Moorpark Council Weighs Adding Enforcement Officer

Concerned that the city takes too long to clean up eyesore properties, City Council members said Wednesday that Moorpark’s one-man code enforcement program may need a new set of priorities and, possibly, an additional officer.

Moorpark has one code enforcement officer to check for unsafe buildings, crowded houses and unkempt lawns throughout the community of 28,000 people. As a result, the city has taken as long as three weeks to respond to complaints.

Council members voted unanimously Wednesday night to hold a study session, scheduled Nov. 4, to review the program’s priorities. They also discussed hiring another officer to share the workload.

Several council members said before the meeting, however, that adding staff to the city payroll may not solve the problem.

“Certainly, additional code enforcement is needed,” Councilman Pat Hunter said. “What form that takes, I don’t know.”

Under the present system, the lone code enforcement officer, Mario Riley, handles a long list of responsibilities. He investigates reports of houses packed with multiple families--more than the structures are designed to legally hold. He inspects buildings for safety problems. He also helps police deal with abandoned or illegally parked cars.

The workload is based on complaints--phones calls or letters about deteriorating properties. Although city policy holds that staff should respond to each complaint within a day, some cases take weeks to address, Community Development Director Nelson Miller said.

Councilwoman Eloise Brown said the department should create a kind of triage system, a way of determining which problems demand an immediate response. Problems affecting the public health and welfare warrant prompt action, she said. Matters of mere aesthetics--say, a lawn that hasn’t been mowed in months--probably do not.

Brown also supported hiring another officer, perhaps making that person part of the city’s Redevelopment Agency and paying the salary from agency funds.

Miller estimated that a new officer would cost about $55,000 in salary and benefits. He also suggested hiring a full-time secretary, a move he said could cost an additional $25,000, but would relieve officers from performing much of the administrative work.

Hunter asked that staff compile statistics on how much time Riley spends on assignment and the amount he spends on paperwork. “We want to free him, as much as possible, of the administrative tasks and get him out in the field,” he said.