The Snitch System- How Code Enforcement Starts

Well, if you live in Overland Park, Kansas, or another similar city you have a strict environmental code on the one hand and zealous code enforcement officers on the other. Interestingly enough, you will never meet a code officer if your environmental violations are not complained about by another property owner!

This results in most property owners having a certain leeway. Some days their grass is a little too long. A pile of wood is allowed to compost for a decade or more. A foolish romantic grows a thistle. While all of these things violate Overland Park codes in most of these cases no complaint is filed with the Community Services ( ie. code enforcement). In more than a few cases violations go on for a decade or more because of tolerant neighbors.

Other property owners are blessed with one or more obsessive-compulsive, you know, the type the folks that live for a haircut, a freshly mown lawn and a shoe shine. Most of these people are harmless lawn enthusiasts. Some believe they are on a mission to rid the world of a terrible disorder and seek to impose their enthusiasms on their neighbors.

Then there are those imperious neighbors who, pharisee-like, take a dislike to this or that neighbor, especially if they have a political sign in the yard that doesn't say ''Vote Republican''. At least that has been the case on my block. Our family is known on the block and community as having opposed the first and second gulf wars. The two property owners who make the biggest display of their "patriotism" have lodged the overwhelming majority of complaints with the so-called Community Services (ie. code enforcement).

These right-wing vigilantes maintain a constant watch over their intended victims. As soon as a violation appears they notify their proxy enforcers at Community Services ( ie. code enforcement).

Naturally a property that is subjected to daily scrutiny by hostile and aggressive neighbors is going to get a lot more complaints than a property bordered by friendly and tolerant neighbors.

That's the way the system is rigged. It gives a lot of potential power to any property owner who wants to complain about any of the countless code violations that appear in codes. More often it leads to standard molehill sized complaints like those about violations that are run of the mill. How much do hostile neighbors skew the complaint distribution received by Community Services (ie.
code enforcement)? That is a question worth researching.

If you have a snitch complain about your property you probably don't know for sure who it is. You certainly don't seem to have any right to know who the complainant really is, certainly no right recognized by the City of Overland Park. It's supposed to be secret, that's what codes say.

Many times the snitch may fes up and admit he is the complainant. Such people are to be respected.

The snitch system makes complaints about other's property more secretive than it need be. Remember we are talking about molehills. We don't need a national security state apparatus for the enforcement of weed and grass ordinances.

The snitch system needs to be moderated or otherwise reformed. There may be significant Constitutional Rights that are being violated in the name of code enforcement expediency. The denial of any real "due process" is stunning. For example, the defendant property owner is notified of code violations by registered mail, often after the date of required compliance is passed! How could there be any due process under such circumstances?

In Overland Park a Codes Inspector (aka an Environmental Specialist) comes to a targeted property unannounced to inspect the property. While the property owner may notice the inspector and try to engage her or him there is no effort made by the inspector to contact the targeted property owner neither by knocking on the door, making a telephone call, nor leaving a notice on the door knob. (something Overland Park Environmental Specialists used to do.)

It may be legally required to send a notice by registered mail, I don't know, but it seems like plain common sense to think that leaving a list of the property violations with the targeted property owner would immensely facilitate the more prompt remediation of those code violations. Of course if the goal is the punishment of the property owner in court or turning the property over to contracters for $100.00 dollar remediation then this might explain but not justify
apparent efforts by Community Services Overland Park to make a notification which is too late to matter to the targeted property owner.

Of course the City has the right to send out contractors to do whatever they deem needs to be done on a property. Overland Park generally charges $100.00 an hour. It makes you wonder if these contractors are a political force in shaping punitive codes and a harsh enforcement regimen that just happend to put big bucks in their pockets. How many thousands of dollars of contracter "enforcement" is compelled each year by Community Services?