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officer reviews the violation and determines if the fine was warranted or should be dismissed. There are not any statistics readily available on the number of fines that are appealed. Should a property owner refuse to comply or pay the fine, there is disagreement in the legal community on what occurs next. Some cities have adopted a code that allows them to assess the fine to the property taxes. Based on his initial research, the Arden Hills City Attorney has advised us against adopting a code where the administrative fine could be assessed to property taxes. While the city may be able to recover the fine, the city may still not have compliance. In cases where conlpliance is unattained, a criminal or civil citation is often the only remaining tool. For certain public nuisance violations, a city can abate the property and assess the cost, which is discussed further in the below sections. City Code: In order to use this process, the City Council would need to adopt the necessary regulations to the City Code and amend the fee schedule to include the fines for violations. The Code would also need to appoint a hearing officer to hear appeals to the administrative fines. Cost: This process would require involvement from the City Administrator, Community Development Director, City Attorney, Building Official and Code Enforcement Officer. While there is not a standard cost for setting up this type of program, a reasonable estimate is $2,500 to $3,500 for the cost of staff and city attorney time. This process would also require a continual dedication of staff time and resources without a guarantee of cost recovery. Until. an administrative fine policy is created, it is difficult to estimate the number of fines that would be issued each year and the impact of ongoing costs. However, for a purely hypothetical example, assume that a fine is issued on the second notice and waived if there is compliance within seven days of issuing the fine. If 80 fines are issued, 40 fines are waived due to compliance, 35 fines are paid due to continued noncompliance, and 5 are appealed, the staff time could be at or above 80 additional hours per year (estimate of one hour per fine for admin, preparation, finance, and correspondence time). At a rate of $30/hour, staff time would cost $2,400. Revenue should not exceed the cost of the program but could vary depending on the fine (e.g. the City of Roseville charges $100 per fine). In this example the program would pay for itself in terms of cost; however, it would not be sufficient revenue to hire another full or part time employee. Unless other staff activities are reduced, additional help would likely be needed to administer the program. Since an administrative fine does not guarantee compliance, some fines would likely be converted to civil or criminal citations. Accelerated Abatement The current City Code allows for the abatement process for public nuisances; however, it can be a relatively long process for certain types of nuisances that need immediate City of Arden Hills City Council Work Session for October 20, 2008 I IAhdocsl \ahIAHdafa\Planning\Communi~v Developmenf\Commllni~v LivabilifylMemos\l 02008 - CC Memo - Community Livabili~y.doc Page 6 of 12