A department-wide Compliance Task Force is being organized in Roanoke Rapids.

City Manager Kelly Traynham told the city council last week that representatives from the planning, police, public works, and fire departments make up the task force.

She said recent meetings have focused on operational procedures, interdepartmental coordination, enforcement strategies, and implementation logistics.

Planning and Development Director Kristyn Anderson said the task force stemmed from an influx of enforcement complaints involving general blight, junked vehicles, nuisance issues, criminal activity, and other matters.

“Historically, departments have had to individually enforce different things to try to achieve compliance,” she said. “What we are trying to do now is to come up with a way to collaborate across departments to tackle the high-priority projects or properties in different areas throughout town.”

These include properties that might have multiple violations that have been lingering for one reason or another, she said — projects that may be a little harder for one department to tackle on its own. “This is a reactive/proactive way to pool all of our resources together to gain compliance.”

The end goal of the task force is to “utilize existing resources as much as possible to gain compliance throughout the community” and “to clean things up to the best of our ability.”

The task force hopes to instill pride in the community and to make it safer and cleaner. “The main goal is really just to achieve compliance, and we can do that better across departments where we’re addressing issues faster.”

Anderson is hopeful that the task force can grow to a point where it becomes proactive rather than reactive.

The idea for the task force was formed only a couple of weeks ago. “It’s still in the incubation phase. We have had to work with each other in the past. We may have to work with public works, the police department, or the fire department,” she said. “This is a conscious, purposeful way of all of us working together, looking at a problem, and coming up with a strategic plan and ideas as to how we can make an effort to better the community with what we have.”

Despite the task force being in its formative stages, Anderson believes it has taken some “baby steps” toward compliance. “Some of the high priorities that we have on our list are starting to get cleaned up.”

The group is still formulating its plans, she said. “Essentially, we’re in the starting phases of this and how we’re going to come up with a plan for each particular property, but just because of the collaboration alone, we’re already starting to see some improvements. The goal and the hope are that when we do come up with a strategic plan, we’ll see faster results than what we’ve seen before.”

She cautions, however, that the task force is a work in progress. “We are figuring things out as we go. We are trying to achieve compliance.”

But much of that compliance falls on the property owner. “It is their responsibility to make sure that their properties are up to code and in compliance.”

Traynham noted in her report last week to the council that the current high-priority properties are the following:

246 Clinton Street

804 and 806 Vance Street

1015 and 1017 Cedar Street

Anderson described the problems with these properties as an accumulation of all sorts of violations on each site. “That’s where the collaboration comes into play. There may be junked vehicles on-site. There may be minimum housing issues. There may be some criminal activity at some of them. There may be public nuisances and fire and public safety hazards. All of these things together are what make these high priorities. If there’s a property and nothing else is wrong with it other than tall grass, that’s not going to warrant the task force.”

She said, however, that gaining compliance can’t be accomplished instantly. “We have general statutes that we have to follow. We have codes that we have to follow. You have to give the person an opportunity to make the correction.”

The strategic plan will vary from property to property and issue to issue. “The goal is to identify the property and then develop the plan based on the violation. Once you have that down, then we can utilize those plans moving forward to where it’s almost automatic and almost like a checklist.”

Anderson sees the task force as a sustainable organization. “The goal is to build something that generations after us will continue to use, so that hopefully we can get to a point where there are minimal enforcement efforts.”

Councilman Andy Jackson, who in his bid for re-election to the panel included code enforcement in his platform, said, “The task force brings all departments together, which is great. It helps to clarify the responsibilities of the city regarding code enforcement violations.”

Added Jackson, “This task force will also be able to address complex issues that a code enforcement officer can’t address alone.”