More News

Town split on infractions rules

Washington Grove debates ordinance

Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2005

A can of worms has opened in Washington Grove.

With the season’s first snow gently falling outside, residents and town leaders kept warm in Monday night by debating a proposed municipal infractions ordinance—and stumbling over how it would be enforced.

‘‘I think we’re just asking for trouble,” said Dave Gumula, a 20-year-town resident. ‘‘It just seems to me that this is just totally incomplete right now.”

What seemed incomplete to Gumula appeared as much to other residents huddled in a drafty McCathran Hall for a public hearing on the proposed ordinance, which would allow the town to levy civil fines and enforce them through District Court.

As it is, the town can only go through court to impose its ordinances, considered a costly and time-consuming measure that is thus rarely pursued, leaving the town without an effective way to enforce its own laws.

The ordinance would also increase to $1,000 the highest possible fine the town could levy, up from the current $100, though leaders emphasize there is no automatic $1,000 fine for any infraction—only that a fine could go that high.

Along with the revised ordinance, the town would establish a ‘‘code-enforcement officer” to objectively cite violations, a move already permitted by town law.

But the ordinance itself wasn’t what kept residents on their feet. It was figuring out how to fairly impose it with regard to violations in existence at the time the law would pass.

Along with copies of the ordinance, introduced Nov. 14, residents reviewed two options addressing how to handle such ‘‘pre-existing” violations: Would they all be exempt from the new law, or only some? And how do they decide?

‘‘The real question is how the majority of the town feels in dealing with existing violations,” Mayor John Compton said, referring to cases where, for example, the height of a house, while not a violation when built, is deemed such under the proposed law.

One option was to exempt all such cases —dubbed ‘‘full grandfathering”—from violating the ordinances long as no ‘‘material increase” of the violation is found, meaning the violation would be exempt as long as it didn’t get worse—as long as the house didn’t get taller.

The other, more complicated option would exempt some pre-existing violations, but not others—a status to be decided by the town’s Planning Commission. This was dubbed ‘‘partial grandfathering.”

Under this option, if the mayor issued a notice of pre-existing violation within six months of the law’s passing and the commission deemed the violation not exempt, its owners would have up to 18 months to correct the infraction or face penalties under the new ordinance. The ruling could be appealed.

Residents’ hands flung up before Compton could finish, with questions pouring forth over what would be exempt, and soon, ‘‘a can of worms” became a repeated descriptor of the issue. ‘‘Quagmire” was mentioned, as well.

How, residents asked, could the town expect them to vote on an option that doesn’t specify what, exactly, would be deemed an infraction? And how, given the bickering thus far, would it be settled?

‘‘You’re asking people, I think, to vote a little bit blindfolded,” said town resident Chris Kirtz, who sat in the front row .

Gumula agreed. ‘‘We built a new house,” he said. ‘‘And as far as I know we met all the requirements. If the town wants to do thus ... then we ought to know what the list of infractions is. You don’t know what you’re voting for.”

Compton and other town leaders emphasize their real goal with the revised ordinance would be to ensure violations are corrected—not to punish residents or raise money.

If Compton hadn’t suggested before the hearing began that the record be held open until the January town meeting became ample public notice of the hearing hadn’t been issued, he would have likely done so afterward.

‘‘This is clearly going to take more than a month of consideration,” he said, adding later, ‘‘Something needs to be done with existing violations. And there are options.”