Lodi code enforcement cases down nearly 50% last year

The Lodi Police Department’s Code Enforcement unit closed 380 cases last year, but 110 remained open as of Tuesday.

While that number seems high, police department officials told the Lodi City Council during its Tuesday morning shirtsleeve meeting that those cases were a decrease from more than 850 cases code enforcement opened in 2019.

That’s a decline of as much as 40%, police said.

“Most of these cases had multiple violations and they don’t include the hundreds of complaint calls that did not rise to the level of receiving a case number,” Sgt. Rick Garcia said. “We believe the main reason for the dramatic drop (from 2019 to 2020) was due to restrictions placed by COVID-19. And fewer complaints were received from the city, and the citizens.”

Code enforcement is primarily complaint driven, Garcia said, and most complaints are made by the city’s building and planning departments, the Lodi Fire Department, city council members and citizens.

The unit is complaint driven because there are currently only two officers assigned to the unit who do not have any “free time” to actively search for violations throughout the city, he said, adding that an officer takes on as many as 150 active and open cases at any given time during the year.

In many code enforcement cases, officers issue administrative citations for violating the city’s municipal code, housing code, health and safety code, and penal code.

Violations include nuisances, substandard housing, dangerous buildings, weed abatement, fire code and vehicle abatement, among others.

Garcia said 70 administrative citations were issued last year, of which 21 occurred in southwest Lodi, south of Vine Street and west of Hutchins Street.

Officer Garth Hohn said the number of citations have, for the most part, been issued to one residence.

“It’s a hoarding case, which are extremely difficult, especially when you don’t have cooperation from the hoarder or the family members,” Hohn said. “It’s taken three abatement warrants to go in and clean it up, three years in a row. Finally, this fourth year, she did get her brother to help her, but right now, we’re kind of back to where we were with it flowing into the front yard.”

Southwest Lodi is the “third” beat for Code Enforcement officers, out of a total of five throughout the city.

Northwest Lodi from Vine Street in the south and Hutchins Street in the east makes up “Beat 1,” while northeast Lodi covers the area bordered by Vine in the south, Hutchins in the west, and Elm Street and Cherokee Lane in its southwest to make up “Beat 2.”

Southeast Lodi comprises the area south of Vine and east of Hutchins to make up “Beat 4,” and “Beat 5” is the central part of Lodi bordered by Vine, Hutchins, Elm and Cherokee.

There have been nine administrative citations in beats 1 and 2, another 11 in beat 4, and 20 in beat 5.

Councilman Shak Khan said there were as many as 15 properties in his district alone that are covered in trash, and they have been that way for about a year.

He provided photos of front yards and alleyways filled with debris and trash during the meeting, and said two code enforcement officers is not enough to cover a city that continues to grow.

“We need another code enforcement officer, because I’m concerned about the drug houses popping up on every corner, in every alley,” Khan said. “The trash every day ... you wake up, it's there. The residents, they’re leaving and selling their property because of it. They spend their lives in Lodi for 60 or 70 years, and really, my neighbors have just moved out to Texas because of that reason.”

Khan suggested the city create some sort of rule for rental properties that dictates to whom owners can rent. He said many rental property owners live in the Bay Area and let “whoever they want” live in the home, and that causes problems in the community.

City Manager Steve Schwabauer said the police department is requesting at least one additional code enforcement officer in the 2021-22 fiscal year budget, to be discussed this summer.

He added the city council considered a rental unit ordinance that addressed Khan’s concerns about 10 years ago.

“Many cities have rental inspection ordinances,” Schwabauaer said. “The way they operate is all rental units pay a certain fee per year. That fee funds code enforcement officers to do routine annual, and sometimes more frequently inspections of units, whether they be houses or apartments whatever, to ensure they meet code and do not have a problem.”

Schwabauer said these types of ordinances tend to be controversial, and after fielding a wave of opposition 10 years ago, the council at that time elected not to adopt one.

“I think it’s about time to bring it up, to look at it, because I'm also seeing Shak’s district, and maybe another councilman’s district, is having more of a problem,” Mayor Alan Nakanishi said. “They may want something like this. We also have things like homelessness and drugs too, so it might be a good time to bring it up.”

Schwabauer said a rental inspection ordinance in Lodi could fund one or two additional officers to the two or three proposed in next year’s budget. He said staff will bring a presentation to the council at a future meeting.