Editorial: Quality of life cop to walk complaint-driven beat

Wanted: Leaf blower patrol. Part time.|

Wanted: Leaf blower patrol. Part time. Responsibilities include: engagement with blowers, blown upon. Ability to disarm Powermate Cyclone 1200 a plus. Secondary duties: vacationer visitation, vapor taste testing, wine-pairing decibel abatement. Principals only; no recruiters.

This might not be quite the wording of the eventual job posting city officials place, but it’ll definitely be part of the responsibilities of the new half-time position being created to bolster the city’s buffed-up Code Enforcement Program. It’s a 24-hour a week position approved unanimously Feb. 1 by the Sonoma City Council.

And it’s about leaf-bluckin’ time.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with City officials’ willingness to enact “an increasing number of quality of life regulations in response to resident concerns,” as a city staff report so charitably puts it, that’s the Sonoma we’ve got right now – a town with an increasing number of “annoyance” restrictions, for lack of a better term, but with no one to come to the defense of the annoyed. Call it what you will – the peeved police, jilted gendarme, a crossed constabulary, the hackled heat, a miffed monitor (I could go on...). But someone’s got to take the case when a TwindStorm Dooly is blowing a yards-worth of Acer macrophyllum at 75 decibels – when 70’s the legal limit.

Goodness knows the Sonoma Police isn’t enamored with such assignments. (They’ll protest to the contrary, but that’s just being polite.)

As the staff report, again, judiciously frames it, because most other assignments are “typically a higher priority than code enforcement, investigating complaints and addressing violations is often slow and inconsistent and a backlog has developed” with respect to who’s using a leaf blower on a weekend.

Read: Someone beside the cops has got to own the leaf-blower beat.

Add to that the VR-violator beat, e-cig enforcement, Plaza-puppy patrol and cacophony containment.

City Prosecutor Robert Smith’s office is being paid $5,200 per month to run the code-enforcement program; the report is unclear as to how much of that will go to the part-time code-enforcement position.

Hopefully, the position will find lower-level closure to issues that shouldn’t – but too often do – occupy valuable city council meeting time: neighborhood squabbles.

And this isn’t a judgment on neighbors being annoyed at other neighbors. When peoples’ complaints over noise, which is often at the heart of these “quality of life” matters, seem to fall on deaf ears, they naturally seek a higher authority – like someone who will lose their votes if they don’t respond.

But, as Smith told the council Feb. 1, if there’s a person who can act as an in-the-flesh mediator between neighbors, the outcome is far more likely to result in a satisfying resolution to both parties. And, hopefully, continued neighborliness.

Smith says, when this is the case, his office sees resolution 100 percent of the time – even if that’s an exaggeration, it’ll be a big improvement over what we’ve currently got: a community divided over landscaping equipment.

Because if the party perturbed and the blower embittered can find peace without distracting city officials from larger matters of oh, say, affordable housing or workers wages than we’ll all get what we ultimately want – to sleep a little easier.

Email Jason at jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.

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