HOLLISTER
The city’s new code enforcement officer will have some catch-up work to do when he starts on the job Monday.
Marcus Mendes is the new officer responsible for enforcing a wide variety of code violations that range from substandard housing issues to citizens simply having junk in their front yards. He succeeds Mike Chambless, the city’s director of code enforcement and also director of the Hollister Municipal Airport since November.
That backlog of cases for Mendes is due to Chambless having to focus much of his time on the airport since getting that position on top of the code enforcement director title. The main focus at the outset for the new officer will be dealing with problems related to Hollister’s stock of foreclosed homes, Chambless said.
“Right off the bat, the focus is going to be dealing with some open cases I still have going,” he said, “concentrating on foreclosed houses that are disasters.”
Chambless pointed out that he had been getting about 25 calls per day about such housing matters when he was code enforcement officer.
That kind of public uproar also partly led the city to adopt an ordinance giving the code enforcement officer more teeth to pursue fines against faraway banks that had left the homes vacant, and vulnerable to break-ins and vandalism.
He said he did get some responses from those banks and that “a lot of houses” were cleaned up after the law’s approval.
“That new ordinance is going to be used extensively here in the immediate future,” he said.
Chambless noted how the city had intended to hire a new code enforcement officer since the outset of his transition to the joint role.
The city received 45 applicants in the search and interviewed nine candidates, he said.
Mendes comes from a code enforcement position in the Ukiah area. Chambless said he was a “victim of budget cuts.”
