POULSBO—The Poulsbo City Council voted June 8 to hire an officer to enforce city codes — and the officer will be a member of the police department.

“Right now, we’re pretty much limited to cajoling letters from my office and the planning department to try to get property owners to comply, and it’s not working,” Mayor Becky Erickson said.

As approved, whoever is hired will be a limited-commission police officer, “like a reserve officer,” Erickson said. That individual will spend half of their time doing community service and other services, such as jail escort, for the department. The other 50 percent will be spent working with the planning and engineering department, conducting investigations and serving citations.

Previously, Erickson had credited the Herald’s April 22 article on the code violations at a Viking Avenue shopping center with spurring the decision to hire a code enforcement officer (“Back rent vs. black mold/Three businesses appeal eviction, say building conditions are hazardous,” page A1).

“We’re not a ‘gotcha’ mentality,” Erickson said. She said the city will exhaust every other means to urge owners to bring their properties into compliance, before issuing citations and fines. Nor will the city go looking for code violations, but will “respond when we get reports from citizens.”

Erickson criticized local developers who do not complete the landscaping portion of their approved development plans.

“We’re not going to have children having to play in dirt and gravel when the plan says there should be grass,” she said.

Rules require that landscaping needs to be completed before the city gives final approval to a development. In the past, developers could get final approval without completing landscaping by posting a guaranteed performance bond — an insurance policy that gives the city money to complete the landscaping if the work is not done within 12 months or less.

Based on the difficulty the city has had with some projects not being completed with a year, a performance bond is no longer considered adequate. In the future, all landscaping must be completed before the city will give final approval for a project.