Flat Shoals Civic Alliance, Inc.

Dekalb County Gets Ideas On Quality-Of-Life Codes

Oct 11, 2003

The South Dekalb Neighborhoods Coalition handed county commissioners a 44-page report last month outlining recommendations for tightening up Dekalb's Code Enforcement Division. The division monitors complaints such as overgrown grass and dilapidated homes.

The recommendations include:
1). Creating an environmental court specifically
to hear code violation complaints
2). Giving all code enforcement officers digital
cameras to photograph violations
3). Allowing people to pay fines by mail instead
of going to court
4). Enabling residents to submit complaints via
the Code Enforcement Division website

Gil Turman, the coalition's executive director, noted that code enforcement is a county-wide problem. Task force members discovered a two month backlog of complaints and that the county did not keep adequate records on them.

County commissioners applauded the task force for it's recommendations, but no date has been set to vote on the proposed changes.

-Excerpts from AJC 9-23-03