Role of bylaw is ever-changing

Penticton’s bylaw supervisor said it’s fair to say that the community expects a lot from the city’s Bylaw Department.

“We’re kind of pulled in multiple different directions, trying to respond to a hundred bylaws,” said Tina Siebert, explaining that was one of the reasons the department recently went through a prioritization process.

That meant bringing together “all the people involved in making our community livable, healthy and safe,” to discuss what was most important to the community and partner agencies.

“We are getting a wide range of different types of bylaw enforcement requests. The needs of the community are changing. That is why we wanted to do this process,” she said.

What came out of that was seven bylaws they wanted to focus on: good neighbour, park bylaw, traffic bylaw, controlled substance, property remediation bylaw, business license bylaw, building bylaw and pawnbrokers second-hand and auction houses bylaw.

Quality of life, wellness, public safety and enhancing livability, Siebert explained, are the key areas they are focusing on.

Enforcing some of the bylaws, like some elements of the good neighbour bylaw, can put a bylaw officer in situations ranging from challenging to dangerous, depending on the nature of the complaint.

“It is a very demanding and complex job and you have to have skills as an officer to deal with those types of difficult situations, people that probably don’t want to be challenged with dealing with bylaw complaints,” said Siebert.

Calls for service are triaged and prioritized, and that’s when they also determine what response is needed, whether it’s two bylaw officers or asking the RCMP, fire or other services to also attend.

“We make all those plans before we go and put ourselves in an unsafe situation. That’s part of the intake process,” said Siebert. “It’s a very unique skill set and it requires a lot of training and education and experience communicating well with the public.”

Siebert said the public wants good communication and transparency in the process.

“Those are the two things we are trying to focus on to provide the best service back to the community. When we get a complaint, we want to make sure the person is aware that this is a process, this is how we would respond and we will provide them with as much information as we can,” she said.

The role of the bylaw department, Siebert said, is ever changing.

“Just because historically we might have focused on parking and traffic violations, we’re now at a point in our community where the role has expanded beyond just that,” she said. “That is why we want to make sure we are keeping up with the times and make sure we are responding to the changing needs of the community.”

While there are some challenging situations that go with working in the bylaw department, Siebert said there are also feel-good challenges, like helping a person find housing or connecting someone unable to shovel their snow with a volunteer agency.

“We didn’t want to write them a ticket, we wanted to make sure we got them in touch with a volunteer that could help them,” said Siebert. “It’s really about building good community relations and connecting people with the resources in the community they might need because sometimes we are that first point of contact and they don’t know what help is really available.

“Those are situations, where, yes, we got that person some help and we feel good about that, it makes us happy. It makes us feel better about our job and the service we are providing back to the community. But really, we are here for the community.”