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. I I . . ., July 14 I think will be a major breakthrough in cleaning up El Camino and Jefferson. I believe we should do the other things with careful planning, but - code enforcement we can move on right away." Councilman Ruskin said that Jerry Schnell has already begun to send out violation notices to business owners on E1 Camino Real and he will be reporting back to the Council shortly. He said as the City gets more Code Enforcement Officers on the team they will see progress in this area. Councilwoman La Berge said she agreed that the code enforcement arena was very important. "I find myself becoming very disgusted at times when I see weeds that are so tall growing up in front of nice residential places, often apartment houses.... It is amazing to me that somebody who has rental property doesn't see how bad it looks to have weeds that are three and four feet high. There is so much to be done with code enforcement and we keep saying it over and over again, but it really is such an important issue that the simple things can be taken care of without too much difficulty... I also wanted to respond to Councilman Ruskin about whether we should go faster on this project... I know there is a real temptation to move it along very quickly. " I would suggest that we need to take the time to plan it so that it is well designed before we move ahead, because we will have a better project if we do that." - Councilman Claire asked if Councilman Ruskin's Code Enforcement Committee had looked at the appropriateness of the City's Codes. He said "if you start walking down E1 Camino and writing citations for sign violations, you are going to have a group of very honest and upright business persons not too terribly happy with you. I would suggest you might want to take a look at the ordinances that are in place and see if they really make sense at this point. They have been on the books for thirty years in some cases if not longer." Councilman Ruskin said, "The rules are there, it is just that they haven't been enforced, and I have no doubt that if we enforce Code violations against merchants for whom they have never been enforced, we will get some angry merchants. But, I don't really care. For one, as long as we come to them and say, here are the rules, and we do it in a polite fashion, we tell them that you have a grace period to meet these expectations, and we give them that grace period and cooperate with them, at some point, push has to come to shove. And if Redwood City's commercial streets are going to look good, at some point we have to enforce the rules, and there may be sorne people who gripe about it, but in the long run it will produce a better commercial sector. I don't see any way of improving code enforcement without enforcing the Codes, and I don't see, any way of improving the commercial sectors without - setting standards and enforcing those standards. There may be some angry merchants, but I guess that's the price. I am willing to pay that price as long ADJOURNED REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 55 JUNE 23,1997 MINUTES Page No. 423 PAGE 21