Bylaw runaround
Recently I had the misfortune of having to deal with a long term night time noise issue (a barking dog that devastated my sleep for a year), and, consequently, I had the misfortune of having to deal with the City of Prince George bylaw department, the body responsible for enforcing bylaws in the city.
Unfortunately, not only was I faced with a serious noise problem but I also had to suffer inexcusably poor customer service from the city. In the 15 months of dealing with these issues, city officials directly told me, or I experienced, the following:
1. There is an unofficial policy of not enforcing bylaws when violations are reported by an individual citizen. Thus the city does not offer protection to individual citizens when their rights are violated.
2. Complainants are denied access to investigating officers prior to and during the investigation. This results in incomplete, one-sided investigations, and a quick illogical dismissal of cases.
3. I left 16 messages by phone, email, and fax asking for information pertaining to my case, and had only three of those messages answered, but answered in such a way that I did not receive the information requested.
4. Bylaw staff giving misleading information about complainants' rights and the obligations of the bylaw department to enforce bylaws. Complainants are discouraged from pursuing their complaints with "there is nothing that can be done" messages, and dismissive, on occasion, aggressive, staff reactions.
5. The bylaw department has an unofficial policy of not giving complainants information about their cases, preferring to waste countless staff hours and taxpayers' dollars on deflecting requests for information.
6. Bylaw staff give out misleading information regarding citizens' rights to access city file information. This is inconsistent with the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA).
7. Bylaw department records are incomplete with information being "forgotten," notes "not made" and important events in the case simply not recorded.
8. The bylaw department does not have written procedures regarding step by step bylaw enforcement, obligatory steps to include complainants in the investigation process, information sharing consistent with FIPPA, maximum response times for responding to customer messages, and consistent and complete record keeping.
9. These patterns seem to be part of the workplace culture in the bylaw department, and clearly violate the city's workplace conduct and customer service policies as well as common sense and commonly accepted business standards.
However, they are allowed to continue with the various levels of management in the city aware of these patterns.
There is no accountability for these behaviors.
10. Faced with all of the above, a citizen has no recourse within the City of Prince George; my letter to city council and the mayor resulted in the matter being re-directed back to the same people who provided the inexcusably poor service.
The citizens of Prince George deserve better customer service based on accountability, transparency, and responsiveness.
Beata Polanska, Prince George
