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Minutes 05-25-06 MINUTES OF THE CODE COMPLIANCE BOARD LIEN REDUCTION MEETING HELD IN THE COMMISSION CHAMBERS, CITY HALL, BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA, ON THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2006, AT 3:00 P.M. Present Michele Costantino, Chair Kathleen Carroll Kathy Cook Bob Foot Lisa Simshauser David Tolces, Assistant City Attorney Scott Blasie, Code Administrator Absent Richard Yerzy I. Call to Order Chair Costantino called the meeting to order at 3:00 p.m. Ms. Simshauser expressed concern about the vacating of Mr. DeLiso's seat at the last board meeting. When she became a board member, she had been advised a member had to miss six meetings before their position was at risk. She asked for a review of the issue because, from the outside, it did not appear impartial. Attorney Tolces acknowledged the City had attendance procedures that were different from those of the State Statute; however, the State Statute was supplementary and complementary to the City policies and procedures. In the State Statute, if a person missed two of more than three successive meetings without cause and without prior notice to the Chair, it was grounds for vacation of his or her seat. So, the action taken by the board to vacate Mr. DeLiso's seat was legal. The City Commission had to fill the vacancy on the board. If they chose to do so, they could re-appoint Mr. DeLiso. Mr. Foot nominated Ms. Cook as Vice Chair. Chair Costantino noted that since the board had voted to vacate Mr. DeLiso's chair and he was the Vice Chair, the first order of business would be to vote for a new Vice Chair. This was necessary because someone had to be able to sign papers if the Chair was unavailable. The consensus was it would be better to elect someone for an interim period of time, since they wanted to have the full board in attendance for this. Ms. Cook indicated she would accept the position as interim Vice Chair until the next Code Compliance Board meeting in June. Hearing no other nominations, Chair Costantino closed the floor for nominations. The Recording Secretary performed a roll call vote. Vote The motion to elect Kathy Cook as Vice Chair until the June Code Compliance Board meeting passed 4-1, Ms. Carroll dissenting. Meeting Minutes Code Compliance Lien Reduction Boynton Beach, Florida May 25, 2006 Attorney Tolces indicated that at the June meeting, nominations would be reopened for 1st Vice Chair and 2nd Vice Chair. III. Approval of Agenda Mr. Blasie reported the only change to the Agenda was that Case #06-515 had come into compliance. Motion Ms. Cook moved to approve the agenda as amended. Mr. Foot seconded the motion that passed unanimously. IV. Swearing in of Witnesses Attorney Tolces explained the procedures for this quasi-judicial hearing. He swore in witnesses who planned to speak. He also explained that there was a 7-member board, but only five members were present, so the respondents could request their case be deferred until the full board was present. None of the respondents chose to do this. v. New Business A. Lien Reduction Case #05-929 Imagination Homes of Parkland 621 Lake Street Scott Blasie, Code Administrator, explained the lien reduction process. Mr. Blasie reported the notice of violation had been issued on May 5, 2005 to mow and trim vacant lot and remove boat from vacant property. A board hearing was held on July 20, 2005 and no one appeared. The board set a compliance date of July 30, 2005 and proposed a fine of $100 a day. The property came into compliance on September 6, 2005 for 37 days of non- compliance. Mr. Blasie showed photographs of the property to the respondent, who verified they were pictures of his property. The pictures were then provided to the board. Mr. Blasie noted the site was still under construction but the March 13, 2006 photograph accurately depicted the current condition of the property. Ken Foley, President, Imagination Homes of Parkland, stated he was building two homes on this property, one of which was for his father. They applied for a permit and the permit process took about a year and they ended up paying about $22K. When they filed for the permit, they used an address of 1003 N.W. 53rd Court, Coral Springs, FI. with the general contractor. He had a partner two years previously, Jack Doucette, and when the property was purchased, he put his address down as the owner's address of the property. Everything was now under Mr. Foley's name and Mr. Doucette was now deceased. Mr. Doucette never forwarded the summons for the July 30, 2005 Code Compliance Board meeting. Mr. Foley's first knowledge of the issue was when he saw a posting on the construction site a few months later. Once he was aware of it, he spoke to Mr. Blasie. They had definitely been slow about getting 2 Meeting Minutes Code Compliance Lien Reduction Boynton Beach, Florida May 25, 2006 out to the site, but they did cut the lawn at least three times. Mr. Foley spoke to the neighbor, who was storing the boat on the property. Mr. Foley did not know he could not keep the boat on the property, but the neighbor got a summons as well and moved the boat over to his property. The house was almost finished now. He mentioned there was constant dumping on the property also - it was located right behind a shopping center. They had someone go up there once a month and they picked up such things as washing machines, refrigerators, and so forth. He noted there had been some bad weather during the period of time in question, that also contributed to the lawn growing faster than usual. Mr. Blasie noted there actually had been proper service in the form of a card signed by Mr. Foley for the July 20 hearing, and he verified this with Mr. Foley before the meeting. Mr. Foley's deceased partner signed the return receipt card for the August 17, 2005 fine certification hearing. Mr. Blasie confirmed that the property location behind Inlet Plaza had been a dumping spot for years. Mr. Foot felt compliance had come sooner in this case than in a lot of others, but still felt there should be recovery of administrative costs at least. Ms. Carroll disagreed, saying compliance had come very quickly considering the time of the year and the hurricanes that took place around that time. Motion Based on the testimony and evidence presented in Case #05-929, and having been advised that the Respondent has complied with all lien reduction procedures set forth in Section 2-84 through 2-89 of the City of Boynton Beach Code of Ordinances, Ms. Carroll moved that this Board reduce the fines instituted in Case #05-929, by virtue of this board's order of July 20, 2005, to an amount of $730.15, including administrative costs. Mr. Foot seconded the motion that passed 5-0. Case #04-698 Gregory C. McMenaman 226 S.W. 3rd Avenue Mr. Blasie reported the notice of violation had been issued on March 30, 2004 to install sod in the yard and swale. A Code Compliance Board hearing was held on August 18, 2004 and no one appeared. The board established a compliance date of September 17, 2004 and proposed a fine of $25 per day. Staff documented compliance on May 16, 2005 for 240 days of non- compliance plus inspection costs. Mr. Blasie showed photographs to the respondent and then to the board. Gregory McMenaman, 226 S.W. 3rd Avenue, Boynton Beach, owner of the property, stated they got notice to replace the sod in the swale area. They went through the process with the City Engineer to try to move the road up into the swale because when it rained, the swale was washed out. It was still that way. When they found out what was involved with doing that, they decided to just replace the sod. He stripped the area down to dirt and fixed some sprinkler heads and at that point, there were two hurricanes. The reason he did not show up for the August 18 hearing was he had been called to a franchise (of which he was an employee) in Ft. Myers that was damaged during the Punta Gorda storm. He tried to contact Code Officer Cain about this to see if it could be postponed. He did not have any record of whether he did this or 3 Meeting Minutes Code Compliance Lien Reduction Boynton Beach, Florida May 25, 2006 not. After the hurricanes, they tried to get sod companies to lay the sod and got put on a waiting list. Sodfather finally did it in January of 2005. Mr. Blasie asked Mr. McMenaman to relate the story of what happened during the storms last year. Mr. McMenaman stated he owned a Jersey Mikes in Delray Beach and during September of 2005, they lost power for 14 days. He lost all his food and it eventually cost about $33K. It took him awhile to make that back up. Motion Based on the testimony and evidence presented in Case #04-698, and having been advised that the Respondent has complied with all lien reduction procedures set forth in Section 2-84 through 2-89 of the City of Boynton Beach Code of Ordinances, Ms. Carroll moved that this Board reduce the fines instituted in Case #04-698, by virtue of this board's order of August 18, 2004, to an amount of $826.18, including administrative costs. Mr. Foot seconded the motion that passed 5-0. Attorney Tolces swore in Sr. Code Officer Willie Webb. B. Lien Penalty Certification (Tabled) Case #06-554 Anael F. Lambert so S. Palm Drive Sr. Code Officer Willie Webb reported this case had been cited on March 17, 2005 for various violations as cited. Mr. Lambert appeared at the May 17, 2006 Code Compliance Board meeting. At that time, the board gave Mr. Lambert until May 25, 2006 to secure the storage room so the tenants could not access it. The storage room had an electrical box with hot wires and the board considered this to be a life/safety issue. Mr. Lambert still had not secured the room. Some items were still in the room. Anael F. Lambert, SO So. Palm Drive, indicated he had not secured the room because he wanted Mr. Webb to be able to see that the room had been cleared out. When asked how he planned to secure the room, Mr. Lambert advised he would nail a piece of wood over the door so it could not be opened. After the tenants moved out at the end of May, he would secure the services of an electrical contractor to fix the wiring problem. Code Officer Webb asked that he put a No Trespassing sign on the door and Mr. Lambert agreed to do so. Chair Costantino lived in the neighborhood and stated the houses were built in the 1950s and their wiring was not the best. She was concerned about potential fires. Mr. Blasie advised Mr. Lambert he had to secure the room today, the day of this meeting, and call Mr. Webb to inspect it. Motion Mr. Foot moved to table Case #06-554 until the Code Compliance Board meeting on June 21, 2006. Ms. Simshauser seconded the motion that passed unanimously. 4 Meeting Minutes Code Compliance Lien Reduction Boynton Beach, Florida May 25, 2006 VI. Discussion 1) Building Department Red Tags The board had expressed concern in the past about not having representation from the Building Department at the Code Compliance Board hearings on cases that had been initiated by the Building Department. Mr. Blasie had spoken to the newly hired Building Official, Bill Bucklew, who was interviewing for an assistant, a Chief Inspector. By the June 21, 2006 meeting, his Chief Inspector planned to review all the Red Tags written by the inspectors for accuracy. Then they would review them to make sure they had done all they could do to try to remedy the situation before sending to the Code Compliance Department. If they did have to send them to Code, the Chief Inspector would be present at the meeting to prosecute the case. If this does not take place by the June meeting, it would definitely happen by the July meeting. 2) Split Code Agendas for Code Compliance Board Hearing Mr. Blasie reported that his staff had done an analysis of the last 17 meetings and determined that their average length was 2 hours and 19 minutes. He did not feel that was overly long for a meeting. He said his staff believed it would be very difficult for them to create two agendas and two sets of inspections. It would almost necessitate hiring another person to manage the agenda. The agenda was not easy to put together and was a dynamic process that changed hour by hour. Interim Vice Chair Cook responded that was enough said. If she did not want to give her time to the City, she would not have volunteered to be on the board. She was not in favor of splitting the meetings. Mr. Blasie commented they would continue to search for means of streamlining and shortening the meetings, within the legal guidelines. Atorney Tolces suggested that instead of trying to find consensus on motions before making them, it might be more expeditious for someone to make a motion and have a second, and then try to reach consensus. That was actually the way it was supposed to be done anyway. Mr. Blasie said his inspectors had to be present when their cases were called and he was working with them on that. The inspectors also needed to be completely prepared to present their cases. Chair Costantino asked if there would be any way of shortening the inspector's presentations, and was advised by Attorney Tolces that they stated the minimum amount of information and could not shorten it any further. Attorney Tolces said that other clients took twice as long to handle half as many cases. He was really impressed with the number of cases this board was able to handle and handle well. He felt they did an amazing job. 5 Meeting Minutes Code Compliance Lien Reduction Boynton Beach, Florida May 25, 2006 It was determined the agendas would not be split, but the search for ways to streamline the meetings would continue. 3. Other Ms. Carroll noted that Rolling Green Elementary School had closed recently and the children were being bused to another school. All the bus stops were moved. A neighbor who knew that Ms. Carroll was on the Code Compliance Board stopped Ms. Carroll. The request made to Ms. Carroll was what was being done about the three sexual predators who lived within view of the new bus stop. Ms. Carroll asked the individual to give her a printout of who they were and where they were living. The individual had seen a picture of a sexual predator on a Web site and he lives right at the bus stop. Mr. Blasie responded that if he was living at that location prior to July 1 of 2005, he would be grandfathered in. Also, they could not be brought into the Code by virtue of the fact something was put there since the ordinance was enacted - new school or new bus stop. Perhaps the school needs to move the bus stop and the matter should be brought to the attention of the School District. If Ms. Carroll had an address, Mr. Blasie would refer it to the Police Department who would look into it. It seemed to Ms. Cook that Boynton was pretty secure since the people that had been here had complied and moved on. Mr. Blasie indicated the word was out and now the Probation Department knows about Boynton's ordinance, so it should help. Ms. Cook was happy to see the Code Compliance Department employees out working over the weekends. She saw them picking up illegal signs and putting red tags on cars of people who were trying to sell them. She was excited to see this much activity. VII. Adjournment There being no further business before the board, the meeting was duly adjourned at 3:50 p.m. Respectfully submitted, ~, Susan Collins Recording Secretary (052606) 6