BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD — Giving residents a better understanding of how the town’s code enforcement office is handling complaints is the reason why borough officials said they adopted a new reporting format.
A new code enforcement operations report will be read in its entirety at Borough Council meetings every two weeks. Officials said the report is meant to give people a better understanding of what the code enforcement department is doing to address quality of life issues in the borough.
The report will include four sections — complaints received on the code enforcement department’s hotline; complaints received at council meetings; a summary of the Municipal Court’s quality of life sessions; and general complaints and investigations.
Henry Stryker III, director of the code enforcement office, said the development of the report was a team effort among Mayor Michael Wilson, council members, the borough administrator and his office, which includes Quality of Life Enforcement Team members Matthew Young and James Richmond, and Special Police Officer Pete Napoli.
The first code enforcement operations report presented to the council lists violations to borough ordinances from April 19 through May 12 and includes 13 violations for residential overcrowding; 17 violations for failure to maintain smoke detectors; and 13 violations for sleeping in a nonhabitable space. Included under the general complaints were 32 violations cited for high grass.
Stryker said he will continue to refine the report and hopes to include the fines for the violations. He said he believes the public reading of the report will allow people to see what his office is doing to address quality of life issues in the borough.
"We understand the level of frustration people feel when they call in complaints and then don’t see things taken care of immediately. They don’t understand there is a process that has to be followed," he said. "When a complaint comes in, we record it immediately in our complaint log."
This handwritten log lists the date and time of the complaint, the caller’s name (if provided), what has been done to address the situation and a space for a follow-up phone call to the complainant.
Stryker said complaints are almost always addressed within 24 hours, although he noted there are procedures that must be followed.
For example, if someone complains about a property with high grass, Young will usually be the person to notify the property owner and give them seven days to correct the situation. If the owner does not comply within that time frame, he is given a summons and must appear in court.
Stryker said high grass can be a safety issue because it can attract rodents.This all takes time, especially if the complaint comes in at the beginning of the month, because if the property owner does not comply after seven days and receives a summons, he will have to appear in court on the last Tuesday of the month when borough ordinance court sessions are held. That can mean weeks before a situation is resolved.
Stryker said if he believes a situation with overgrown grass presents a public safety issue, borough employees with mow the grass and a bill will be sent to the property owner (in addition to the summons).
Complaints about overcrowding in residences work the same way. A complaint comes in, gets logged and an inspector is sent to check the situation.
"When we go in on a complaint, we do a full inspection," said Stryker. "We’ll check smoke detectors, smoke alarms, electric wiring and plumbing for leaks, too, as well as property-maintenance violations."
A complete list of violations is then sent to the landlord, who is given 30 days to correct them. Evidence of overcrowding results in an automatic summons.
The fine for an overcrowding violation is $1,250 for the first offense and it can go as high as $2,500 for subsequent offenses, according to a municipal ordinance.
"People know how many occupants are allowed in an apartment. We have placed orange certificate of occupancy stickers in [the apartments] in both English and Spanish with that information," Young said.
Stryker said the code enforcement operations report will provide residents with a way of knowing what the department is doing.
"This office is all about protecting people. Any of the ordinances we have in place are all for the good of the people," he said.