A homeowner spoke to city council at their Aug. 16 meeting, questioning why some people receive tickets for bylaw infractions while others doing the same thing do not.
“They are only doing certain homes,” said Donna Williamson. “It’s bad enough that we are a crime hot spot and high taxed but now bylaw infractions are not being delivered universally. Targeting complying homeowners could be the final nail for many residents. It comes in spurts. Now we’ll deal with it but come September it’s like they don’t exist, these bylaws and they won’t be revisited for another five years.”
City manager Anthony McInnis said he has directed staff in the enforcement department to review and revise the property standards bylaw as well as some outdated bylaws related to public safety.
“Discussions we’re having at the committee levels is are there ways of changing enforcement because we hear complaints on how some of the enforcement occurs in the city,” he said. “Those are ongoing discussions that we have.”
Mayor Colleen Smook previously addressed haphazard enforcement at a June meeting of the recreation and community services committee, when she noted that there had been only one ticket for a vehicle being parked on a front lawn handed out in May.
“We hand out a ticket here or there,” Smook said at that time. “There has to be 200 people parking on their lawns in this town. Supposedly on the weekend we gave a ticket to one [person] for garbage and recycling but across the street we gave a warning to a city employee for having parked on his lawn. We have to be consistent in our messages.”
