More focus on enforcement
Last week’s fire at the Eagle Recycling plant was a painful
learning lesson on public safety for county and city officials.
The massive blaze destroyed much of the 2400 San Juan Road
facility and did serious damage to surrounding properties as well,
while there was some good fortune in that nobody was seriously
injured or killed.
County and city officials, though, can take little solace from
an event that accentuates two major problems here: Code enforcement
deserves more resources, a higher priority at budget time; and the
area government agencies have a lot of ironing out ahead with
questions over who has jurisdiction where, over who can or should
enforce the local laws.
More focus on enforcement
Last week’s fire at the Eagle Recycling plant was a painful learning lesson on public safety for county and city officials.
The massive blaze destroyed much of the 2400 San Juan Road facility and did serious damage to surrounding properties as well, while there was some good fortune in that nobody was seriously injured or killed.
County and city officials, though, can take little solace from an event that accentuates two major problems here: Code enforcement deserves more resources, a higher priority at budget time; and the area government agencies have a lot of ironing out ahead with questions over who has jurisdiction where, over who can or should enforce the local laws.
In the case of the Eagle Recycling fire, the alarm bells were so loud, so persistent, that there is no excuse for allowing the facility’s owner to operate in such a fashion before the disaster. Many neighboring residents expressed concern about the site’s propensity for overflowing recyclables. Code enforcement officials with the county and city, as well as locally contracted Calfire crews, were well aware of the danger. Several of them had visited the site.
The bottom line: If proper, reasonable enforcement protocol had been followed, the fire probably would not have occurred. The reason for codes and code enforcement is to uphold a decent level of public safety, to prevent tragedies before they happen. Further compounding the imbalance is the continually lagging economy in a county with high unemployment and foreclosure rates, where untold numbers of families are forced to cram into small homes.
Why, then, has the practice taken a backseat to other priorities outside the realm of public safety?
Both the city and county code enforcement offices have not kept up with growth in the area over the past few decades. They need additional help because, as we witnessed last week at Eagle Recycling, those issues are at the core of public safety, on the prevention side. With the Eagle fire, however, it was a case where officials with all the involved agencies were well aware of the increasing potential for disaster.
Nothing was done to prevent it because nobody wanted to take full responsibility for the enforcement. It points to the necessity for county, city and state officials to collaborate and figure out precisely who has jurisdiction, and where. Because resources aside, when the warning signs are that obvious, there is no excuse for letting this occur.
