Recommendation to Review the Planning and Building Code Enforcement Program in Response to the City Council’s November 19, 2019 Referral, and Provide Direction on Potential Future Changes to the Existing Enforcement Program.    (Planning, Building and Transportation 481005)
Recommendation to review the Planning and Building Code Enforcement Program in response to the City Council's November 19, 2019 referral and provide direction on potential future changes to the existing enforcement program. Good evening, Mr. Tom. Members of the Council, Andrew Thomas Planning Building and Transportation Director. As Laura said very quickly, this is a response to a November referral. The Council asked that we look at the city's code enforcement program. The referral included some suggestions and thoughts about how things might be changed. This has been a helpful process for us. We we took the last month or so to sort of do a sort of a self-evaluation. We hope that we did a good job describing the program for you in our staff report. And we've sort of laid it out as in sort of three areas where this is where you might take the opportunity to make adjustments to this program. If you see fit the three basic areas that we sort of looked at that you might want to make adjustments is in the priority system, which was originally adopted by council . This is how we prioritize these cases, how we in terms of addressing them. The second area is budget, budget for resources and staffing. Mr. Thomas, can you just tell us when were those priorities adopted? They were originally adopted in 1999. They have been back before. Later councils. Later councils haven't changed them. But look, every council is a little bit different. We are in very different times in 2020 than we were in 29, 1999. So it's absolutely up for discussion and it's I think it's healthy that we are having this conversation about those priorities budget first in terms of just how many, how much resources you want to put into the program. And then a third area that we tried to think through and the referrals just sort of let us down this road is is there a way to sort of reorganize all of the city's code enforcement programs? So with that, what I'm going to do is turn it over to Greg McFadden, um, our long time building official and assistant planning building and transportation director. He's been overseeing this program for many years and can really, I think, do the best job of taking you through the slides. And then we will be available to answer any questions or take your direction. Thank you, Mr. McFadden. Mr. Thomas Eliasberg Code Enforcement Department was established in 1997. Originally it was in the police department. In 1999 it was transferred under the building department and building official. Let's see. Currently, the code enforcement division is made up of four full time employees overseen by the building official. We have a senior code enforcement officer to code enforcement officers and a code enforcement tech. We are comparable with other city surrounding cities with one officer for 26,000 residents. Code punishment stats the past six months. Which is the first time sorry. This is the first time in the last five years code enforcement has been fully staffed. We've reduced the outstanding code enforcement caseload from 1100 cases to just over 600 cases over the past five years. Our monthly average of cases has been 23. Received two cases. Refer. This would be graffiti or something on the public right of way. We refer to a different department. Six cases determined to be invalid and 20 cases that are. We've gained compliance through permits or other methods, so the code enforcement priorities were established just over 20 years ago. Just before I became the building official here, the then City Council, including Councilmember de SOG, approved our code enforcement priority list. There are four categories high priority, which we follow up on within 48 hours. Medium priority, which we get to within five working days, low priority, 14 to 30 days and secondary priorities. We follow up as we can get to them. So briefly, the priority cases are high, priority are illegal units, housing code violations, illegal occupancy, and dangerous buildings. Medium cases. We have work without permits, abandoned vehicles on private property, vacant buildings and graffiti. Low priority cases. We have garbage, illegal signs and litter. And then we get to the secondary categories which are noise use, permit violations, illegal parking on private property and fences. So code complaint processing. Code enforcement is a complaint based system. We don't go out looking for code violations. We take in the complaints. One of the premises we deal with when we're dealing with a code enforcement action is we need to determine everything we do. At some point, we have to defend in court or at a hearing. So we're there's a lot of process and detail that goes into it so that we can defend what we've done. Each case is entered into the permit tracking system, is prioritized for the council priorities. Initial assessment is done by the code enforcement staff through drive by inspections, photos taken permit history, and then they determine whether the complaint is valid or invalid prior to any scheduled inspection or notice of violation. Administrative Citation or Legal Action Staff does exhaustive research, sends letters, makes phone calls, has meetings at the counter attempting to gain compliance. All notices, violation citations. Legal notices are sent both regular mail and certified mail and are currently recorded with the county. So that's a little history. So potential changes we've looked at in doing this review. The first one would be review the priorities, possibly change them, leave them alone. Those are no additional resources and that can be accomplished immediately. The second is provide more resources, more staff. Again, currently we have one officer per 2600 residents. The cost of adding additional staff one full time code enforcement officer is about $114,000. One supervising code enforcement officers about $174,000. And then there's a one time 40,000, $50,000 for a vehicle and for reconfiguring office space to provide space for that personnel. How would that additional staff be paid for? Currently, all code enforcement funding is paid for completely out of planning building fees. Fund 209. If we were to ask for additional resources, we could ask for money from the general fund, which again takes money from other city priorities. Increase planning and building permit fees, which would require a fee study. It increases the housing cost and correspondingly we would see reduced quality of materials to cover increased costs. We discourage investment and as we see a lot, when we raise fees too much, we get the result increase in work without permit. There could be an increase in the rent control programs we have certainly seen since the Rent Stabilization Ordinance have been passed an increase in complaints to code enforcement from tenants and property owners regarding those issues. So that could require that would also require a fee study. It would be additional financial burden to landlords. Currently, the rent control fees are being studied to help fund the prosecution unit in the city attorney's office. If council if council wish to pursue this option, we would look at a third general fund, a third plan in building, and a third rent. And we would come back to the council at mid-cycle. So the last item is sort of where this referral had sort of originally pointed us to, which is a reorganization and consolidation of of all code enforcement activities within the city. That would be planning building public works, base reuse community development all into a single consolidated division reporting to the planning, building and transportation director. Funding for the new division would come from a combination of sources, including planning, building fees, public work fees, rent stabilization fees and general fund. Some of the issues we have in implementing such a program is that current staff performing code enforcement duties outside of planning and building, that's just a small portion of their jobs. And so they're not. There would be an issue in how how would that work? There's also limited space in city hall to accommodate a consolidated division. Some of the pros of the reorganization. Consolidation had better coordination, increased efficiencies. Central point of contact for all code enforcement complaints. Some of the downsides are, again, limited space within City Hall to accommodate consolidated division staff outside of planning, building code enforcement or have other duties . A small portion of their job is the conversion of duties or doing an increased costs. If council wishes to pursue this option. We would come back to council at midyear. So as part of this review, we are we took a pretty deep look at it. And again, we've been doing this for a long time. So it's always good to be reminded to go back and take a look to see how you're doing things. When things three things came out of this was her improvements we're implementing currently initiating a monthly coordination meeting between the five departments. We're starting with the city attorney's office, starting and going to start to meet, ironed out how we want to do things, bring the other departments in so that we have a consolidated look whether whether we combine the departments are all having a consolidated look at how we're doing work, transparency, initiating a quarterly report on code enforcement activities for the city council in the public. And then I think this has to be the next item that we were joined in that enjoined is a streamlined administrative citation process. And then currently we are soliciting proposals for collection agencies to help collect unpaid citation fees. So inclusions code enforcement is not easy work, it is mundane, it is detail oriented. You go out to places where nobody wants you to be. Your code enforcement officer Linda Givens is in the room but can attest high places. Who are friendly. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff out there. And again, nobody, nobody welcomes you with open arms when you come out for code complaint. If we do too much code enforcement, we get complaints. If we do too little code enforcement, we get complaints. So this referral is a good opportunity for us to take a look at staff. Again, there's always room for improvement. Any requested council changes to the priorities. Again, we could do that tomorrow. The other changes would either come back mid-cycle or mid year. Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. City Manager Eric Levitt. Mayor and council members. I just want to add a little bit to it. First of all, I want to say that I want to congratulate Greg and the plane building and transportation director, because I think they've taken this and as he has mentioned, they've already started making changes even before you start to take action. So they're trying to at least start looking at it, start evaluating it. We see that there are priority changes at the council. We want more direction through this meeting, but I think they're trying to do that. Two big issues we're seeing probably the need to add one staff member, at least that's my view in talking with Andrew and probably sort of a working supervisor type position. But then the second issue is whether you want the more consolidated department that may take a phasing of first doing an addition in the department and then trying to figure out how you combine those resources if you want to have the larger consolidated division, because some of those functions are done by other departments, by staff that are doing other functions for those departments. So how do you take some taking them into this department would be problematic to those other departments. Not bringing the resources resources over could be a problematic thing. So that's those are a couple issues we would need to discuss through. Okay. And I know from reading the staff report that you do favor a consolidated approach, at least you were quoted as such in the step forward. So we'll come back to that. So thank you for your comments. Any other staff, Mr. Thomas, do you want to say. Okay. So do any public speakers on this went to public speakers. Council Do we have any clarifying questions before we hear public speakers here? Vice Mayor Not quite sure. Hi. Thank you for that report. Very helpful. Good to see you again. Also nice to see you, Mr. Evans. Appreciate how responsive both of you have been through the last year when I've had questions about about this issue. Thank you. My first question is when you are doing the comparison staff per population, per residents, does that include if we add a new supervisor, is the supervisor included in that? So because it seems like right now we are currently staffed about similar to other cities, if we add another, what happens if we add add the supervisor that's been recommended. That was we just first of all, let me preface this survey. I think one of the things we found out with surveys is every city does it. There's a lot of similarities, but it's a little tricky trying to figure out exactly how many officers. I think the what we did is we we did not count admin staff. So we have one person dedicated to admin and we didn't administrative services and we didn't try to compare that with the other cities, just officers, people just doing that work. So if you added, I think what the city manager described at the end, there was what we call a working supervisor, not somebody who just sits at a desk, but somebody who's supervising and out in the field. So that would increase our ratio. Okay. Relative to the other cities. Okay. For sure. And then my other question is, in a couple of places, you mentioned that throughout the city, not just in your department, the code enforcement officers are also doing other things. So in terms of the code enforcement officers, what proportion of their time in general understanding that's probably different in each division, are they actually doing code enforcement as opposed to these other duties? Yeah, I actually don't have that information. What we're talking about is primarily full time employees in public works who have do some of their job is enforcing city codes in the public right of way and other portions of their job might be maintaining streets and roads or things like that. So that's all we were. What we sort of struggled with with the consolidation was how do you bring primarily those people into a consolidated code enforcement division if in fact they have other jobs that they're doing and reporting to other managers for those jobs? That's what we struggled with with the consolidated. Thank you. Maybe don't go away. I think Councilmember Vella has a question. I have a few questions. You stay longer. Oh, he's handed over to Grady. So, Andrew, I in the staff report, we compared ourselves with the comparables that we looked at were San Leandro Hayward. Do those cities have separate code enforcement, consolidated units? No. Most of them had were organized very similar to what? How we were organized. So planning and building in forest planning and building codes, public works, public works codes or public right of way violations, I think. What? Was sort of struck me in on some of these when looking the other cities was some of them organize their selves around planning and building codes. Quality of life codes. You know, like we're going to dedicate a whole person to, you know, not, you know, life safety issues, but graffiti. Some of the things that are on your or your the council, the the existing priorities are very low things. They're not life safety. They're the low priority ones. Um, I think I forget what city is, but they dedicated entire. Person. Just to dealing with those codes and those types of. Mm. I'm on the lead abatement JPA and I do know that Berkeley has their own kind of way of doing things, but they have a code enforcement unit. They also have a health and safety and public public health department that works with that unit. You know, Emeryville is thinking about putting something on the ballot to create a new code enforcement officer. And the city of Oakland, which I saw we did a comparable with. They also are kind of amending how they're doing things. Is there a trend to change things that you've noticed or is it just those cities that are that are looking at it? I think I did not see a real trend among the various cities. What I did notice was that, um, all the cities, including Alameda, I think, were struggling with, um, just the new kinds of issues that we have to deal with. Um, you know, for all the right reasons, we're passing new kinds of laws that we just never did. I mean, I've been in this business for 30 years, like, you know, everything from, uh, you know, marijuana. We never dealt with that before. We never, you know, rent control was pretty rare when I lived in Berkeley. We dealt with rent control, but no other Bay Area city that I ever worked in dealt with the rent control issue. So I think we're struggling a little bit and all the cities are trying to figure out like, how do we do we deal with some of these newer issues and what's the best way to organize ourselves? And I think each city's kind of going a different direction and independent direction. Yeah. And to that end, I mean, I think that there's I what what I've been struggling with is there's the building side of things and the building codes which are very detailed. And then there's the health and safety aspect of things that might be outside of that realm. And you referenced some of them. So I was looking at our priority list. And the question I had is where does, you know, smoking violations fall within that priority list or mold or lead issues? Where do where do where do they fall in that list or the enforcement of the night sky ordinance that we have or ADA issues or Airbnb complaints or minimum wage violations or the straw ordinance that we have. I think there have been a lot of ordinances that this Council has, and the past council that I was on worked on, whether they were environmental concerns, health and safety concerns, accessibility concerns. And so where do they fall within that priority list? And do we need to give more direction about how those ordinances fit in with the overall goal of code enforcement or who who do those complaints go to? You know, I'm going to give you the short sort of dumb answer, and then I'm going to like try to give you more specificity because he is the one who actually has to he and Orlando, like, figure out, like, all right, we just got this complaint where is a fit in. And you're right, hold lots of new laws that weren't around in 1999 when this original list was put together. Um, but, and I think so for all the reasons you've mentioned, that's why we put the priorities first and foremost. Like it does feel like that list is worth taking another look at and maybe updating, reorganizing, um, the, you know, the short answer on things, you know, once again we're split up so smoking on the public right of way police is primarily dealing with that. One of the things that we and um and one of the other things that we've been talking about internally and Greg mentioned this idea of like, we're just going to improve our coordination and we don't need your direction to do that. We can start doing that already. But um, you know, the, we rely on the other departments, you know, like the nighttime inspections or nighttime complaints. We rely on the police department. Our department relies on them to help us go out and check that late night noise violation and those kinds of things. Craig, do you want to say anything more about how we try to fit new ordinances? Into the old priority system. A lot of them that you mentioned, LED abatement is certainly a life safety issue. It's tied to the building code. So we we address those and I think we've been pretty successful about with that. Orlando is, I believe, been given an award for lead abatement enforcement. So I'm very proud of them. But there's all the trainings. Yeah. If Mr. Givens would like to add anything to the conversation, please, please come up. Yeah. There are a couple of things that I would like to say specifically when it comes to lead and mold, we do consider those as very serious issues. Lead is an issue unto itself. Mold. On the other hand, we really treat a little bit differently because mold is more the symptom. The disease is water intrusion. So what we go after is from a code enforcement standpoint is we abate the water intrusion. Once you do that, then abating the mold is easy. If you simply attack the mold without addressing the water intrusion, the mold comes back every time. So we you know, we're we're a seaside community. We see a lot of mold. This is a very frequent this is something my team deals with on a daily, if not at least weekly basis. So so what we've learned through through through more than a bit of experience is that if you attack the disease, then the system takes care of itself. I think from at least in regards to prioritizing the other issues that you mentioned, we are working on trying to figure out how to incorporate those things. But the life safety issues, we're addressing those immediately. I hope that's helpful. That's very helpful. Thank you so much. Okay. Councilmember Vella, did you have your questions answered? One other one more question is, I noticed that we included in the in the potential budget that there would maybe need to be a car. Are there other tools? I know that there's do we have like all of the you know, from the the Healthy Homes Department, they have different there's new new technology for inspecting, you know , and finding mold, identifying it for and for finding moisture, I guess you could say, and identifying where the moisture is coming from. The led, you know, doing the on site led with the identification with the camera. Do we have those tools? Have we been trained in that? We have the tools where we are not trained on that little head stuff. We use the county to assist us with that. We work together with them. The 40 to $50000 that was in that line item was car office, computer. All the tools and code enforcement, surprisingly, doesn't need a lot of tools. Pen the red sticker that they put on people's houses and and just the research that they do. So there's not a lot other than the vehicle to get around. Thank you. Other clarifying questions before we go to our public speakers. I don't know if I have a question, but just a comment if that's okay. Oh. Well, yeah. We'll have a discussion after. Is it a quick comment? Go ahead. Okay. It seems to me that what we as a municipality are good at when it comes to code enforcement has to do with the built environment. And when you look at, you know, the priorities that were established back in 1999, you know, I'm sure they spoke to the very same built environment issues for, you know, that preceded for decades, 1999 but continue to 2020 2019 I think were Councilmember Vela is getting at is that there are and as planning director Thomas says there are these new areas though that that there are in need of code enforcement they're just not built environment related but more and more are there there is going to be kind of an intersection of social code enforcement and built environment code enforcement. For example, when you look at the the buildings underneath the overpass at on Webster Street, that's a code enforcement issue. But also it's obviously a social and health related issue that suggests not just, you know, kind of the built environment framework, but also kind of this social, you know, working with health care outreach workers and all that. So I think down the road as as a city, as we're meeting, these new challenges were requiring the city manager to come up with different ways of of reframing what it means, what code enforcement means. So I think that's I think that's where. Councilmember Vela is coming from in, and I certainly agree with that. So I need to just comment quickly on the Constitution way over passing the encampment, if you will, that is going into there. There are tricky enforcement issues because that is actually Caltrans property. And so our police department, Alameda police department cannot go and enforce anything. In fact, we have to wait for the California Highway Patrol, which is the enforcement arm of Caltrans. So that isn't so much a code enforcement issue. I agree that it's health and safety. We are working across jurisdictions, getting more responsiveness from Caltrans, which is a good thing. Still not as rapid as we would like. But I think as we speak in the last week, there was some enforcement action going on. And yes, it's but but that is not anything that the code enforcement folks would be dealing with just for the public listening to know. But we're on it. Okay. If that's all the council clarification, let's hear from our public speakers. Catherine, Pauline and Armando Grasso. Hi. I think this is really timely, as I mentioned earlier, now that renters are feeling a little bit more secure. They're bringing some. Very important. Habitability issues. I think there is a real need for education around this. Once you guys clarify it, I was very pleased that the city manager reached out and spoke with a number of tenants and myself about some of the issues that were coming up. And I began to discover how many categories there are. And after all these years, I didn't even know that noise is actually under a nuisance under enforcement. So technically it is a police department matter. But one of the people with us had had many very serious noise complaints. And the problem was, is the police department doesn't have the decimals or I'm sorry, what is the first decibel, a decibel meter? I put them both together and this tenant discovered that there actually is an app for that, that you can download it on your phone and if you're going to track and if there's sleep deprivation is it's a torture technique. I mean, you can't function if you're not sleeping. And there has to be a way to be able to track and to actually have what is the noise decibel? Is this truly a nuisance? Also, the issues around mold, the difficulty of that, certainly a health and safety issue. And yet people who have called the planning department have been told that it basically is extremely low and these are both health and safety issues if they get to a certain level. So I'm very pleased that this is coming forward. I think for both property owners and for tenants, it's going to be extremely helpful that once this is defined that there is an education effort. And also, I believe tracking because I believe there were far more complaints that were not referred or followed up on to other departments. There were far more than two that were referred to other departments. And so I'm a little bit concerned because tenants are being told we don't do that and it doesn't even seem like the information is being taken. So I think for their budget and especially if they want to hit the rent program for part of it, because we are getting a little more confident, we want buildings in Alameda to be maintained too. We want to be safe in our homes. So thank you for doing this work and we look forward to helping however we can. Thank you. Our next speaker is. Grassa. And Amanda. Amanda. Good evening, Mayor. Council member. And we need Center Central de la Raza. Your city residents need the program. I'm asking for every everybody's well-being in this time and age and the rental crisis. Seriously, we all can really benefit from their services. They've helped many already mediate the rental situation, such as myself, and they offer valuable services. Please take in consideration what's best for our city's residents. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. With that, all of our public speakers. Okay. So with that, we will have concert council comments and deliberation. Let's start in the left, if I may, Councilor Brody. Okay. So you're right. What are you asking us today? And. Well, for the audience. What are you asking? I'm happy to be on the left. I was. I was thinking that ideologically as I speak. Fine. What are you asking for? US? Well, which is left and which is right. Oh, this was. Oh, yes. You asked us for kind of an opportunity to make adjustments. Okay. Sort of our look at our program, I think, um, you know, the city manager's recommendation is that we should add another person to the department. If you want to go that direction, we certainly can. We'll bring it back in the mid-year budget. Okay. That's sort of where it sort of sits as of now. But we we didn't want to just say, oh, yeah, hey, we need just more people solves the problems. And then we think it's this is really a multi there's many angles to this problem and priorities how we check in with you how we make sure that we're prioritizing things correctly given these new codes and new challenges, I think is very important. And we'd love to hear from you about that. Um, how do you want us to think about the budget issues moving forward, you know, the consolidation of all the various departments? I think the what we were basically saying is there is definitely room for improvement and coordination that's can be done without any major decisions from you. We've already started that process. Uh, the actual physical consolidation of all these different functions under one department is going to be a little just tricky, tricky and, you know, potentially expensive. Okay. Well, I, I, I do agree that I think you do need an extra person, and I like the idea that you guys proposed to do a third, a third and a third. And I think technically half of that third gets passed on to the tenants, right? So I mean, it's not all quote unquote burden on the landlord. I do want to say I appreciate that you proactively looked at at the process and took this as an opportunity. I know this. I know there's very few staff left, but we do throw a lot of work at you and a lot of things above and beyond the normal, normal day to day work that you have to do in addition to everything that we want done. So I do appreciate that. And I actually had to get a permit a couple of weeks ago. And I will say it was a very smooth and efficient process. And everyone down in that office was was super helpful and super friendly. So whatever you're doing there, keep doing it. Yeah, I think that's basically it. I know. As we do. As tenants do, become more comfortable making complaints. You know, we have to understand that those those issues will be repaired. And that's why I'm glad that I think it's in April, an updated CIP capital improvement program is coming to the council so we can make sure that, you know, landlords have the ability to actually make those repairs because I mean, like Katherine said and many of the landlords that have spoke, you know, we all want to make sure our housing stock is safe and compliant. So I just, you know, thank you for everything you've done and I appreciate all your work. Andrew, and making sure your department operates efficiently. The heavy lifting. That you're talking about. You make your boss look good. Yeah. Okay. Councilmember Desai on my right, my right, your left. Well, thank you. You know, I think one of the things that is in the staff report is one of the things that's in the staff report is the point that that we don't as a city have a bulk of code enforcement issues. Um, so if, if that as the backdrop, I'm concerned of having one additional code enforcement dealing with what are perceived to be problems on the part of landlords in the city of Alameda. I mean, one part of the community might say that's the case, but maybe that's not the case. So I, I, I, you know, it's hard for me to, I just don't want us to be going after landlords just because someone says so. You know, the data has to speak and stand for itself. And it's it's not there right now, at least. Based upon my reading of the of the staff report. So I would be concerned about that. If there is there has to be a broader case to be made about the need for code enforcement, additional code enforcement. I'm willing to hear about it. But if the case is narrow with a narrow one in which, you know, it's all about going after small mom and pop landlords, then then I have a problem with that. So I just want to point that out. Thank you. Councilmember Jason Weissman. That's why. I mean, I think it's a little problematic to start choosing who we're going to and going not going to go after based on who they are. Personally, I, I represent everybody. I'm a small mom and pop landlord. I'm doing a bad job and I'm not up to code. You should come in and find me. You know? So my biggest concern is I think there's been a good case here. This is the second meeting of the year in which, hey, let's hire a new person has been put before us. That was the parade two weeks ago or four weeks ago. Now here we are, another one. And we're marching our way up to the mid-cycle. And I still feel like we have some issues, whether it's homelessness and transportation and whatnot, that that before I'm going to be comfortable making a long term commitment to to new staffing, I want to I want to have that conversation a little bit more holistically. That said, you know, I kind of understanding where this issue came from and whatever else, right? The way I look at it, we had a, you know, a building of people who were dealing with a a I, I, you know, it's hard to say who was responsible. They filed nine complaints and they finally had somebody come out and then the complaint stopped. But it took nine complaints. The planning board made a decision that didn't make them happy. And the response for me in the city was, don't worry, you call and we'll take care of the complaints, except for the fact that we we don't we aren't responsive to noise complaints. Right. We we now have a I didn't know we had this list at the time. Noise complaints are the sometimes we drop by and check them out sort of thing. So, you know, to me, I think, you know, as we're having this conversation now, what I would say is I'm more than comfortable having a mid-cycle a conversation about this staffing position. Whether or not I'm going to support it or not is is completely up in the air for me. But I'm not saying I wouldn't support it, but I need to see it related to some of the other things we're talking about. I would really like us to have a meeting. I don't know if tonight is the night at quarter to ten. With everything else, we have to start identifying the priorities. I'm a little nervous that it's way too specific. I think Councilmember Vella did a great job of rolling out all the different, you know, kind of, you know, smoking and noise. And, you know, some of these things aren't on here, but they are clearly the types of things that make a place you live inhospitable. Right. So and that should be a priority whether you are renting or whether you are owning your your your your your place. So I you know, I would ask maybe if if we can bring back the priorities, maybe maybe if you kind of thinking about that frame, I don't know if they if that's a frame bringing that back, you know, I'd like more data. I well, I found it nearly unreadable. It looks like an old access database that maybe I've created in college and would print out for people. And then they'd say, I can't read that. I did appreciate trying to, you know, trying to understand what's going on. Summary data would be really, really good, you know, so that we know what kinds of things, you know, again, I the things that came up great to know about the staffing congratulations on being at full staffing. My team at work was at full staffing for the first time ever in seven years on January 2nd and was no longer at on January 18th. So I know how that goes is my point. Right. And it probably will be another seven years before I have everybody back. But, you know, when we're looking at like March 21st. Yes. A couple of these things are when you read them like, holy cow, this is bad, and yet it's been open for nine months. It would be good to kind of get the, you know, what are we closing, what's opened, who's been fined? Right. That's another thing we've heard is we're not writing a lot of citations, the lot of verbal and you know, maybe the first noise complaint is not a citation, but maybe the second or third one is. And so how can we tighten up those rules and start writing those citations? And we have a prosecutor who, you know, who can start helping with that. We have a collections agency. We've had some bad experience with collections agencies in the past and a really bad one about ten years ago. So let's make sure that we're dealing with somebody who's not a shakedown artist. But, you know, I thought that was a good one, but I think if we could maybe just get some between now in the mid-cycle, some monthly reports, what are the reports we're getting? What are the types of things what are happening to them while while we're talking about these priorities? I would that would be right where I would come in on this. But thank you. Good. Very helpful. Thank you. Councilmember Vella. If I could just clarify one thing. We had talked initially about the midyear, but we probably will be moving to mid-cycle because we're talking March. We're talking about March to May. Well, we admit a mid-year march to May, but that way you can see it within all the priorities. Yeah. So soon. Yeah. Okay. Councilmember Vela. Okay. So this was my referral and I do know that there's a connection with kind of the mixed use complaints that happened, but this was also. The result of a number of complaints that I'd heard kind of across the board from constituents. And I want to recognize that code enforcement is not easy work, and there's a lot of different elements to it. I think we've been very focused on the building code enforcement aspect of this, and I think that there have been a number of things that have evolved. We have a lot more mixed use areas now, especially that are in development. And I think one thing that we may want to look at is are our processes in place in terms of our ordinances for those types of sites? Have we thought about different types of notification processes or things to actually help facilitate to prevent some of the issues that came up? Maybe that's a recommendation that could come back to us from staff, you know, in a follow up, as is how to deal specifically with mixed use areas in terms of zoning, I think that something that that seems to me needs to be developed and I'm glad that the steps have been taken since the referral. Working more in coordination, I think that there's a lot of the right hand not talking to the left hand. And I do think that a consolidated unit can help us get get through that. And there is going to be a transition period, but it's something that we really need to look at doing. And that's because I think that this needs to evolve from just the building code enforcement. There are a lot of other regulations on the books, and we're doing things with our Climate Action Plan. We're doing things with with some of our other codes. And if we aren't going to be enforcing them, it's going to be problematic because it's just going to be an ordinance in the book. And whether or not it's followed, I don't know. I think we need to. And what I would like to see is a process set in place. Who you know? Is there a single line that people can call for these code related issues? What is the process for getting back to people? Greg, I thought you did a great job of saying these are our high priorities, these are medium, these are low. I do think we need to have a council conversation about the priorities. I think that that document's hard to follow. I think we need a matrix of like just generally speaking, general categories. And then this is the timeline who will be responding in how much time and then tracking it. We need to know if this person has had one code enforcement complaint on this issue or multiple ones. And to the vice mayor's point, are we following up? Are we are we making sure and closing things out? There was there have been some big issues. And I know, Orlando, you you responded. There was a construction around a preschool where there was lead found and things like that. I mean, to me, if that person, you know, it took there was a whole process for that, that's great. But I think we also need to highlight when we do those big enforcement actions so that people know that this is not behavior that is tolerated here in Alameda. We do not we are not okay with you spreading, you know, lead paint in an area near a preschool, things like that. I think now that we have the the prosecutor's office in house, I would like to know what our plan is for for potentially moving things over to that office or letting them know once something has risen to a level of, look, this person is just not complying. I don't necessarily see this as a tenant landlord issue. I see this across the board. I see this in connection with our climate action and resiliency plan. I see this in connection with making sure we have dispensaries now in town, making sure there's a number of different issues that come up with that, making sure that we're our all of our buildings are ADA compliant, whether they're commercial or residential. And there are a lot of things that we've passed, and we're going to need a non-police code enforcement unit to really go out and and be accessible to people. I and I would like to see a proposal that has some sort of alternate workweek in it. I don't know if it's possible under the menu or a plan to have something in line for that where we could occasionally have somebody working. Or if there is somebody that's willing to work an alternate workweek, whether it's kind of later hours, weekend hours, because I do think that our code enforcement division is trained in a way to look at things differently than, say, police. And and I think that that aspect is going to be helpful in terms of actually facilitating conversation, communication and enforcement. And there's a lot of things that happen over the weekends and at nights. It would be hap it would be helpful to have somebody on an alternate workweek. So I'd like to see something along the lines of that. And then I do I you know, I am supportive of the fact that this is going to kind of take some cost to get started up. See, I have concerns or concerns about using see Click Fix if that's our I hope that we can develop some other way of tracking and reporting in I I'm supportive of this position but I do want to have it in the context and conversation of how does this work in with our other priorities? Because I do think it ties in to some of them, but I want to see that fleshed out a little more. So thank you all for your comments. Mr. Givens, really nice to see you. Thank you for your comments and all your good work for the city. So we're being asked to consider it suggested that we consider potential changes in the code enforcement program around three primary factors which are priorities, financial resources and or organization. I'll start with the organization last because on in our staff report, it's noted that the city manager is recommending that the code enforcement activities remain under the direction of the planning, building and transportation director, but that a separate division be created to provide autonomy to me, to recommend actions to the director, to focus more broadly on code enforcement issues. But also another option that could go along would be to consolidate code enforcement activities of the planning and building department, public works and base use in community development. And I think that makes a lot of sense because we definitely want to create user friendly systems so that one resident is not left to call several different numbers. It should be kind of one stop shopping. So how how to pay for it? Because financial resources is the other. Part of the equation. And I'm concerned with all the sources, quite frankly, and I'm glad we'll be talking about this in the the mid cycle or mid-year budget cycle, because if we're talking about let's see, there were increasing fees for well, it could come from the general fund. We could increase planning and building permit fees. And it was noted in the the report that the problem with that is if you make permit fees too costly, it's a disincentive to people improving their properties. Some people actually try to do work without a permit because it's so costly. So we have to be careful there that we don't defeat the very purpose we're trying to achieve and then increasing or providing rent control program fees. We're already there's a study fee study right now because we're looking at a portion of this fee to fund a previously approved prosecution unit within the city attorney's office. And again, if we impose ever steeper fees on our landlords, that's a disincentive for them to improve their properties. And we want good habitable rental properties. So I don't know the answer to that. We'll talk about it. When it comes to the budget, I do think that it is important for all the reasons that the council has articulated and staff has articulated, changing times. You need to change your priorities. From 1999, we're a different city, I would say, because we're asked to talk about priorities. And in looking at the presentation, the one of the things that struck me, I mean, it's hard to quarrel with what is listed as high priority cases. I don't know that I would have graffiti. This is just something to consider as a medium priority over low what is considered low priority, which is garbage and litter. Because when I see and hear garbage, I'm not even sure what the difference is between garbage and litter, but someone can explain that to me another time. But I do think about health and safety infestations, and I think protecting our health and safety of our community is important. I'm also a little unclear on what secondary priority cases are, but certainly when it comes to noise, I think noise is a health and safety issue. I mean, we live in a noisy society and there are just layers of decibels accosting us from all sides. And so I think that is something that needs to to have particular attention. But again, that can be something for further discussion. I would also like to know what, if anything, can be done about buildings, especially commercial buildings that have been long vacant. Last week I did a walk, a Webster Street walk with Linda Asbury, who's the executive director of the West Alameda Business Association. And she walked me back a couple of spots, and I bet you I could point him out. And I said, Linda, remind me, how long is this one been vacant? Over ten years, more than one. So this is not a good thing for so many reasons. But the question is, what can be done about that? Is that anything that could come within the purview of code enforcement? I think it's already been noted that when working with collection agencies, I don't even think it was as far back as ten years ago. But I remember we had, you know, every stereotype you've heard about a collection agency we experienced. So we don't want to do that again. Don't call those folks who they were. But anyway, I would be inclined to to have a report, let's say, I guess, for being asked to recommend, to review the planning and to make a recommendation to potential changes. I would be amenable to considering the consolidated model. I know it involves another another staff position. I think the Vice Mayor stated that concern very well. At the same time, we we're finding that we're getting more of these habitability complaints because of renters now bringing these attention, these items to our attention. For the most part, our rental stock isn't getting any newer so that, you know, can be health and safety issues, too. So tell us how best to send this back to staff for next steps. Who would like to take a stab at that? Mr. THOMAS This is I mean, this is what I'm hearing and thinking. Based on what I'm hearing from from the council tonight, I think we should staff city staff should go back and will then go back to work tomorrow. We're going to keep enforcing codes and keep doing what he does every day. Yes. In the meantime, Greg and I, I think, are going to do a couple of things. One, we're going to start working on sort of packaging and providing a little bit more of a report that focuses around the the kinds of reports we're getting . We sort of talked about this in one of our items. Things would be improved like this. We called it transparency. I think it's a better way of saying is getting more information to the to this council in the near future about the kinds of things, the types of cases we have, how we're approaching them, how we're getting back to people. And I think this is, you know, something that in this next report we can do in the next couple of months before mid-cycle, I'm thinking about a two step process. There's a report that comes back in the next couple of months and maybe it's around priorities and a little more information about how we're operating things. Greg in Orlando and I and the other enforcement officers can really start looking, giving you some better ideas about how we're integrating these new types of complaints into this old system and some adjustments to the priority system. I think that that next report will help inform your conversations at mid-cycle budget. It'll give us a chance to think a little bit more about the priorities, think a little bit more about, inform you and the community, a little bit more about how we operate today and continue to develop our thinking around this idea of coordination, consolidation . If we want to if you want to go down that road, what will it really take? Um, I mean, I think we've looked in a very cursory way, um, but I think that sets up a sort of mid-cycle conversation. Anyone want to anything? Let me just call on the city manager and city attorney. Do you all have any thoughts or comments, Mr. Levitt. I, I think what Andrew suggests is is an excellent way to go. And I've got some ideas, too. And we could even come back with an off agenda report prior to the mid-cycle to if I'm thinking timing wise, because mid-cycle, we're going to start to have the study sessions in May so we can do that prior to that. That's great. Councilmember Vella and I was just going to say if there's any additional trainings or anything like that, because we are sort of moving our staff outside of building code. And so and thinking about our other priorities that we've set as council and folding that in. Yeah, no, I, I, yeah, I totally agree. I think that's. Mr. McFadden, you can add anything to that. It's just one of the things that's come up over and over again, the noise issue. Our noise ordinance is horrible. In the microphones. We can hear it. Yeah, maybe we need. To rewrite our noise ordinances. So that's something we're going to be looking at it. I mean, currently, if you don't want to do a noise violation, it's so many minutes and so many decibels at the property line in an hour. And it's it's almost impossible to prove. And so this is some of the the frustration staff has with the noise ordinance. I think it's time for us to go back and look at that and and part of this whole package, because that seems to be an ongoing issue. And it's likely the issue the police have when they do it after hours. On everybody, it just it's just almost impossible to find someone in violation unless they're just blaring their music for hours at a time. So. Okay, great. Good to hear. Just to emphasize that point, because this is a real bone of contention. I mean, if you're complaining about the tenant in the unit next to you, that's not a property line. So that the ordinance doesn't even apply now. I mean, we basically if you're if that tenant next door to you is making all that noise, Greg and Orlando have to go out to the property line out on the street with a decibel meter. It's not going to okay. Cathy Rhody Well, you put that on your own plate. Andrew So I didn't do a referral for that or my colleagues. I just want to make sure that it's clear that I meant I thought I heard that somehow because somebody is a small property owner, they should be exempt from code enforcement or that we shouldn't make sure they keep their buildings up to code. Because, you know, there's the state law that requires you provide habitable premises. And, you know, I just looked at this one here, just scrolling through 12 x six union, which I looked at, it looked like it's a two unit property, illegal electrical work done causing fire at property 1209 Union Street I'm sorry, fire damage observed inside a bathroom exhaust in one of the lower units. So I mean, to me, somebody shouldn't be get a free pass on that just because they're a small property owner. We should we should enforce that. And and I don't think we're we're doing this with the intention of going after any group. A group. Group C We're trying to make sure that everyone who lives in Alameda lives in a safe building. So. And just because you're small business does not exempt you from that requirement. Sorry. Okay. Okay. We have one last comment from the vice mayor and then I. It's 10:00 people in Rome. And that would be. Yeah. So I just want to as we're reprioritizing. It would be very easy to make a very detailed list. And I would argue I would recommend that instead of think, think in terms of high level concepts and whatever else, so that we're not coming back and having to readjust. Now, noises, litter is more important than garbage. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, sorry, Councilmember Desai. The point that I make, the point that I'm making when it comes to small property owners is simply this, is that the data in the staff report says that we don't have an abundance of code enforcement issues. That there is not that much. And then to suddenly, you know, create this regime that's oriented towards this, the data is not there for it. It seems to me, yes, there are problem properties, but it seems to me that we have the capacity to deal with it. So if we're going to increase the capacity, I have to wonder is if we're going to go overboard in trying to find, you know, problems where there are no problems. Thank you, everyone, for your comments. Are you coming back with the noise ordinance as well? Sorry, that wasn't clear. Okay. That was. Your ideas? Yes. I want to stay within the Brown Act in the description that was it was in here. But we've heard the comments, staff has heard our comments. We look forward to everything the city manager describe for next steps. And with that, we thank everyone. We move on to item six C. Introduction of ordinance amending the Alameda Missile Code by amending Section 1-7 Administrative Citations of Chapter one General concerning code enforcement and administrative citations.