Sutter County Grand Jury releases 2020/21 report
The 2020/21 Sutter County Grand Jury investigated the county’s Code Enforcement Department and found it had largely neglected its duties in collecting fines for citations and pursuing violations for the past three years, and in some instances closed cases without inspection with no valid reason given.
Grand jury members opted to investigate the department’s operations and performance after receiving numerous complaints related to illegal building and zoning violations not being addressed or investigated by the county.
“Fines totaling over $1.1 million had not been collected as of November 30, 2020. The enforcement of county zoning codes, ordinances and building permits improves or maintains the quality of life and property values for the residents. Collection of fines associated with enforcement can create revenue to defray the cost of enforcement activities and encourage complaints,” according to the report released on Feb. 12.
Areas that fall within code enforcement’s purview include blight, structural permits and hazards, fire hazards, illegal and non-permitted commercial truck yards, abandoned vehicles, and marijuana grow violations.
Typically, code enforcement
becomes aware of a potential violation of ordinances, building codes or zoning codes through a complaint from citizens or through citations issued by law enforcement or a code enforcement officer. The complaint is given a case number and then an investigator is tasked with inspection to determine if the initial complaint is valid. Some instances will see the complaint closed due to it being unwarranted or easily corrected, otherwise the code enforcement officer can issue a citation – noncompliance with the citation can result in fines.
The jury reviewed three years of data dating from 2018 to 2020, during which time the county received 651 code enforcement complaints.
During their investigation, they found that less than 10 percent of the outstanding fines had been collected. There were 178 citations (of the 651 issued) that were still categorized as open from 2018 to 2020.
As of Nov. 30, 2020, the county had outstanding fines for both open and closed cases with a sum of $1,143,991 – the largest category being building code violations ($534,057) followed by zoning violations ($402,561). Fines for citations over two years old totaled over $500,000.
“The fines serve as a deterrent for the continued poor behavior by those property owners and businesses where the violations were committed. Without fines being levied and collected these entities have no reason to cease the action that warranted the citation,” according to the report.
The grand jury found that one of the main factors contributing to the backlog of cases and lack of enforcement is due to the county only having one dedicated code enforcement officer, which is much less than some surrounding jurisdictions – Yuba and Placer counties have five officers while Butte County has eight officers.
There were also 54 open cases that had not been inspected as of Nov. 30, 2020. Another 152 cases were closed without an inspection date and no valid reason given.
“The citizens of Sutter County require a county government that actively enforces the ordinances and codes it has created. It speaks to the quality of life when blight, hazards, nuisances, building codes and zoning codes go unaddressed. A responsible government should not allow potentially lifethreatening issues to continue,” according to the report.
Moving forward, the grand jury recommended supervisors require the county to collect or mitigate the outstanding fines before new policies take effect; that supervisors have the county hire additional code enforcement officers to adequately address the workload immediately; that the county administrator inform supervisors of the department’s progress on a monthly basis, as well as publicly explain why each of the cases were closed without investigation within the next six months (those that were closed with insufficient reasoning should be reopening for investigation).