Supervisors discuss future of RUSS contract

The Jefferson County Board of Supervisors discussed the county's contract with a regional utility to enforce its nuisance ordinance.

On Aug. 1, the county signed a contract with Regional Utility Service Systems to take over the duties of enforcing the ordinance, since the county does not employ a person specifically tasked with enforcing ordinances like the city of Fairfield does in code enforcement officer Scott Vaughan. The contract expires July 1, and supervisor Dee Sandquist said it would be worth reviewing the $50,500 the county pays to RUSS.

'We have gotten a lot of nuisance complaints, and RUSS has done a good job of enforcing the ordinance, but let's revisit the amount we're paying,” Sandquist said.

Supervisor Lee Dimmitt estimated RUSS has followed through on enforcement on about 100 properties. He asked Sandquist if she wanted to negotiate a lower price with RUSS, or to exit the contract. She replied that she was merely interested in investigating whether the amount of money paid was reasonable.

According to the contract the two parties signed, RUSS acts on behalf of the county as its enforcement agent. It investigates nuisance complaints, serves notice to the offending property owner, takes photographs of the nuisance, and, if necessary, appears in court. The supervisors agreed the new approach has led to a more consistent enforcement of its nuisance ordinance.

'We used to enforce ordinances willy-nilly,” Dimmitt said.

Dimmitt said nobody had the time or desire to pursue nuisance enforcement 'the way it should be and the way RUSS has.” He said if the county is not going to renew its contract with RUSS, or if it isn't interested in taking nuisance enforcement seriously, it should repeal the nuisance ordinance.

Jefferson County resident Mary Tarnoff attended the meeting and remarked that she likes the nuisance ordinance and likes how it's being enforced.

'It makes the county look nice,” she said.

Tarnoff said that if RUSS really is pursuing 100 complaints, the county is paying $500 to mitigate a typical nuisance, which she said wasn't that much. Dimmitt added that the county has spent thousands of dollars cleaning up properties that won't even sell at a tax sale, meaning the county will not recoup its investment.

Tarnoff asked, 'Without the ordinance, how many more properties would look bad?”

The supervisors agreed that they should discuss the contract with RUSS director Bruce Hudson. Dimmitt said he would contact Hudson to ask him to appear at the board's next meeting.