Fairbury Looks to Give Code Enforcement More “Teeth”

By Gordon HopkinsThe City of Fairbury recently announced its intention to start enforcing municipal code violationsFairbury Mayor Spencer Brown issued a statement this week, “In the efforts to help beautify and make Fairbury a safe and better place to live, the City of Fairbury will begin issuing citations to those that violate Municipal Codes. Those codes include but are not limited to, the Owner Occupancy Program (rental inspections), Nuisances (Junk/abandoned and unlicensed vehicles, Junk properties, mowing), and animal control issues (loose and unlicensed dogs, and multiple dogs). Citations will be issued on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of the City's Code Enforcement Officer under the Supervision of the City Administrator and/or Mayor.”As of press time, the city does not have an administrator.According to Mayor Brown, once a citation is received, citizens will be given a court date and time to appear before a judge. According to Municipal Code 10.99, a fine of up to $500 may be imposed for each count/violation.In 2018 the city opted to dissolve the Fairbury City Police Department and turn law enforcement duties over to the county. When the original contract was implemented, the city hired a Code Enforcement Officer to deal with certain complaints outside the purview of the Sheriff’s Office, such as animal complaints or overgrown grass and junked cars parked inappropriately.Earlier this year, Jefferson County signed an interlocal agreement with Fairbury to prosecute ordinance violations.County Attorney Joseph Casson will be prosecuting those violations. He explained the reason for the new contract, “Well, it’d be nuisance violations, basically. Because the way the law enforcement contract the sheriff has with city, the sheriff does all the criminal violations, traffic violations. The city was left to do all the other violations and, to this point, they have not, since we signed the contract, prosecuted any of those because they didn’t have a prosecutor. And so that was the weak link. And my understanding is, the city said they couldn’t afford to do it, although the cost isn’t that much. And so this was my solution to get the ball rolling on helping the sheriff do some policing around town. Because these are important cases we need to pay attention to.”Casson has said in the past that the sheriff’s office was expending a great deal of manpower fielding calls for dog complaints, junked cars and other violations of city ordinances. It is hoped this change will reduce the workload of deputies as well as discouraging the escalation of “bad behavior.” At the time the interlocal agreement was signed, Jefferson County Commissioner Mark Schoenrock expressed hope that cracking down on nuisance violations would lead to an overall quality-of-life improvement in the city, “We talked about being able to prosecute these lesser offenses, and that should have a very positive effect on other more serious offenses that go on in Fairbury, so that people know that they’re going to be held accountable. It might have an effect, on up the line, for more serious offenses.”

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