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complaint. If the complaint is legitimate, a letter is sent to the property owner giving them 30 <br />days to correct the problem. In the meantime, if the property owner contacts the City, staff <br />makes an attempt to work with them. At the end of 30-day period and the property owner has not <br />complied with the letter or contacted staff another letter is sent out giving them an additional 14 <br />days. After the 14 days if no action has been taken the issue is forwarded to the City Attorney. <br />All along, the goal is to work with the property owner, not bring them to court. The problem <br />with that system is that it does not get fast results, which ends up in a lose-lose situation. Staff <br />has researched Administrative Hearing programs that other cities have implemented. There <br />appears to be a number of advantages to this type of system compared to the criminal justice <br />system. The Administrative Hearing process allows municipalities to conduct local, informal <br />hearing to resolve code violations. This type of program may help expedite abatement of code <br />violations that occur in Ramsey. <br /> <br />Councihnember Cook inquired if the City would begin going around looking for violations or <br />would they still handle them on a complaint basis. He would not want the City going overboard <br />on code enforcement. <br /> <br />Principal Planner Trudgeon agreed. He explained that the problem with the current system is <br />that if someone knows that the City is just going to send the letters and do nothing about it they <br />will continue to violate the ordinance. <br /> <br />Councilmember Elvig inquired if staff was proposing to still deal with the complaints on a "hand <br />shake" level and if they do not respond then go through the Administrative Hearing process. <br /> <br />Principal Planner Trudgeon replied that the City is willing to work with property owners for a <br />long time to correct the problem, but it is the situation when the issue is ignored where there is a <br />problem. <br /> <br />Mayor Gamec stated that he felt that the City should continue dealing with City Code violations <br />on a complaint basis because a lot of the issues are neighborhood disputes, but there are some <br />larger concerns such as junk cars on a property that simply are ignored. He suggested that the <br />City not go out looking for trouble, but if there is a complaint they should follow through. <br /> <br />Councihnember Cook stated that he would be in favor of the administrative hearing process in <br />situations where staff has been working on a problem for a long time and the property owners are <br />refusing to work with the City. He also requested that they review the issue of livestock on a 2.5- <br />acre parcel at a future work session. <br /> <br />Councilmember Pearson stated that he liked the idea of approaching the property owner first and <br />allowing them time to correct the problem, but if someone does not act after they have been <br />nudged a few times then the City needs to take further action. <br /> <br />The City Council directed staff to write an ordinance to implement an Administrative Hearing <br />program for the City of Ramsey so that the ordinance can be used when deemed appropriate. <br /> <br />City Council Work Session/March 4, 2003 <br /> Page 9 of 16 <br /> <br /> <br />