Shelby City Council members were notified at their council meeting Monday night of Richland County’s intent to terminate their agreement with the city regarding enforcement of the Ohio Building Code. The announcement was met with dissent and debate among council members, but ultimately a solution was agreed upon.
On March 7, Shelby Zoning Inspector Joe Gies received a call from Richland County Building Regulations Director Steve Risser alerting him that at the Richland County Commissioner’s meeting on March 11, the Richland County Prosecutor would request termination of the building codes and permits contract.
The letter would terminate the agreement between the city of Shelby and Richland County for the administration and enforcement of the Ohio Building Code within the city limits of Shelby, originally signed on May 23, 2006. The letter serves as a 60-day written notice of the contract termination.
“It is the opinion of the Richland County Prosecutor that it is not their responsibility to prosecute or file legal documents regarding violations that are found by Richland County codes and permits, per the contract,” said John. “I think it comes down to a matter of want, and the county prosecutor does not wish to legally enforce this contract and they have a right to say they don’t want to legally enforce this contract. They have asked the County Commissioners to terminate the contract based on this, and that is what’s happening.”
Gies explained according to Shelby ordinance, the city must follow the Ohio Building Code; and to follow the code, the city must have a certified building department. Currently, the city of Shelby’s certified building department is Richland County; with the contract’s termination, Shelby would be in violation of its own ordinance.
“If this contract is allowed to be taken away or we don’t sign a new one, at some point we either have to contract with someone else… if it goes away we’re in violation of one, our ordinance, and two, the Ohio Building Code,” said Gies.
Mayor John noted that the city of Shelby does have options moving forward. One option would be to continue working with Richland County as the county expressed they would like to continue to work with Shelby. Or, the county presented an alternative contract that would put legal enforcement to the city of Shelby’s Law Director Gordon Eyster, rather than the County Prosecutor.
Another option would be to contract with the city of Mansfield’s certified building department; however, John specified when Mansfield has a building and code violation, they prosecute according to the Mansfield building code versus the state building code. Therefore, when they prosecute they can go to court in the Mansfield municipal court.
“Because we do not prosecute under a Shelby building code, any violation according to state code would have to be prosecuted in the Richland County Common Pleas court,” explained Mayor John. “We do need to take action of some kind. If we do nothing and the contract expires, then commercial building codes will be turned over to the state of Ohio, which would mean we’d have to wait on the state of Ohio to come up and complete inspections, permits, that kind of thing, which would definitely be a delay.”
The news of the contract termination was met with some friction from Shelby Councilmember Nathan Martin, who voiced his frustration with the county for “bullying” the city of Shelby to change the contract.
“The citizens of Shelby elected us to be adults in the room, and the same goes for when we elected our county commissioners. So for them to do this but not even to let us know this action has been taking place and having to find that out secondhand, I think really speaks to the immaturity of the governing body and the way they’re treating us,” said Martin. “It is immature. It is not adult-like to say ‘you were right, I was supposed to do my job, but instead of doing my job I’m going to force you to change my job description.’ So now we are in a situation where we have to scramble to adequately do our jobs.”
Councilmember Pat Carlisle also expressed concerns regarding the state taking over the process for inspections and permits in commercial buildings.
“I’m not in favor of that. I think that is very business unfriendly to approach it that way,” she said. “I don’t think any of that is resident-friendly, business-friendly, community-friendly, I don’t think any of that is where the city of Shelby needs to go.”
Steve Risser and Ken Arthur of the Richland County Department of Building Regulations were present at Monday night’s council meeting, along with Richland County Commissioner Tim Wert. Law Director Gordon Eyster stressed these concerns do not fall on the Richland County Building Regulations department, but rather it is an interpretation of whose job it is to enforce the building and code regulations within the city of Shelby.
Carlisle agreed, noting, “A rule with no enforcement is no rule at all.”
As pointed out by Councilmember Steve Schag, building violations are much different from prosecution, and a contract could be signed between the city and the county without immediately specifying who would be responsible for prosecution. Building violations in Shelby would still be taken care of, according to Ken Arthur.
“We as the building department, we take it as far as we can before legal counsel is required,” he said. “There are violation notices sent out, there are adjudications sent out, right to appeal to the Board of Building Standards, there’s a lot of process before it would ever get to a legal counsel. In my tenure, the majority of cases are taken care of and never go to court.”
The one incident in the past eight years requiring formal legal action to be filed was the case of the Moody-Thomas building in Shelby, which was demolished in May 2013.
Councilmember Schag voiced he was in favor of signing the amended agreement with Richland County stating the city of Shelby would be responsible for enforcing the Ohio Building Code. Before any action can be taken regarding the contract, Mayor John said she requires legislation from council.
“I would like to think all these legal ramifications can work out in time, and I think until then it would be the rare exception we have any kind of issues,” said Schag. “Until then, we need to keep our relationship with our Richland County Department of Building Regulations. For our citizens, I think that’s the best thing to do for right now.”
