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VEGETATION MANAGEMENT 1988 STATISTICS Statistics are often interesting to examine when you are trying to determine the effectiveness of a program. Such is the case with the Vegetation Manage- ment Program within Maintenance Division's Maintenance Planning Section. Since the programs transfer into the Maintenance Division last January, the program has been assigned a higher priority, the records and notification process computerized and assigned a slight increase in manpower during the heaviest vegetation complaints season. With these increases into the program we certainly hoped to see some increases back from the program in terms of the amount of complaints processed and the timeliness of these complaints. Vegetation complaints come into the office mostly from concerned property owners and various city agencies. These complaints are each inspected in the field to determine if the situation is in compliance with the vegetation ordinances as specified in Municipal Code Sections 6.010 and 6.515. When a complaint is on a developed property, a courtesy letter is sent to the owner of the property asking them to correct the problem within 10 days. If this fails to gain compliance from the property owner, the City then posts the property with an abatement notice instructing the property owner to correct the problem within an additional 10 days. If this stronger notice fails, the City would then have a contractor correct the problem with all associated costs billed to the property owner. For vacant lots, the City does not send individual courtesy letters. Instead, a mass mailing to all owners of vacant lots is made in late May reminding the property owner of their vegetation maintenance responsibilities and warning them, if they fail to do so, the City may mow the lots without further notice. Therefore, when the complaint is on an vacant lot, and is between the dates of June 15th and September 30th, the City sends a work order to a contractor to have the lot mowed with all associated costs billed to the property owner. If a property owner feels we have made a mistake in the correction or billing they have a right of protest. The statistics given below are for calendar years not fiscal years. The statistics for 1987 are for the total year while the statistics for 1988 are only for the first 8 months. ITEM 1987 Complaints Received 850 Average Time Between Complaint & Inspection n/a Courtesy Letters Mailed 350 Properties Posted 40 Average Time Between Courtesy letter & Posting n/a Work Orders Issued 2.79 Property Owners Billed 239 Total Amount Billed $ 19,219.50 Protests By Property Owners 21 Average Response Time To Protests n/a 860 2 Days 660 112 23 Days 341 '267 $ 26,744.38 21 6.5 Days The City does not wish to be in the vegetation control business, therefore, our Vegetation Management Program's main intent is to make every effort to educate the property owner of their vegetation maintenance responsibility so that the City is not forced to maintain their vegetation for them in the future.