Taft’s financial picture plays a role in their code enforcement challenges, the tiny town’s top executive tells 6 Investigates.
City Manager Denise Hitt submitted the following statement in response to concerns from some residents, who say the city is looking the other way on code enforcement:
“Like any small town we struggle to balance growing expenditures with limited revenue sources. In 2017/2018 we have removed three dilapidated buildings, placed over 200 stickers on vehicles that were not registered or inspected and the residents removed them or they were towed, we held a Code Enforcement Amnesty month in May, 2018 and then held a City wide cleanup in June, 2018. We have now sent out about 50 certified letters to homeowners with varying code violations. Approximately 50% have corrected the issues and we have begun reevaluating and documenting and preparing citations to those that did not come into compliance. I appreciate the public works director for stepping up at a time when we financially were unable to have a dedicated full time code enforcement officer. Please remember that we were also using all our staff to recover from a Cat 4 hurricane.”
