SAN DIEGO - Stiffer punishments are on the way for the backcountry's worst neighbors - people who have turned their properties into junk yards, eyesores, health nuisances, illegal businesses or dumping grounds.

County supervisors are dramatically jacking up the fines that code enforcement officers can impose on major violators of county nuisance codes.

Some rural community officials say the plan was just a way for the county to line its pockets, but county officials say the increased penalties are needed because some violators simply ignore the current modest fines - daring the county to take costly court actions.

Instead of the current fines that start at $100 per notification and cap at $10,000 a year, officers will be able to hand out fines starting at $1,000 a day with a $50,000-a-year cap. Those fines could swell to $2,500 a day, or up to $125,000 a year, if the violations also break state laws instead of just county ordinances.

The fines won't replace the old fines, but would be added to deal with small numbers of extreme offenders, county officials said. The fines would affect unincorporated communities. Cities have their own code enforcement laws.

County officials said last week that the current fines are small enough that major violators - code violators who could be earning money from illegal businesses - either pay them and refuse to clean up, or ignore them altogether.

Tim Kirkland, code enforcement supervisor for North County, said his office has about 24 cases that could be targeted by the new fines. Kirkland said he thinks the levies will force the hard cases to clean up.

"Oh yeah," he said. "It will make it much easier. Because, usually, money talks."

Skeptics say fines are excessive

Not everyone is crazy about the idea of higher fines. Supervisors approved the changes Aug. 1, but are scheduled to give them final approval Sept. 19.

Leaders in Ramona and Lakeside said the new fines were just a way for the county to line its pockets with new cash.

"This is another layer of government and an opportunity to increase the county's ability to remove us from our money," said Helene Radzik, chairwoman of the Ramona Community Planning Group.

Other community officials disagree.

"We certainly have folks in Fallbrook under the current system that it isn't until the third or fourth notice that you get their attention - that's a long time to be causing your neighbors problems," said Jim Russell, the longtime head of Fallbrook's advisory planning group. "As long as (the county is) not hammering minor violations I have no problem with it. It sounds like a reasonable thing to do."

When county supervisors enthusiastically gave their initial approval for the new fines Aug. 1, a couple of them suggested that fine money could be used to hire more county code enforcement officers.

The department has long been considered understaffed and overworked. The division responds to 4,000 community complaints a year, with a staff of roughly 14 code enforcement officers, six in North County, Code Enforcement Chief Pam Elias said last week.

But Elias and Chandra Wallar, director of the county's land use division that oversees code enforcement, said in separate interviews that the new fines were not about raising money, they were about fixing a problem.

They said most code enforcement complaints deal with small issues and can be handled relatively quickly. Those cases would still result in modest fines.

"A cost of doing business'

But Elias said some violations are complicated. They can involve people establishing unpermitted businesses, such as automobile repair and landscaping. Elias said in situations like those, violators may need to apply to the county's department of planning and land use for permits. That process, she said, could cost several thousand dollars. Paying the fines with promises to take care of the problem, or ignoring the fines altogether can be cheaper than complying.

"People are paying the fines as a cost of doing business," Elias said.

Wallar said the biggest problem for the county is when violators ignore the county. Then, the county is forced to take offenders to court, an expensive process for the county and taxpayers.

"Officers have to be ready to testify in court," Wallar said. "We have pretty limited staffing in code enforcement as it is. (Then) you have to take time away from other cases."

Rick Smith, chairman of the Lakeside Community Planning Group - which, like Ramona, strongly opposed the increased fines - said the county's code enforcement division "had sufficient tools" to deal with scofflaws and had no business hiking fines in order to avoid court cases.

"I'm sorry, but I thought it was our right to go to court," Smith said. "They're just looking for an easier way out."

Wallar, however, said the county and its taxpayers, needed more financial muscle to handle the complaints they get from the public.

"This is truly for those individuals who are basically thumbing their nose at any enforcement," Wallar said.

Eyesore

Last week, Elias and Kirkland toured a property in a rural but upscale area on Andreen Road in Valley Center. County code enforcement officers don't go out searching for problems, but instead respond to community complaints.

Elias said the case they were dealing with involved a land owner in Poway who had been notified two weeks earlier that the area needed to be cleaned up. Elias said the property owner promised the problems would be fixed, and that the new fines would probably not have to be used. But the site was the kind that could be targeted if property owners refused to comply.

"You have some really nice properties out here and then there's this," Elias said, pointing to a 1970's-era abandoned mobile home, several abandoned cars, bulldozers and trash - lots of trash.

A jackrabbit skittered out from under the front porch as Elias and Kirkland approached the open front door. Inside was stained and molding brown carpeting, a broken picture window, rat feces, toys, children's clothes, an old television set and spider webs in a sink that no longer had running water.

Out back, junk and garbage were stacked several inches high against the porch. The yard was strewn with trash, beer bottles, a disintegrating washer, dryer and jacuzzi shell. There was a makeshift greenhouse, fashioned by haphazardly spreading white plastic sheeting over a bare-bones wooden structure. Beyond that lay a few junked cars. Farther down, there was an abandoned camper - without the truck - and a spot where revelers, squatters or previous tenants had set a bonfire in the midst of dry weeds, parched trees and scrub.

A hundred yards away, several upscale homes stared straight down upon the eyesore.

Elias said the county was trying to work with the owner by offering to remove the abandoned cars free of charge.

But she said in cases in which property owners refuse to work with the county, the new fines will give code enforcement officers more teeth.

"Much more teeth," Elias said. "It means we can fine them right off the bat $1,000 a day, whereas with administrative citations we have to work our way up to that."

- Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.