Reporting Violations Helps All

Last week in this column I discussed what we as individuals can do to improve our town. Improving the city is all of our responsibility, but the reality is that most of us have day-to-day obligations that do not leave a lot of extra time. Working to pay the bills, raising kids, keeping the house in order or doing some charity work leaves little time for civic involvement.

The city of Costa Mesa has a powerful resource that will help you fulfill your civic responsibility, and it only takes five minutes. Just remember two words: code enforcement.

We have seven full-time and two part-time positions in the code enforcement department. The department also has a very sophisticated system in place that tracks all complaints for any property in the city.

Looking around the county, Costa Mesa may have more code enforcement staff per resident than any of the other cities in the county. Past and present councils have made funding this operation a top priority.

There are two ways that a code violation gets into the system. The first way is for a code enforcement officer to drive around town looking for violations. The second (and this is where you come in) are complaints filed by citizens.

Under both scenarios, a complaint goes into the city code enforcement data bank, and it gets a case number. Once the complaint has a number, a code officer follows through by contacting the property owner to rectify the situation.

According to Don Lamm, city development services director, 75% of all complaints get rectified once the property owner gets notice of the violation.

The remaining 25% may get a fine before the problem is rectified. In an extreme case the city can do an abatement procedure, which is to correct the problem and lien the property for the cost of doing so.

The city is not looking to collect fines and in most cases a fine is never imposed if the violation is corrected. What the city is looking for is compliance.

Now let’s look at the second way a violation gets into the system; a citizen-reported complaint. It is a lot more efficient for the citizens themselves to report violations, and have code enforcement officers spend their time getting compliance.

One way to make a complaint is to call the department at (714) 754-5623. A very friendly city employee will put your complaint in the system and create a case file number.

This case will be followed up very quickly by a code enforcement office. I notified the city of a violation at 11 a.m. and had a phone call back from a code enforcement officer that afternoon.

Filing a complaint online is even easier. A form pops on the screen, taking three minutes to fill out, and bingo, your complaint is now in the system. Your name is kept confidential and is only used to let you know the status of your complaint.

One last gripe of mine: people that park their cars or oversized trucks so that they hang over or sometimes completely block a sidewalk.

Do not call code enforcement; call the non-emergency number of the Costa Mesa police (714) 754-5290. Any violations from the sidewalk to the street should be reported to the police, including cars parked on a city street for more than 72 hours. An officer will go out on his or her normal rounds and ticket the vehicle.

So when you drive around town and see chipped paint, broken fences, inoperable cars or cracked up driveways; do the right thing and file a complaint with code enforcement. Don’t wait.

The sooner it is corrected the better. It will take only a minute, and you will be doing your civic duty to improve your city.