Lakewood is compensated up to $24,875 for its smoke detectors, aka the Lakewood Police Department Community Service Officers (CSO) and one Code Enforcement Officer.
According to a Public Disclosure Requested (PDR) document – the September 27, 2012 contractual agreement between the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency (PSCAA) and the City of Lakewood – the City is reimbursed nearly $25,000 for the five members of Lakewood’s Burn Ban Patrol to observe, photograph, document and report those caught violating the air with smoke from chimneys, outdoor fires and even BBQ’s during burn bans.
As there were five burn bans called in this last winter season, $25,000 divided among five members of the Burn Ban Patrol equals $5,000 each – less $2 per hour administrative costs – or $1,000 per burn ban, 15 days in duration total.
The 2011/12 winter season of burn bans totaled 19 days, 12 inspectors, four counties, and 145 citations out of 182 observations in just the first burn ban (11/25-11/28), an 80-percent success rate. The second burn ban, 12/30/12 to 1/3/13 netted 585 smoke observations which remained to be processed for violations when the update was posted January 14, 2013 but if 80-percent held true, 468 would be violations.
How many of the 613 total violations were settled amicably without fines paid; the number who accepted and paid the $500 citation; and the likely few who protested the $1,000 civil penalty in court are all unknown but a generously liberal estimate suggests a ballpark figure perhaps approaching $300,000 collected by the PSCAA.
According to the computations above, using Lakewood’s five Burn Ban Patrol members who basically divide a $25,000 pot, if the 12 inspectors over four counties in the 2011/12 season are similarly compensated, $60,000 amounts to the PSCAA’s expenses producing a net of $240,000.
In just one winter season.
Of course if the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency was indeed about clean air in Puget Sound, at least in the area of Enhanced Enforcement, a 48-hour turn-around by virtue of a courtesy phone call to identified violators to stop what they were doing – many of them likely doing so inadvertently – would, estimating conservatively, actually end the matter right then and there.
But then such a common sense approach to immediately addressing pollutants in the air to be never seen again would also likely mean a significant amount of money not to be seen again either by neither the PSCAA or its enforcers.
So, do you have some magical program for finding phone numbers based on addresses? It used to be fairly easy, but now that many people use cell phones and internet phones (which are typically not listed) for their home phones, and people move around so much (especially in communities with high levels of rental housing) it’s a long-shot. Also, you said the observers use county records to look up the properties. County records don’t tell you who lives there, so you wouldn’t be able to look up numbers by the owner names.
Do you also believe the police should stop writing tickets for speeding and other offenses and just call people and ask them to stop what they’re doing? Maybe that would be effective, too.
According to the clean air agency, the enforcement program has already made a big difference in reducing the number of violations.
Your questions and observations: I’ll take them in order.
1. “So, do you have some magical program for finding phone numbers based on addresses?”
Answer: No. It’s not magical and I don’t have it. The Reverse White Pages do. Google “Reverse Directory” and type in what info. you do have and up comes, to use your word – magically: who lives there, their age, and of all things their phone number. Even a Google Earth map to ensure you have the right residence. Try it. It’s fun. Even entertaining.
Plus, we’re talking members of the Lakewood Police Department who – apart from their day job – are surreptitiously photographing smoke-producing fires after dark. They know everything.
2. “County records don’t tell you who lives there.”
Response: See number 1.
3. “Do you also believe the police should stop writing tickets for speeding and other offenses and just call people and ask them to stop what they’re doing?”
Answer: No. The big – as in BIG – difference, between traffic tickets and smoke pollutant tickets, at least in the instance which has prompted these articles, is timing. That red-and-blue-flashing light in your rear view mirror is (a) fairly prompt; (b) has you – as in you – dead-to-rights. The notice of violation I received for the incident that occurred unbeknownst to me on a rental property was delivered 74 days AFTER it was alleged to have happened. To me. The property owner. Not the fire-starter, the tenant. This, despite the fact that what the PSCAA is being told by its own enforcement department, is untrue. “Six days,” the board was led to believe, was the elapsed time between incident and NOV (Notice of Violation) in 2014. Mine: 74 days.
There is a similarity however in your example comparing speeding tickets and smoke violations. In Crosscut.com (yes you can Google that too, then type in “speeding tickets” in the Crosscut.com search box) there is an opinion piece just today, July 30, asking where the money goes. I’ve even commented there. You can too. Fun. Even entertaining.
4. “According to the clean air agency, the enforcement program has already made a big difference in reducing the number of violations.”
Response: I’m sure they have. Made a lot of money too. Odd though, according to their minutes, when PSCAA Advisory Council members expressed their concerns to their enforcement division about the aforementioned NOV delays they are told “six days.” There is no record in the minutes of further questions. The answer was accepted evidently as fact. But, as I’ve pointed out, that’s not true. And because I don’t glibly accept such inanities as your ‘can’t-find-phone-numbers-without-magic;’ or ‘because-the-PSCAA-says-it-it-must-be-true’ when I’ve already demonstrated it’s not, then I’ll continue to peer behind facades and turn over rocks if only to engender your opprobrium – my badge of honor.