REPORT TO THE CITY COUNCIL
FROM: LUIS CHAVEZ, Council President
District 5, City Council
SUBJECT:
Title
Actions pertaining to the expansion of the Abatement Team in the City Attorney’s Office, Division of Code Enforcement:
1. ***RESOLUTION - Adopting the 3rd Amendment to the Position Authorization Resolution (PAR) No. 2021-179, adding six new Laborer positions in the City Attorney’s Office for the Code Enforcement Abatement Team (subject to Mayor’s veto).
2. ***RESOLUTION - Adopting the 39th Amendment to the Annual Appropriation Resolution (AAR) No. 2021-178 to appropriate $420,000 from the Council Projects fund of the City Attorney’s Office budget for the City Attorney’s Office abatement team personnel, equipment, and operating expenses for FY22 (requires 5 affirmative votes) (subject to Mayor’s veto).
Body
RECOMMENDATION:
Council President Chavez recommends the adoption of the 3rd Amendment to the Position Authorization Resolution (PAR) No. 2021-179, adding six Laborer positions in the City Attorney’s Office Division of Code Enforcement’s Abatement Team.
Council President Chavez also recommends the adoption of the 39th Amendment to the Annual Appropriation Resolution (AAR) No. 2021-178 to provide appropriations in the City Attorney’s Office FY 2022 budget to sufficiently cover anticipated expenditures for the cost of expanding of the Abatement Team’s personnel, equipment, and operating expenses.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Council President Chavez recommends the Council approve amendments to the AAR and PAR in order to expand the Abatement Team by adding six staff members to address the growing need for public nuisance abatements throughout the City of Fresno.
BACKGROUND:
The City has an immediate need for public nuisance abatement to reduce blight and public nuisance violations throughout the City of Fresno (City).
The Abatement Team (Team) currently consists of only three Light Equipment Operators and four Laborers. Their scheduled work hours are 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday thru Friday. The Team regularly conducts board-ups of vacant buildings, junk and rubbish clean-ups, and tall grass/weed abatements (including discing vacant lots) at private properties throughout the City when property owners fail to comply with FMC requirements and Notices issued by Code Enforcement inspectors to maintain their properties. The Team also assists with opening vacant properties to provide access for inspection warrants as well as conducting abatements pursuant to a warrant. When not responding to requests for abatements as described above, the Team cleans alleys in School Area Team school areas or other alleys in need by removing tall grass/weeds and junk/rubbish. Thus far in 2021, the Team has completed 312 abatements. Depending on the size of the property, some abatements may require multiple full days of labor with the entire team. Often while the Team is working on a large clean up, they will get called out to perform a board-up at a different location. When this occurs, two or three staff members have to break away from the rest of the team to respond to the other location to complete the board-up. With the City covering well over 112 square miles, and with more than 500,000 residents, the violations in need of abatement at vacant lots/buildings and clean-ups are increasing. In addition, the duties of code enforcement continue to expand to cover additional areas, including mobilehome parks and vacant commercial buildings, and these increased duties continue to expand the need for abatement. Compounded with the short staffing issues associated with Covid, the City would benefit from these added positions in order to keep up with the growing number of abatements and provide a more efficient and effective service to the residents of Fresno.
With the added positions, additional equipment is also necessary, including a skid steer, skid steer trailer, tool truck, flatbed truck, crew cab truck, Bobcat with loader and bucket, and hand tools. Light Equipment Operators operate a skid steer and/or tractor while Laborers operate smaller equipment at an abatement location. A dump truck and one dump trailer are operated by staff members to travel to and from the dump sites with loads of green waste and trash removed from an abatement location.
Implementation of the recommended actions will add the following positions for Code Enforcement to reduce blight, rubbish, fire hazards, etc.:
- 6 Laborers
The recommended action appropriates $420,000 towards salaries of new employees, the purchase of new equipment, and operating expenses.
Expansion of the Abatement Team will allow for an increase in efficient and effective completion of abatements throughout the City on a daily and yearly basis. This expansion will allow for a 4/10 work schedule (with different days off for different staff) creating a full team that is always readily available for abatements during extended hours (7:00am - 5:30pm) on all weekdays. Currently, urgent summary abatement requests submitted to the Team late in the day require either overtime pay or use of an outside contractor. An expansion of the Team may allow for more staff members to be on hand at abatement locations while other staff members are driving to-and-from the dump sites. Additionally, other City departments are often in need of board-ups or other abatements at City-owned locations or properties involving Fire or Police (but not Code). In these instances, other departments utilize an outside contractor to complete the abatements. An expansion will provide for availability of the Abatement Team to assist other City departments upon request and proper billing. This may result in a decrease in the response time and cost for the Abatement Team to complete the requests than having an outside contractor complete the work.
ENVIRONMENTAL FINDINGS:
This is not a project as defined by CEQA.
LOCAL PREFERENCE:
N/A
FISCAL IMPACT:
Action includes approval of an AAR to appropriate $420,000 from the City Attorney’s Office’s Legal Proceedings and Consulting Section to the Code Section, for personnel, additional equipment, and operating expenses for the remainder of FY 2022. No revenue is expected from this expansion.
ATTACHMENTS:
3rd Amendment to the Position Authorization Resolution (PAR) No.2021-179
39th Amendment to the Annual Appropriation Resolution (AAR) No. 2021-178