HomeMy WebLinkAbout101-Staff Report admin citations.pdf SARATOGA CITY COUNCIL
MEETING DATE: December 16, 2009 AGENDA ITEM:
DEPARTMENT: Community Development CITY MANAGER: Dave Anderson
PREPARED BY: Jana Rinaldi DIRECTOR: John Livingstone, AICP
SUBJECT: Proposed ordinance establishing the City’s ability to issue administrative citations
for violations of the Saratoga City Code.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Conduct a public hearing regarding the attached ordinance establishing an administrative citation
procedure, introduce and waive the first reading of the ordinance, and direct staff to place the
ordinance on the consent calendar for adoption at the next regularly scheduled meeting of the City
Council.
BACKGROUND:
At its September 16, 2009 meeting the City Council considered a draft ordinance establishing an
administrative citation procedure for violations of the City Code and directed staff to prepare an
ordinance and bring it back to the Council at a public hearing.
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 proposed administrative citation ordinance
would allow staff to issue administrative citations for violations of the City Code.
Typically, enforcement of violations of 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. For example: the City Code regulates
storage of personal property on residential property (recreational vehicles, boats and trailers are
the most complained about); staff efforts to enforce this ordinance are often ignored by residents
because they understand that court prosecution is time consuming and costly for the City. 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 is some circumstances this could be a more effective
tool to promote compliance with the City Code. The attached ordinance is based on the
ordinance in effect in San Juan Capistrano and reviewed by the City Council in September. 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 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.
Most cities with administrative citation programs require enforcement officers to participate in a
certification training course: PC832 without firearms. The certification course is a 40 hours and is
certified by the State Board of Corrections. The Course is available through the Santa Clara
County Probation Department and is currently scheduled to take place in February 2010.
Staff recommends that no administrative citations be issued before July. This will allow time for
staff training, public education, including 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 up to $500 per
occurrence. The minimum cost for the 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 revenue intake of the civil fines. Staff is seeking
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 year’s budget.
CONSEQUENCES OF NOT FOLLOWING RECOMMENDED ACTION:
The City would continue to use its existing enforcement tools as described above.
ALTERNATIVE ACTION:
Provide staff with alternative direction.
FOLLOW UP ACTION:
Place the ordinance on the consent calendar for adoption at the January 20, 2010 meeting of the
City Council. Recommend the Administrative Services Director incorporate the new policy and
associated fees into the budget and fees schedule for the next fiscal year.
ADVERTISING, NOTICING AND PUBLIC CONTACT:
Notice of this meeting was properly posted and published in the Saratoga News.
ATTACHMENTS:
A. Proposed Ordinance