Hawthorne Press Tribune
The Weekly Newspaper of Hawthorne
Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - March 29, 2018
Inside
This Issue
Calendar of Events.............3
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................4
Classifieds............................3
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne Happenings....3
Legals.................................6,7
Pets........................................4
Politically Speaking............5
Weekend
Forecast
Hawthorne PD Provides Active
Shooter Training to School Sites
In response to the tragic incidents at campuses around the country, Lt. Ti Goetz and Sgt. Christopher Wiley provided valued active shooter training to Hawthorne school campuses and received certificates
of appreciation. Photo Courtesy of Hawthorne PD.
Friday
Sunny
68˚/55˚
Saturday
Mostly
Cloudy
67˚/57˚
Sunday
AM Clouds/
PM Sun
68˚/56˚
City Council Examines Citation
Process and Updating Fines
By Derrick Deane
In one of its briefest meetings of the year,
the Hawthorne City Council discussed updates
and overhauls to the fees it would charge for
violations moving forward. One of the key
points in the discussion fell on the concept
of three levels of violations with penalties
increasing with each escalation. All violations
would begin with either a verbal warning or
a written notice.
“A second offense would mean that the
violator received a written notice and they
didn’t correct it within the time frame or
make reasonable progress towards that and so
the code enforcement would follow up with
the fine,” Planning Director Brian James said.
“Each subsequent level means the violator
didn’t correct it within the next time frame
and the fine continues to increase.”
Both Mayor Alex Vargas and Councilmember
Olivia Valentine expressed concern with the
discretionary nature of correcting a violation
being up to each individual code enforcement
officer. James explained that the code enforcement
officer will conduct an investigation and
let the responsible party know that there is a
violation – and then how to correct it, while
providing a time frame to complete the correction.
There is then a follow-up at the end
of the time frame to see if the necessary corrections
have been made.
“The officer has the discretion to give [the
property owner] a verbal warning, which they’ve
found is most effective,” James said, citing an
example of overgrown grass on a property that
is causing a nuisance. “If they come back and
it hasn’t been corrected in four, five days, then
they might follow up with a citation or a written
warning that says you have four more days to
fix this.” James added that the officer might
find that “there might be a good reason that
the grass wasn’t mowed. Maybe that person’s
on vacation, maybe they’re sick”
“I’m just concerned,” Vargas said. “I would
like to see some type of standard. I think
the discretionary process might be too loose.
With regards to an explanation from a resident
that there might be a reason why they’re not
[correcting the violation] -- if there’s no good
excuse, I think that we should go ahead and
start issuing the written warnings and then
have a timeline as to when all the fines are
going to kick in.”
Vargas added that if the process is “openended,
then we’re going to have different
standards for different neighborhoods and it
just depends on the perception of… the code
enforcement officer when they travel from one
sector to another.”
The mayor also pointed out that the openended
discretionary process has been an issue
with residents who “want to see something
done more definitive and immediate. They
want to see some action taken immediately.”
Mayor Pro Tem Hadir Awad, who has
been at the forefront in putting together the
new Public Funds Oversight Committee, said
that one of the items looked at was the city’s
previous fee schedule. It found that fines had
not been updated since 2007. “The reason we
brought it up during the Public Funds Oversight
Committee is because we saw that there was a
need to update it,” Awad said. “I do think that
some of these fees may be outdated.”
Another issue the Council is looking into
further is abandoned buildings in the city.
“That means there’s a building that’s not legally
occupied, so it’s technically vacant and then
underneath that definition that means there’s
some sort of disrepair of the property or it’s
uninhabitable,” James said in explaining what
constitutes an abandoned building causing a
nuisance. He also defined what “unimproved
land” meant in the code system, stating that
it was defined by a dirt lot where trash is accumulating
or water is pooling and causing
some sort of hazard to the community.
While there is no “blight fee” currently set,
the Council voted unanimously to move forward
with defining what constituted a blighted
property and assigning a penalty fee. “It would
be a reimbursement-type fee,” City Attorney
Russell Miyahara said. “It would be the cost
incurred – staff time, investigation time, hearing
time, publication time.”
Awad sought to “put some teeth” behind the
fine. “For some individuals, a $100 offense,
they’ll just write that off and go back to bed
and not really care,” he said. Miyahara followed
up saying that he would look into seeing how
high the fee could go so that potential property
owners would do everything possible to avoid
having to deal with the penalty.
Vargas also addressed the three strikes approach
by asking how the City of Hawthorne
would enforce the code if nothing is corrected
after three citations are given. “That’s why [the
fines] rapidly add up,” City Manager Arnie
Shadbehr said. “The most expensive fine gets
repeated if they don’t address it.”
Miyahara added that the City has not gotten
to beyond that point because “all of these violations
can be prosecuted as a misdemeanor.”
Awad added, “Just to reassure some of the
business owners in Hawthorne, it’s not that
we’re being anti-business in any way. The
whole idea is that when you have some of
these blighted areas or dirty areas, it actually
hinders customers from coming into the city,
hinders other potential business from coming to
the city. We’re trying to promote more business
by making sure that if one business is putting
their fair share of making their storefront look
immaculate, the storefront next door should
try and do the same thing and not let their
building deteriorate.” •