The long-awaited property maintenance department for the City of Bradford appears to be taking form.

At a budget work session Tuesday with Bradford City Council, Jeff Andrews of the Office of Economic and Community Development (OECD) explained a bit about the new department, which he will oversee.

“It’s a little bit speculative at this point,” he said. “The revenues will be generated by inspections, fines and fees. We’re having a little trouble buttoning this down because we don’t have an accurate number of rental units in the city.”

With the new department, any unit that isn’t occupied by the owner — whether it be a non-paying family member or friend living there — will be considered a rental unit. The OECD is working to quantify that, Andrews said.

“The only thing we were able to get from the existing department is landlords and numbers of units,” he said. “We have no confidence the numbers on those spreadsheets are anywhere near accurate.”

He said OECD staff is “stumbling into” previously unknown rental units quite often.

“A lot of the revenues are going to be speculative until we get a better number of units,” Andrews said.

Mayor Tom Riel asked about the process when a person is cited. First, the resident is warned, then after 10 days without the issue being corrected, there will be a $25 fine. “Only $25?” asked Riel.

“Our primary goal is getting the violation corrected,” Andrews said. “We think this is a much more friendly way to encourage them.”

Councilman Fred Proper asked, “If there is someone who just plain ignores us, is the mechanism still there for a substantial fine?”

“Yes,” Andrews responded. He explained the city’s magistrate — whom he did not name, but is Magisterial District Judge Dom Cercone — “had a problem with prior ordinances saying they were too punitive. He would reduce the fines to $25.

“We brought him into the conversations for the structure of the ordinances and fine structure as well,” Andrews said.

Sara Andrews, executive director of the OECD, explained Cercone had expressed a concern about the prior system. “One of his concerns was making sure we have a standard for everybody. He likes to see a consistent way to address these issues. We’ve never really had a record-keeping system in place for enforcement.”

With documentation in place, “We can clearly show the magistrate how many times we’ve been to this property before. We’re hoping he will not reduce the amount of fines. We hope they will not be let off the hook when he sees the record keeping,” she added.

She explained this new department will work with a ticketing ordinance, wherein the tickets will be payable at city hall. “We’re not just dealing with non-owner occupied properties. An owner-occupied unit can be ticketed as well.”

Jeff Andrews added, “It technically could be used on commercial properties … for exterior things.”

This system will enable the property maintenance officer to set a date for returning to the property to see if the violation has been corrected.

“The follow-up, I think, is going to be the important part,” Proper said, adding that this will move the system along much faster than the old way of doing things.

“I kind of view this as starting over,” Jeff Andrews said. “The way we go about this is different.”

While no one is on-board yet as a property maintenance officer, Sara Andrews explained what they are looking for.

“One of the things we’re looking for is accountability and experience,” she said. “They need to be accountable to someone in a leadership role.”