Several say the enforcement office needs supervision, not a second position.

Improving the city’s code enforcement practices may require additional “adult supervision” rather than an increase in staff support, one city councilor says.

“I am not at all convinced the code enforcement function requires additional staff,” said Councilman Nezam Tooloee during Monday deliberations on the city’s 2007 preliminary budget.

Tooloee suggested that code enforcement challenges need an infusion of greater “judgment, discretion and adult supervision.”

He was joined by other councilors who expressed skepticism that a proposed new “code compliance specialist” would improve what some residents charge is an unbalanced or inconsistent enforcement of land use practices.

“We’ve got to find a solution,” said Councilman Bill Knobloch, citing recent controversies in which alleged code violations by developers were missed, while enforcement in smaller cases involving backyard gardens, goat pastures and weddings were aggressively pursued.

“Honestly, what’s going on here?” Knobloch said. “It’s ripping this community asunder.”

Interim Planning Director Jim Harris, who joined the city two months ago, defended Code Enforcement Officer Meghan McKnight’s work while admitting the city must do more to improve enforcement practices and tackle “hot-button issues.”

“I’ve worked, in my 46 years (as a planner) with many different code enforcement officers,” he said. “And you have an employee who works her tail off.”

McKnight currently has 40 active enforcement cases on her desk.

“That’s a lot of cases and a lot are very complicated,” Harris said, adding that code enforcement is under heavy demand from “an extremely active” community with high expectations.

Many residents, he said, “think (the code enforcement officer) jumps into the car, turns on the red lights and goes to the scene of the crime. But it doesn’t happen that way in any community in Washington state.”

Responses to alleged violations could see significant improvement with the addition of a second enforcement staffer, as proposed in the city’s preliminary budget, Harris said.

Costing the city just over $65,700 in 2007, the code compliance specialist would pick up some of McKnight’s workload, put one more person in the field for investigations and increase community education of city land use policies.

“This person could mute some of the crisis atmosphere,” said Harris.

But it’s not “more bodies” that will fix the crisis, Tooloee said. Instead, the city should work to improve the present code enforcement officer position.

“We don’t appear to have a person qualified for that job,” he said.

Tooloee later clarified his comment, saying it is not a reflection of his personal opinion, but of many constituents who have called or emailed him to complain about McKnight’s work.

McKnight “ought to fight the big projects, the things that have real environmental impacts and community impacts,” Tooloee said. “But we hear about the frivolous things.”

Tooloee said he has heard from numerous residents angry about tree-cutting violations at developments and city-owned land.

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” Tooloee said. “We know about the Tolo travesty and the city clear-cutting Halls Hill and not replanting it. We have seven or eight major deals with huge environmental impacts.”

At the same time, alleged violations in backyards, barns and small pastures are actively pursued. Tooloee cited recent enforcement actions against an organic garden built in a buffer, a farm that hosts weddings, and a backyard goat pasture.

“You have Maddy’s goats, Jean-Paul’s organic garden and Patti, who’s told she can’t have weddings,” he said. “I hear about a home business shut down for a goofy thing related to the noise ordinance. I hear about a guy down the road from me who’s getting hounded by the city about a (children’s) play structure.

“I’m going ‘wait a minute, wait a minute!’ Who’s exercising judgment? Where is the adult supervision?”