WHEAT RIDGE —Wheat Ridge community services officer Laura Coddington found an unwelcome surprise when she knocked on a bedroom door in an empty apartment unit at West 38th Avenue and Depew Street.
A frenzy of growling and barking erupted from a pit bull abandoned by its evicted owners.
The veteran code enforcement officer calmed the frightened dog by feeding it treats through the door. A few minutes later, the pit bull was caged in the back of her vehicle and on the way to Foothills Animal Shelter.
Minutes before the stop last week, Coddington had inspected to see if a property owner repaired a fence through which cows had escaped, and received an update on illegally parked vehicles towed from a Walmart parking lot.
All this during the first 45 minutes of her shift.
“We definitely enforce a lot more codes than when I first started 10 years ago,” Coddington said.
And now the Wheat Ridge Police Department will be getting extra funding for . The City Council vote will add $62,000 on top of last year’s budget of $449,385.
City leaders stress that the efforts aren’t a revenue-generating scheme, and residents ticketed for infractions will have multiple opportunities to work with the city before a fine is levied. In fact, assessed fines dropped from $71,355 in 2013 to $55,515 last year as a result of increased outreach. The department had 1,855 calls for service in 2014.
“Code enforcement is where a lot of citizens see city services happening: animal control, nuisance control, park patrol,” said District 1 Councilman Bud Starker. “We thought an investment of a moderate amount of money would be good for the community and public outreach.”
The vote is one more step in a long list of changes over the last 20 years as , said Wheat Ridge Police Chief Dan Brennan.
It also comes in response to years of residents consistently ranking the quality of life and attractiveness of the city as low while strongly encouraging the city to beef up code enforcement efforts.
“The way I understand it is, by 2000, property values were falling; there was too many weeds and lots of junk, trash and debris and the commercial corridors were looking old and depressed,” Brennan said. “When I got here in 2005 as chief, I was a little surprised at how big of an issue code enforcement was.”
Now code enforcement will coordinate with other city departments and community groups in a data- driven effort to identify and target two neighborhoods and one commercial corridor with traffic, crime and quality-of-life issues.
The beefed-up initiative will be modeled on the East Wheat Ridge Community Policing project that began after data showed an increase in crime, graffiti and other issues in the southeast part of the city.
, free Dumpster days and neighborhood block parties, along with more education and enforcement of code violations. Some residents were able to take advantage of low-interest property loans of up to $30,000, said Britta Fisher, executive director of Wheat Ridge 2020.
“When we started that program, east Wheat Ridge had a crime rate that was triple of other parts of town,” Fisher said. “Within a couple of years it had gone down significantly.”
Austin Briggs: 303-954-1729, abriggs@denverpost.com or twitter.com/abriggs
