HomeMy WebLinkAbout101-Staff Report.pdf SARATOGA CITY COUNCIL
MEETING DATE: January 20, 2009 AGENDA ITEM:
DEPARTMENT: Community Development CITY MANAGER: Dave Anderson
PREPARED BY: Jana Rinaldi DIRECTOR: John Livingstone, AICP
Code Compliance Specialist
SUBJECT: Adoption of ordinance establishing the City’s ability to issue administrative
citations for violations of the Saratoga City Code.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Staff recommends the City Council waive the Second Reading and adopt the Administrative
Citation Ordinance.
BACKGROUND:
On December 16, 2009, the City Council conducted a public hearing, introduced the ordinance,
and voted to place the ordinance on consent for adoption at the next regularly scheduled City
Council meeting.
DISCUSSION
The City establishes rules and regulations for living and doing business within city limits.
Currently, the City’s only ability to enforce its ordinances is through voluntary compliance,
recordation of a code violation against the title of the property, and public nuisance abatement or
criminal prosecution through the court system. The administrative citation ordinance would allow
staff to issue administrative citations for violations of the City Code.
Typically, enforcement of violations of the City Code results in a “Notice of Violation”, which
consists of education, specific remedies and a time frame for compliance. In most cases this type
of corrective notice is sufficient; however, there are situations where stronger enforcement actions
are necessary. Under the existing City Code, code violations may be criminally charged as
infractions or misdemeanors. Prosecution through the Court system is costly and requires
significant staff resources as well as City Attorney time. In addition, if the matter actually gets to
court, the offender may simply be required to remove the personal property or materials. Similar
circumstances arise in connection with enforcement of other requirements of the City Code.
The proposed ordinance would provide an alternative to criminal prosecution of code violations
and other existing tools. Staff believes that in some circumstances this could be a more effective
tool to promote compliance with the City Code. It would allow the City to impose administrative
fines of not more than $100.00 for a first violation, $200.00 for a second violation, and a fine not
exceeding $500.00 for each additional violation. Each day that a violation continues would be
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considered a separate violation of the Code. Costly court action would be avoided except in
instances where an individual or entity refuses to respond to a citation or appeals a hearing
officer’s finding that a violation has occurred. Unpaid administrative fines would go into a state-
established collection process in which delinquent fines are collected via the Franchise Tax Board.
The ordinance would require that residents be given the opportunity to correct code violations
before any penalty is issued except in cases of immediate danger to health or safety. The ordinance
includes procedures for appeals of citations to an impartial hearing officer. Such hearings would
provide persons who believe the citation is not warranted to present their case to the hearing
officer. Hearing officer decisions may also be appealed to the Santa Clara County Superior
Court.
Staff recommends that no administrative citations be issued before July. This will allow time for
staff training, public education, establishing administrative penalties in the fee schedule and setting
up the other aspects of the program.
FISCAL IMPACTS:
Staff estimates that the collection of fines and penalties should result in a revenue-expense neutral
code compliance program. Administrative citations will range from $100.00 up to $500.00 per
occurrence. The minimum cost for management and processing through the City’s existing
vendor for parking ticket fines is $100.00 per month, or $1,200.00 per year. It is expected that
the cost of this service will be offset in part by the intake of civil fines. Staff is recommending that
the management processing service not be activated until the following fiscal year. This will
provide staff with time to acclimate City residents to the Administrative Citation
Ordinance/Program Enforcement without the added expense to this fiscal year’s budget.
CONSEQUENCES OF NOT FOLLOWING RECOMMENDED ACTION:
The City would continue to use its existing enforcement tools as described above.
FOLLOW UP ACTION:
This ordinance or a comprehensive summary thereof shall be published in a newspaper of general
circulation of the City of Saratoga within fifteen days after its adoption.
ADVERTISING, NOTICING AND PUBLIC CONTACT:
Notice of this meeting was properly posted and published in the Saratoga News.
ATTACHMENTS:
A. Ordinance
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