Published: August 25, 2008 09:46 am      

Education key to code compliance

Chelsea L. McGowan

cmcgowan@weatherforddemocrat.com

The Code on the Road program is working, and Lieutenant Chris Crawford said he believes it’s because Weatherford citizens are becoming educated about common code violations.

“The basic goal in publicizing this program was to educate people about the most common code compliance violations we see,” said Crawford, the supervisor of the code compliance division. “We wanted to get the information out to as many people as possible so they would be proactive in taking care of these issues before we had to step in.”

Crawford is quick to point out that code compliance aren’t out hunting for problems or eager to issue citations.

“The vast majority of complaints we deal with are generated from other citizens, from neighbors,” he said. “We certainly want to give people a chance to take care of the problem before it gets to us.”

Some violations, such as improperly displayed house numbers and accumulated trash in yards, are common and typically the easiest problems to fix.

“We’re not stepping up the enforcement any more than we were six months or a year ago,” said Crawford. “We just want people to know what they can do to take care of these things before we show up at their house and have to issue citations. There shouldn’t be any confusion.”

Crawford said citizens are more than welcome to call the police department if they have questions about what constitutes a code violation.