http://www.redandblack.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/03/23/405fc836dea80
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An Athens-Clarke County program designed to crack down on ordinance violators who officials say disrupt quality of life in residential neighborhoods reported 1,177 cases in January and February.

"If we see it, we cite for it," said John Ward, director of the Community Protection Division (CPD), which was designed to take an aggressive approach to find violators.

Ward's division is the county's latest attempt to deal with complaints from residents upset at ACC ordinance violators, many of whom are students.

The program divides the county into three zones for eight officers to patrol on a daily basis inspecting homes that could be violating ordinances.

Enforcement officers in pairs of two pass through a neighborhood five times per month at the very least, Ward said.

Among the ordinances students normally encounter include front yard parking and trash left outside.

Ward said the county's single family ordinance, which prohibits more than two unrelated people from living together in a single family neighborhood, is harder to cite.

Officials investigate those cases by looking at utility bills and license plates of cars normally parked in the driveway, Ward said.

The CPD also gathers information by knocking going door-to-door and questioning residents, Ward said.

Residents, though, are not required to incriminate themselves by answering the questions because they are protected by the Fifth Amendment.

Officers address a majority of violations through complaints made by neighbors, he said.

To verify if a resident is violating a single family ordinance, he said neighbors often testify against the violators in court.

Now that officers regularly patrol the neighborhoods, Ward said they would be more apt to notice which cars are usually parked.

Twelve cases have been opened in the past two months dealing with single family violations, according to CPD records.

The last case was settled Feb. 13, and the defendant received six months of probation, regular check-ups by CPD and a $400 fine.

"While we're being more pro-active, we are coming upon more criminal activity," he said, explaining the 68 percent increase in cases compared to this time last year stated in a memo to the ACC commission.

In Ward's memo, he said 30 percent of the cases had been closed due to residents immediately complying with the ordinance.

County commissioners developed the CPD last fall, anticipating that the rental registration would not be held up in court.

The court ruled rental registration -- which required landlords to record their tenants' names and the relationships of those they lived with -- was unconstitutional in February.

The deadline for county lawmakers to appeal the ruling passed Friday, signaling the end of the rental registration's hopes for now.

"We think we have a pretty good protection division in place," said Commissioner States McCarter.

"In an appeal there's always a chance that you could lose," he said. "We didn't think it was worth the money or the risk."
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VIOLATIONS
285 front yard parking violations
12 single family violations
308 solid waste violations
31 littering violations
91 garbage accumulation violations
450 miscellaneous ordinances such as junk vehicles, prohibited signs and unlawful dumping
Source: Community Protection Division

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Basically, the professors in Athens, Georgia decided that they didn't like it when students moved into residential neighborhoods and threw parties. Thus, they decided to prevent students from living outside of designated areas by prohibiting more than two unrelated people from living in the same house.

Of course, just having the law on the books doesn't do any good, so they attempted to force everyone to "register" with the government, with jail time for lying. Unfortunately, that was ruled unconstitutional.

Therefore, they hired a select group of spies to write down license plates and look inside mailboxes. You see, if too many people live in one house, they might have different names on the bills. Worse yet, they might slip up and park all their vehicles at the house at the same time.

-Biscuits