City inspectors are staying busy, as code complaints last month nearly doubled what they'd be in a typical May.
Community Development Director Ross Black said the vast majority of the 1,400 complaints were about things like tall grass, weeds, and litter or garbage disposal.
Black said spring is always a busy time for his department, as lawn growing conditions improve and more people are outside. But they usually only get about 800 complaints for the month of May.
He attributes this year's spike, in part, to more people sheltering in place.
“When someone’s at home all day, they’re more likely to notice what’s happening around them, whether that’s the property down the street when they go for a walk … or they’re just looking out their window more,” he said. “They’re more in their neighborhoods.”
Black said more people seem to be using the Peoria Cares platform to lodge complaints, as well. And as complaints double, he said, staffing is down by nearly half.
“We only had seven inspectors for most of the month of May,” Black said. “Typically, we bring on four full-time code enforcement inspectors for the summer. We have not filled any of those positions, given the budget situation.”
Black said there were also two vacant positions from inspectors who left for other opportunities earlier in the year.
“The inspectors are really running from one complaint to the next complaint, so they don’t have as much time as they typically would to stop and deal with issues that they see,” he said.
Still, Black said, the department is meeting its goal for response times.
“Our service level agreement that we have is that we will respond to Peoria Cares complaints within three days, and we pretty much hit that goal,” he said. “But responding to complaint doesn’t necessarily mean that the complaint gets resolved.”
The inspector has to verify the complaint is valid, he said, and then they have to open a case before anything can happen.
“It may be anywhere from a week to maybe two weeks, at the most,” he said.
Black encourages residents to take care of their own property to make life a little easier for everyone in the community.
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