GILROY
– A fledgling city law aimed at beautifying neighborhood streets
will be getting some tweaking of its own over the next few
months.
GILROY – A fledgling city law aimed at beautifying neighborhood streets will be getting some tweaking of its own over the next few months.
The city is hammering out details of an administrative hearing process that would allow a staff person to act as judge and jury when Gilroyans are cited for violation of blight laws.
The process would be done in lieu of a ticket-to-court method staff says would be costly, slow and largely unproductive. Instead of directing offenders to the county court system, a city staffer would hear their arguments and use a formula to levy fines.
Keeping the process local means the city does not have to spend money to send its attorney to court. And typically, the city would be able to process each case more quickly than the crowded county system.
“We suffer in two ways. We need to staff the court appearance, and we don’t even get to recover the fines. It goes back to the county, not us,” Community Development Director Wendie Rooney said. “It’s really a lose-lose situation for the city.”
Rooney said processing the cases at City Hall will help to resolve many nuisance issues. Under the city’s codes now, violators are cited and then the city is done with the matter. Sometimes, nuisances do not go away, and a cycle of fines results.
“Having the administrative process here would help us work with people and resolves some issues,” Rooney said.
Rooney recalled an issue between two neighbors, one with a noisy spa. After the parties met, they were able to work out a resolution. Rooney says having the hearing process held locally would lead to more such opportunities.
“The bottom line is that we want to resolve issues, and this process will make that possible more than if we just send people to court,” Rooney said.
In these tight budget times, City Council members greeted the cost-savings idea warmly. But some drew the line at making staff decisions appealable only at court. Councilman Roland Velasco, during a recent City Council retreat session, said appeals should come before the Council.
“They elected us. I guess I feel a sense of duty to hear their complaint,” Velasco said.
The administrative hearing process could apply to more city ordinances than blight. Other nuisances and code violations, from fences higher than six feet to garage sales without permits, can be processed locally, too.
Rooney said staff is trying to work out a system that would incorporate a right to appeal to the City Council. Staff plans to present the new process to Council at a regular meeting in June.
Council unanimously approved the so-called residential blight ordinance this past fall. Under the law Gilroy residents who let rundown vehicles, overgrown weeds or excessive trash pile up on their front yards face $1,000 fines by the city if they don’t clean up their mess.
The law covers parked motor vehicles of all types, from cars to boats, as well as solid waste that are visible from a street or public right of way. The blight ordinance, for the first time in Gilroy’s history, gives residents a new tool to keep their neighborhoods clean. Until now, Gilroy only had aesthetic restrictions on commercial and industrial areas.
First fines can hit $100, second violations cost $200 and third violations run $500. For each additional violation after a third conviction, it becomes a misdemeanor punishable by a fine up to $1,000.
Staff responds to blight violations on a complaint basis. No patrolling is done.
According to the city’s code enforcement officer Scott Barron, the new law has made his job easier.
Because the new law covers more types of blight than before, he can usually issue a citation to a residence when a citizen has made a complaint.
“It’s definitely made a difference,” Barron said. “There are more tools to work with now.”
The new tools also can lead to a larger caseload for staff, which Barron said he is now seeing.
“I have more on my books now than I’ve ever had,” Barron said.
Barron said complaint levels have not increased significantly since the law was established – blight exists and complaints are made whether there is legislation or not. And Barron said his increased workload cannot be solely attributed to residential blight.
The blight ordinance was difficult for City Council to hammer out last fall. Everyone on the dais then supported some type of blight law, but there were many differences in how far to take it.
Back then, former Councilman Peter Arellano said often times one person’s blight is another person’s art. To control for subjectivity, the city ultimately passed a law that itemized which things cannot be stored in front of a residence.
In some sections of the ordinance, lists a dozen or more items long are used.
The lists make it easy to enforce actual violations, but Baron said there have been several instances where a residence was cluttered, but not with things that were on the list.
In those cases, Barron does what he used to do – issue a notice that there has been a complaint. But he cannot issue a fine.
