Memorandum
Date: April 27, 2021
To: The Honorable Bruno Sabatier, Chair, Lake County Board of Supervisors
From: Scott De Leon, Public Works Director
Subject: Discussion and Direction to Staff regarding: a) Modifications to the Lake County Administrative Penalties Ordinance and b) Recouping of costs associated with Hazardous Vegetation Abatement
Executive Summary: (include fiscal and staffing impact narrative):
Within Chapter 13 of the Lake County Code, in Article VII - Administrative Penalties, there exists several sections that encompass the processes related to administrative penalties, which provide remedies to: 1) All violations of the Lake County Code; 2) Failing to comply with any condition imposed by any entitlement, permit, contract, or environmental document issued or approved by the County of Lake; and, 3) Failing to obtain and/or maintain any permit related to cannabis operations which is required, issued, and/or approved by the County of Lake. This Article is referred to and cited as: "The Lake County Administrative Penalties Ordinance", and it is Ordinance number 2927. The current ordinance is attached to this memo as Exhibit A.
Section 13-55 of the aforementioned Article specifies the processes for payment and collection of Administrative Penalties. At this time, the only remedy available to the County for unpaid penalties is a lien on any real property owned by the responsible party(ies), which results in several challenges, some of which include:
* The lien process is slow, cumbersome, and very time consuming for staff;
* Liens do not address the situation when the offending party is not the owner of the property;
* Liens are only paid at the time of the sale of the parcel on which it's filed, and in the case of tax-defaulted sales, are not accounted for and can only be paid if there are excess funds;
Staff solicited input from other agencies with successful collection programs and based on the information gathered, there are two ar...
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