City Council Workshop Addresses Code Enforcement

Tampa City Council will hold a workshop Thursday morning, "To discuss Code Enforcement Policy Issues dealing with Civil Citation and the Foreclosure Registry," according to the city council's online calendar. 

The city's budget office is scheduled to report on:

• The amount and allocation of funds collected from fines levied by the code enforcement board. 
• Cost benefit analysis on the city's current practice of outsourcing jobs like mowing overgrown lawns on neglected properties, boarding up abandoned structures, and demolishing condemned buildings to private companies. 

, a veteran Seminole Heights civic activist and code enforcement board member, said the feasbility of having city departments like parks and recreation or solid waste handle such task will be discussed during the workshop. 

Snipe signs, or those flyers and posters that are surreptitiously tacked to street signs and utility polls, are also on the agenda. The signs are illegal, but currently there's no real sanctions for posting them. ”My understanding is if they're found, the city picks them up and throws them in a big Dumpster," Long said, "and the owner of the signs is allowed to come pick them up.”

But Long said she knows of some sign posters who rescue their signs from the Dumpster, only to re-post them around town a few days later. And so the city's legal department is scheduled to weigh in on the possibility of levying fines for posting the signs. 

City solid waste officers are also slated to appear at the workshop, as is a civil citation court judge. 

The city council's schedule doesn't list a specific time for the workshop, but it's listed to start sometime after a 10:30 a.m. sidewalk code workshop.