Building an Effective Code Enforcement Management System: Data, Case, Budget and Personnel
In an era of reduced revenue and increasing blight, it has never been more important to effectively manage code enforcement resources. As those managing these departments understand, the variety of activities under their command can help prevent properties from becoming vacant, keep neighborhoods healthy and safe, and even catalyze revitalization. While it’s true that governments feel understaffed in the face of huge challenges, an understanding of how to develop performance-oriented goals, coupled with effective and concise policies and procedures, can ensure that you use your resources to make a visible and palpable difference in your community. Through case studies and personal examples of successes (and failures) this session will explore these areas. Speakers will also look at central pieces of the code enforcement department, from methods that help replenish your budget (administrative civil penalties, full cost recovery, collections and lien foreclosure) to those that enhance or detract from your efforts (data and filing systems). This session will help point out the landmines to avoid while attempting to manage and motivate a code enforcement system and team.
Speakers:Pura Bascos, City of New Orleans; Michael Braverman, Baltimore Housing; Mark Frater, Lean Firm, Inc.; Doug Leeper, Code Enforcement Solutions
Combating Crime in Vacant Properties: Engaging Unusual Allies to Battle VacancyMany jurisdictions have explored how police and fire departments can contribute to vacant property strategies, yet their involvement is often relegated to traditional functions of enforcement and response. Engaging police and fire officials more proactively can be highly productive – as advocates for vacant property ordinances and foreclosure response strategies, as fundraisers for abatement initiatives and as leaders in cohesive multi-part strategies. Speakers will offer specific examples and discuss ways to engage police and fire departments facing budget constraints.
Speakers: Officer Jason Cooley, Kansas City Missouri Police Department; Zoe Mentel, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services; Lynne Snyder, Duluth Housing Authority; John Strongitharm, City of Duluth Fire Department
Creative Partnerships for New Municipal Approaches to Code Enforcement and Nuisance Abatement
Code enforcement and nuisance abatement actions can address a wide variety of problem properties including distressed bank REO, investment properties being flipped and vacant commercial buildings. However, as cities around the nation face constrained resources, achieving meaningful results requires new ideas and innovative partnerships. This session will examine two efforts underway. In Tennessee, Mayor A C Wharton, Jr. and County Environmental Court Judge Larry E. Potter are re-engineering community court programs and expanding them to cover the whole county. A cooperative effort involving the city attorney, the district attorney, the police and the sheriff, as well as a re-imagined code enforcement office, is yielding promising preliminary results. Michigan Community Resources and the Michigan Municipal League are taking a different approach with the Detroit Pilot Nuisance Abatement Litigation Program. This model tests a new legal strategy through which community-based nonprofits act as plaintiffs in public nuisance lawsuits on behalf of the larger community, independently and in partnership with municipalities. Housed in a legal services nonprofit, this program highlights the benefits and potential obstacles faced by organizations managing code enforcement systems in place of public entities with reduced capacity.
Speakers: Patrick Dandridge, City of Memphis; Samira Guyot, Michigan Community Resources; Kermit Lind, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University; Sean Mann, Michigan Municipal League; The Honorable Larry Potter, Shelby County Environmental Court
