By Neil Farrell

Morro Bay’s efforts at proactive code enforcement are ruffling a few feathers after several people got letters regarding their flagpoles and more recently, RVs parked on their private property.
So the City is having a special agenda item at its March 8 meeting (6 p.m., Vet’s Hall) to hear concerns and answer questions about the stepped-up enforcement policy that included hiring two part time code enforcers.
The move to proactive code enforcement and away from complaint-based enforcement was announced last April (2015) in The Bay News by the city manager in his “A View From Harbor Street” column.
“Morro Bay does not have an effective, proactive approach to ensure residents, visitors and businesses follow the civil aspects of our municipal code,” City Manager David Buckingham wrote last April. This was started by a critical report from the County Grand Jury that pointed out the City’s lack of effective code enforcement and recommended it hire someone full time to do the job.
The change started last September after the City Council approved a so-called “municipal code outreach and enforcement implementation plan,” giving Morro Bay its first taste of active code enforcement since about 2005 when due to budget cuts, the City laid off Al Sengstock, its full-time code enforcement officer.
Since then enforcement had been “complaint driven” and the responsibility for follow up shared between different departments, depending on the nature of the complaint (illegal building vs. fire safety for example).
From April to September, the City staff tried to ready residents for the change, with an educational program through the water bills, and producing a flyer with the Top-10 most common code violations in the city. November saw the hiring of two part-time enforcers — Tim Kristofek and David Crockett, who are working out of the police station (call 772-2223).
By active code enforcement the City Manager said they would be patrolling the streets looking for obvious violations, as well as following up on citizens’ complaints. In a column last September, Buckingham advised that it was all about to change, “as we ease back into a process where the City — in a thoughtful and friendly, but firm and proactive manner — helps ensure that we are all living, working and playing in concert with various aspects of our City ordinances in order to maintain the health, safety and well-being of our community for businesses, residents and visitors. The hope with these types of programs is that code enforcement leads to community enhancement.”
Lofty goals and intentions for sure, but in some regards, code enforcement — proactive and complaint driven — has lapsed into some bad old habits of some misusing the system and the City focusing on violations that seem at odds with the idea of protecting public health and safety.
It started a couple of months ago when several local residents, businesses and at least one civic organization, were notified that their flagpoles were violating the law.
“We got a complaint about a property in the Radcliff Street neighborhood,” said City Planning Director Scot Graham. In the City muni code book, Graham explained, depending on what a property is zoned for, flagpoles can’t be more than 30-feet high, which is measured from the bottom of the pole if it sits on the ground or from the ground to the tip top if it’s attached to a building.
A citizen installed a flagpole on his roof in the Radcliff neighborhood and Graham said he was flying a Jolly Roger pirate flag. This upset a neighbor who filed a complaint. The citizen was told to take it down and, apparently exacted revenge by filing complaints about flagpoles all over town.
“He filed complaints against every flagpole he saw,” said Graham, who declined to release copies of those complaints or name the person. Some 12 complaints were filed and one might be surprised at just how many flagpoles there are in town, as literally every neighborhood and commercial district has them.
Oddly enough, the tallest flagpole in town belongs to the City, and was erected in 2011 in Centennial Parkway next to Dorn’s Restaurant. That yardarm style flagpole towers about 50 feet.
“We investigated all of them [complaints] and some were not justified and others exceeded the height limit for that particular zoning,” Graham said.
Most had their flagpoles for many years, and in some cases long before the code section was approved. Graham said they sent out some six letters of violation out of all the complaints they received.
Included in the notifications was an offer to come into the planning department and apply for a “minor use permit” — at a cost of $150 — that would be issued over the counter and that would in essence, legitimize the code violation.
Or they could prove that their flagpole was installed before the code was approved or that it’s under the height limit for their zoning, in essence proving one’s innocence.
One businessman who got a letter but who didn’t want to go on the record for fear of some other code violation being “discovered” said he put his flagpole in back in 1978 when he purchased the business, and had never had any complaints.
He paid the $150 fee and so will be able to keep flying Old Glory. He measured the pole at 30-feet 6-inches or half-a-foot higher than the limit for his Main Street property. But it left a sour taste in his mouth, and feeling as if he’d been extorted out of $150.
And on a recent trip to San Diego, where his grandson graduated from Marine Corps Boot Camp — a ceremony with hundreds of U.S. flags and seeped in patriotism — he stewed on the City’s actions all the way home from San Diego.
Graham said the permit fee — normally much higher for a MUP — was set just to cover the costs of noticing all within 300 feet of the pending issuance of the permit, which could be appealed to the planning commission and then the city council.
He added that the City’s authority over flagpoles is limited to the height for the zoning, not what colors someone might want to fly. “A person can fly whatever flag they want,” he said, “that’s Free Speech. It’s the pole; we have limits for the height in the zones, it has nothing to do with the flag.”
And flagpoles were apparently the tip of the iceberg with this proactive code enforcement. The City also began targeting RVs that people park in their front yards or side yards. Graham said they’ve begun a canvas of town focusing on RVs and trailers.
In one neighborhood alone — again in the area off Radcliff — they found 17 RVs parked in the front or side yards. Graham said the code allows them to be stored only in backyards behind fences. This applies to boats as well.
They were sent “courtesy” letters, Graham said, and about half those folks called the planning department saying they “were aware the City was going down this road so there was not a lot of surprise.”
Another woman in town is being told she must hack down a tall hedge in her yard to the required 3 feet. The switch in code enforcement has meant a lot of work for the two enforcers, who put in 20 and 30 hours a week.
“They’re busy,” Graham said, adding that the City sent out a flyer with water bills discussing the 10 code enforcement issues they see most often. Those are:
1) Excessive water usage under the City’s mandatory conservation program;
2) Improper parking of RVs and boats (includes the prohibition of parking on the street for more than 72 hours at a time);
3) Fences, which are limited to 4-feet high in front and side yards, with solid fences and hedges limited to 3 feet, and hedges fences and walls on the interior side or rear yard can’t be more than 6’6” tall;
4) Garbage cans visible from the street;
5) Signs, all permanent commercial signs need a permit but temporary signs for a sale or a “Grand Opening” announcement are OK. Banned are roof-mounted signs, those that flash or move, tire stacks, signs affixed to power poles, A-frame signs and the so-called feather sign banners;
6&7) Junk, trash, debris or broken down vehicles within the public view;
8) Illegal camping, the code prohibits anyone from camping or sleeping in a vehicle that’s not in an established campground or RV park;
9) Shrubbery, or landscaping or other solid objects located at intersections that block the view of drivers;
10) And, improvements and encroachments within the City right-of-way are prohibited (but encroachment permits can be applied for).
For information on the City’s code enforcement program see: www.morrobayca.gov/codeenforcement.