Editorial: Lax enforcement

There’s a big difference between helping someone meet the requirements to build a structure in Douglas County and helping someone build a structure in Douglas County without meeting the requirements.

Bringing more consistency to the county’s code enforcement is a good goal. So is having staff that are more focused on helping people meet code requirements than on punishing people for not meeting the codes.

But Douglas County officials still are responsible for enforcing the rules that have been established for rural building projects.

“Discretion” was a word that came up several times in Sunday’s Journal-World story about the application of county codes to a building project undertaken by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in rural Douglas County. It’s fine for county officials to use some common sense when enforcing codes, but when they use “discretion” as a justification for issuing permits or approving work that doesn’t meet county codes, there’s a problem.

Codes are more than a suggestion. Not following the codes has to have consequences or no one will see the need to comply with them. Codes are written to establish what is allowed and what isn’t allowed in county building projects. Enforcing the codes as written promotes consistency. Allowing too much “discretion” in that enforcement promotes inconsistency.

There’s a big difference between helping someone meet the requirements to build a structure in Douglas County and helping someone build a structure in Douglas County without meeting the requirements. According to Sunday’s story, it appears Kobach was allowed to install plumbing without the required inspections and permits and was issued an occupancy permit without having the required water source. He wasn’t required to tear out concrete so the plumbing could be inspected, nor did he pay a doubled fee for his building permit as required for people who start construction before obtaining a permit. His building also was required only to meet the far less expensive standards of an agriculture building even though the building is listed by the county appraiser as a single-family residence.

That’s a lot of “discretion” on the part of county officials.

County officials say that if enforcement seemed more lax on Kobach’s property it might be because his project occurred during a transition to more a consumer-friendly style of code enforcement. Kobach’s position as secretary of state may raise some additional questions about this enforcement, but the primary point is that no amount of customer friendliness should result in such lax enforcement of county codes.

It’s ironic that county officials tie this situation to an effort to be more consistent with code enforcement. Being consistent is good, but not if that means the county plans to be consistently lax in enforcing its codes.