Cleaning up: Inspectors to look for code violations

Mathis Winkler

Monday, Feb. 4, 2002 | 11:15 a.m.

Bracing himself against icy winds in his city-issued golf shirt, North Las Vegas code enforcement inspector Dale Stefanisko set out last week to check up on trash-laden yards and illegally parked cars.

Checking in on one Jefferson Street resident, he noted the woman still has to fix part of her fence and clean up junk lying along the side of her house.

The woman, who had already taken down an illegal wood fence, said she would do her best to take care of the other problems as quickly as possible.

"Some of the stuff took years to get like that," Stefanisko said. "You can't expect it to change overnight."

Stefanisko and his colleagues used to spend their days going from one site of a complaint to another. In the process, they sometimes would ignore a code violation they encountered on their way to a complaint, according to Councilman Robert Eliason.

Starting this week that's changing.

Inspectors have been assigned to specific areas in town and now are expected to look for code violations.

Stefanisko is responsible for a large chunk of North Las Vegas' old neighborhoods. Instead of waiting for calls to come in, he will be out there looking for problems.

His beat is a key assignment, said Jacque Risner, the city's community development director, who took responsibility for code enforcement from the planning department a few months ago.

"People see this part of our community first," Risner said, and improving those neighborhoods is key to changing the city's scruffy "Northtown" image.

Stefanisko takes a friendly approach in his work, he says.

"I try to establish a rapport with people to let them know that I'm there," he said, adding that his rudimentary Spanish makes it sometimes difficult to communicate with residents in the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood.

"I try to be more personable, so that it doesn't get cleaned up and the next day it's trashed again," Stefanisko said, adding that it's taking him some time to get close to people who live in the neighborhood.

As the city tries to take a more proactive approach to code enforcement, a new "community action response team," made up of people from the city's public works, parks, code enforcement and detention departments, will also begin to target parts of town in need of a makeover.

By combining forces across city departments, Risner and Sheldon Klain, Stefanisko's boss, hope the team will fix problems in a lasting fashion.

For example, rather than public works people simply pulling out weeds along street medians, parks department workers will follow them, spraying the areas to prevent regrowth, Klain said.

"We will be able to change communities," Klain said. "It's very hard to make overall change if you just put out little fires."

In Las Vegas, city officials have relied on a similar "rapid response team" for the past five years. Sharon Segerblom, Las Vegas' neighborhood services director, said the effort has been successful.

"If you don't fix stuff quickly, (residents) think the norm is trash and debris," she said.

Following Las Vegas' lead, North Las Vegas city officials also plan to assist seniors and disabled people who cannot take care of code violations on their own.

Other funds will help pay for landscaping and repainting projects.

The proactive approach is a fairer system that will encourage compliance, Eliason said.

"If everybody feels they are treated the same, you see them pitching in and helping," he said. "Otherwise you have people disgruntled and feeling like they're getting picked on."com