Property Maintenance Code - More than a failed experiment?

It has been about three years since Newark rolled out the most recent Property Maintenance Code, but already it is in danger of getting shot down by the lack of enforcement and a mayor who wants to avoid this responsibility by handing it over to the County Health Department.

Today’s Code was carefully crafted over a period of several months with maximum opportunities for input from anybody with an interest. The former Code had been rejected by a referendum vote, mainly because of intrusive restrictions on what owners could do with their properties and the ham-handed enforcement procedures by the city health department.

The present Code removed the health department from all enforcement issues other than health endangerment. Otherwise, enforcement fell to a Property Maintenance Code administrator (dismissed a few months ago by the city) who was to be assisted by a property maintenance clerk.

The Code was to be complaint-driven and the complainant was to be identified, thus eliminating frivolous and spiteful harassment by unidentified busybodies. Violators were to be first given a warning and 14 days in which to comply, rather than the traditional stern, impersonal tactics employed before. It also provides for an appeal process before a five-member committee.

Newark had morphed from Gestapo to reasonable regarding property maintenance problems, except for one thing. It required a city administration which could oversee it, but that was not to be.

It has not been effective at addressing all (most? any?) complaints brought before it. I’m not sure where the blame for that lies, what layers of politics and bureaucracy interfered, who neglected to supervise whom, who screwed off when they were supposed to be enforcing, or whether the Code was ever followed regarding the way PM complaints were handled but I am sure of one thing: the reason the Code is failing is not because it is defective in any way, but because of Mayor Bob Diebold’s administration of it.

According to City Director of Law Doug Sassen, “This office is not unhappy with the Code as it exists. We are happy with the procedural aspects of the Code and we believe it is sufficiently comprehensive to address the obvious needs of the City given that it is not a ‘beautification’ manual and it has sufficient teeth to be effectively enforced.”

To compound Diebold’s ineffective oversight, now he is proposing to hand over enforcement of it to the county health department. It seems to me that if the county could enforce city ordinances, we might find all sorts of useful things for it do.

This is trophy-level government incompetence, but to make it worse the Council Safety Committee Monday agreed to start rending the Property Maintenance Code with a major change in what it requires of property owners, blaming the Code itself for Newark government’s inability to administer it.

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