[Hummintwo]

I have sat back, read, and remember my own experiences as a County Code Compliance Officer for one of the Largest Counties in the United States. Now we finally see in totality the truths about codes and enforcement. I often said someday I could write a book regarding types of code violations, reactions, resolution and bottom line the Court System.

In the Villages, as in my experience, investigations were complaint driven. On occasion, a complainant might circumvent the process by contacting the Chairman of the County Commission or their district Commissioner. In those instances, we would usually confirm a violation existed and report back our findings and then try to seek the cooperation of the complainant to make their formal complaint because our cases were complaint driven. Most of the time, a violator was not contacted by a neighbor or citizen and usually will cooperate without a court appearance. Each of us should take pause and understand that although we may feel uncomfortable, generally most people would rather a neighbor enlighten them to receive official notification through government enforcement. Complainant info was confidential unless a defendant would not cooperate and pleads not guilty to a charge(s) and a trial date is set with subpenas issued to the Code Enforcement Officer who wrote the citation and the complainants. We usually were quite successful in achieving our goal of compliance and anonymity of the complainant before citation(s) were necessary.

I hope this info is helpful to anyone who reads it but most of all a tribute to JCM for understand and communicating so well the issues at hand. The 97 complaints were generated to make a point. The complainant would have preferred to spend their time differently but he must face the truth as well as all 97 violators. Bring the property into compliance because we all bought into the deed restrictions.

I will now go back to my retirement and contemplate that book, maybe.