responder nature with lights and siren, or are they driving down Nicholasville Road and stopped to render a motorist assist, and that person's waiting for AAA, and it just happens an off-duty police officer drives by to help with the call. And they call in on the radio, and then they're pretty much finished. But I think we would have to drill down into those 5,000 or so instances and see exactly what the nature of those calls were and break them up and look at it. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Thank you. Just real quickly, I think the off-duty police cruiser program serves a purpose other than just they're there to respond to calls or see something and stop. It also gives a presence in the neighborhoods where those police officers live. And I think that's an important thing to note. Well, keep in mind, these officers are driving them home. The cars are still parked at their houses. It's just strictly limited within Fayette County to home and work. Yes, I was applauding that and saying there's another benefit, and that is they're driving them through the neighborhoods on their way home or whatever, and they're sitting out in front of their house. So it gives a feeling of presence in our community in many ways, besides being able to respond when they're off duty. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Any other questions? And then we'll move on to the next. Thank you very much for being here, Chief, and John Sheet, for everyone for the work. Council Member Stenner, did you want to keep this in committee? So would you want to make a motion to remove it? Is there any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Then is there any discussion on the agenda items? If not, can I hear a motion to adjourn? All in favour. Thank you.