Antioch officials may get ticketing power

The Antioch village board is set to vote next month on a proposal to give designated village officials the power to issue code enforcement citations.

The law that could go into effect in August allows for eight village employees to write citations against homeowners or citizens who violate code enforcement, life-safety and other noncriminal or traffic codes, Mayor Lawrence Hanson said.

The village's planning and zoning code officer, chief building official, life-safety inspector, head of the Antioch Emergency Management Agency, watershed development enforcement officer, the director of planning and zoning, village engineer and village administrator would have ticket-writing authority, Hanson said.

Those eight will be allowed to issue tickets and noncompliance fines in their area of expertise, meaning the building chief will write building violations, emergency management will write life-safety violations, and so on, he explained.

"It makes more sense to allow people who work in code enforcement to write code enforcement violations, while police officers can work as peace officers and issue criminal and traffic citations," Hanson said.

The village board is expected to continue its review of the new law, then approve or deny it in August.

Currently, if a code enforcement or life-safety violation is discovered, the heads of those departments must call in a police officer to write the ticket. Both the code enforcement person and police officer must appear for the court date, Hanson said.

"It takes two people to do a job that one person can do," he said. "By approving this, we would have one person write those violations whereas the police officer can stay on the job doing traffic or criminal violations."

The eight will be given a list of offenses and fines, along with a ticket book to issue those citations.

Hanson said other communities handle code enforcement violations the same way. And, with villages in Lake County suffering due to the recession, this is a good way to cut costs.

"Any time two people are doing the job of one person, it's a waste of money," he said. "Now, the police officer won't spend half his day in court and can stay on the street. It just makes sense to me."