County Councilor James Chrobocinski

​By KIRSTEN LASKEY

Los Alamos Daily Post

kirsten@ladailypost.com

The County’s code enforcement has been a hot topic of conversation within the community. The Los Alamos County Council will join the conversation during its upcoming work session at 6 p.m., Nov. 7 in Council Chambers.

Councilor James Chrobocinski requested during the Sept. 26 council meeting that the issue be included on an upcoming.

He told the Los Alamos Daily Post, “There’s been a lot of discussion around the community about code enforcement since the department started upping its enforcement six months ago.”

He added that he submitted a public records request for three months of code violations and read more than 1,000 notifications.

“I feel like the County staff are going overboard with it,” Chrobocinski said.

When the County Council talked about increasing code enforcement, Chrobocinski said his understanding was it would be for issues like yards with weeds taller than 18 inches and debris such as couches and mattresses sitting on the curb for extended periods of time, and things that affect the neighborhood as a whole. There was not any discussion about things like peeling paint and stucco or fencing, he said. 

​Chrobrocinski said the way it is being enforced feels like an HOA, which he feels is not appropriate for a county government. The work session will be an opportunity to talk about it and see about making changes, he added. 

“I believe we have several options; leave it the way it is, scale it back to a reasonable level, or completely rescind the ordinance,” ​Chrobrocinski said. “My personal preference would be to scale this back to a reasonable level that a majority of our citizens would support.”