Sean Lever, Kimberley's Bylaw Enforcement Officer (BEO), delivered his third quarter report to Council on Monday, Oct. 28, covering animal and bylaw enforcement from July to September 2024.
During that period, there was a total of 221 calls for service with a fairly wide distribution across the types of calls the BEO receives,with streets and traffic bylaw infringement continuing to be the highest, this year with a total of 89 calls.
Lever said that there was a big jump in the intake of calls from the "other" category, from 27 in 2022 to 50 in 2024, but said that's due to the category encompassing bylaw inquiries.
"So we’ve got a lot of people now asking before they do, which is great because that saves them from getting any infringement," Lever said.
He said that his office received significantly less complaints relating to water usage, roughly 40 per cent less, meaning people have gotten better at receiving the messaging about following the City's bylaws for water restrictions.
"We did start this year out in our Phase 2 of water restrictions, as opposed to Phase 1," he said. "Just due to keeping up with the provincial mandates of savings with water and people were really quick to adjust to that."
The BEO also received less calls relating to Solid Waste Bylaw infractions, down from 29 in 2022 to four in 2024.
Streets and traffic bylaw remained the main driver of ticketing this year.
"There are still significant amounts of violations observed in regards to that," Lever said. "They are getting better, but it’s a slow process."
There were 26 tickets issued for streets and traffic bylaw infractions, totalling $1,675 in fines and four tickets for animal control violations for $325 in fines.
Lever said there were 46 municipal tickets issues for a total of $10,000 in fines this quarter, with 16 of those, totalling $8000, issued in a joint effort with the Building Department and support from the City of Kimberley, pertaining to ongoing violations of the Kimberley Building Bylaw.
"That’s something that I am hoping that we can continue the trend of," Lever said. "That is setting the precedent and we want the developers to know that we are serious about enforcing our municipal bylaws and if you’re going to be building in Kimberley you need to be following those regulations."
Mayor Don McCormick asked about the increase in the Good Neighbour Bylaw category, that had 27 calls.
Lever explained that the Good Neighbour is broad category, encompassing complaints about noise, idling, unsightly premises as well as camping in parks.
