The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly enacted an ordinance amending borough code relating to stop-work orders and fine amounts in stipulated agreements. Borough code currently provides for various remedies for violations of KPB Title 21, including initiation of a civil action, initiation of an administrative enforcement, and permit revocation.
According to Robert Ruffner, KPB Planning Director, the current remedies are inappropriate for first-time violators, minor violations, or an initial enforcement:
“The last time I talked about this, I mentioned that the genesis of this was that I came down and talked to legal about why we had some pretty significant expenses to the department in terms of enforcing things, it had such a low ceiling on what we can recover through a stipulated agreement. Through that discussion, we talked about the whole range of tools that you really need to have enforcement. We have a giant gap between this $150 stipulated agreement fine that someone would pay if they agreed to admit to the violation to the next level which is really through the court system, which is several tens of thousands of dollars as a remedy. We need something in between to deal with the whole suite of issues that we come up with.”
Ruffner states that there’s a large gap between a gentle approach and the heavy mechanism to achieve compliance. Stipulated agreements are an important tool, he says, and have been successfully used to keep violations from escalating to court or administrative proceedings. He was seeking to make stipulated agreements more appropriate by providing flexibility to make the fine commensurate with the violation(s), which would result in more timely responses with violators coming into compliance through terms contained in the agreement.
He said that he lacks a stop-work order which would aid in addressing violations without necessitating a stipulated agreement, adding that the tool adds the incentive to stop work with real consequences if the work isn’t stopped.