Last night, the Kelso City Council voted to change how the city approaches code enforcement, shifting from a reactive to a proactive approach. This means that, rather than just responding to calls about code violations, city staff will now actively look for them as well.

The vote for this change was requested by Councilmember Keenan Harvey. All council members voted in favor of the change, except for Brian Wood.

There was some discussion about ensuring this change would be effective. Councilmember Mike Karnofski said he wanted to ensure they would still be reactive to people’s complaints. Councilmember Jim Hill emphasized the importance of ensuring that city codes were adequate to enforce the rules.

Another concern was whether staff would be able to keep up with the increased workload. Councilmember Harvey added a follow-up motion to give City Manager Andrew Hamilton the discretion to hire another full-time Code Enforcement Officer. However, the motion ultimately failed, with only Harvey and Councilmember Kim Lefebvre voting in favor. City Manager Hamilton stated that he felt staff could handle the change for now and that they could reevaluate the situation in the future. Currently, Kelso has one full-time and one part-time code enforcement officer.