Centralia Staff Seeks Changes to Code Enforcement Process

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The path for Centralia city officials to pursue further action related to an abandoned house on St. Helens Avenue and other nuisance properties became clearer Tuesday as the city council approved changes to city code related to the International Property Maintenance Code.

The IPMC has been included under Chapter 18.04 of the code for many years, but no part of it has ever been used by the city to pursue remedies related to delinquent or dangerous properties.

Under the changes adopted by the council, the director of community development is the designated code official that will rule on potential violations. Appeals of his or her ruling will go to a hearings examiner — municipal court judge James Buzzard currently fills that role for the city — and appeals of those rulings would go before Lewis County Superior Court.

“I started doing some research and saw this code,” city attorney Shannon Murphy-Olson said. “We didn’t use it at the time (it was adopted); we didn’t have a code enforcement person. I read it and it seemed like a process that will ensure people still have reasonable due process still with a whole process to follow.”

Murphy-Olson was doing research in preparation for what was then expected to be a Superior Court case related to the long-running saga of the house at 1222 St. Helens Ave. 

Centralia is expected to pursue the right to repair or demolish the rotting structure itself if owner Joan Sittko does not do it herself once served with a notice to do so under the city’s updated enforcement process.

“We’re working with our code enforcement person on what that notice will look like once the code changes get a second reading at the next council meeting,” Murphy-Olson said. “We’ll have to serve her with it and give her a timeline to respond. … Ultimately, we could give an order for demolition after she’s had her say, and then the appeals process would go from there. It’s basically another version of a process we would have gone through regardless of where we filed it.”



Sittko has not made any prior effort to address the condition of her property. Buzzard issued a ruling of abatement in June that allowed city staff to clear the dense thicket of brush and brambles that had enveloped the structure.

The property has been atop the list of nuisance properties in Centralia since former police chief Bob Berg placed it on his “Dirty Dozen” list more than a decade ago. 

Emil Pierson, Community Development Director for Centralia, said enforcing code violations has become more of a priority for the city since it hired a code enforcement officer about one year ago. Kevin Lee fills that role part-time, with the rest of his working time spent as a building inspector.

“We’re more apt to use (the codes) now since we didn’t have a person really enforcing them before,” Pierson said. “We’ve had them in place, but hadn’t exercised them as much as we could before then.”

Murphy-Olson said there are a few additional properties the city hopes to step up enforcement on in the near future, though the St. Helens house is the priority. 

She’s not aware of Centralia gaining the right to and following through on the right to demolish a privately-owned structure in the past. One case more than 20 years ago ended with the owner knocking down a small house himself.