If there’s an ordinance violation in the neighborhood, who you gonna call?

John Graham, the new code enforcement officer for Addison Township.

Last week, the township board voted 6-0 to create the position and establish a pay rate of $16.86 per hour based on Graham’s experience. Officials created a line item in the budget for the position and allocated $14,000 for it.

He’s currently the code enforcement officer for Oakland Township and has been for four years. Prior to that, he enforced Orion Township’s ordinances for two years. Graham is a retired Oakland County Sheriff’s deputy who spent 32 years on the job.

The board also voted 6-0 to waive the requirement to publish a public notice and advertise and post this position due to the urgent need to fill it with someone possessing professional experience.

Graham will start work on July 29.

Township Supervisor Bruce Pearson brought the issue to the board.

For at least 10 years, code enforcement duties have been performed by the township’s building official. Pearson explained this arrangement worked well when Addison “had very little building going on,” but “now, we have tons of building going on and tons of additions.”

As a result, Pearson said the building official can’t perform all of the necessary inspections, plus deal with all of the complaints regarding potential ordinance violations, the number of which has also increased.

“It got to be too much,” said the supervisor, who noted the ordinance complaints range from dock violations on Lakeville Lake to “junk” and vehicles littering people’s properties.

Pearson believes Graham is perfect for the code officer position because as a retired sheriff’s deputy, he has years of experience dealing with the public, writing tickets and maneuvering his way through the court system.

“People who are not used to court get intimidated by it whereas a deputy just takes it in stride,” he said.

Pearson also likes it that Graham is not an Addison resident because code enforcement officers can find themselves on the receiving end of personal attacks from fellow residents for simply doing their job.

“It’s best to have somebody who lives outside the town,” he said.

The township authorized the officer to work up to 20 hours per week, but Pearson explained the amount of time Graham puts in will largely be based on the number of complaints he receives.

Pearson stressed that Graham is mainly going to respond to complaints from residents. He’s not going to patrol the township searching for ordinance violations.

“We don’t generally go out and look for issues,” the supervisor said.

When it comes to the ordinances, Pearson prefers a “laissez-faire” or “live and let live” policy. He said if he “wanted to pick on people,” he could probably find lots of violations by simply driving up and down every single road. But, he doesn’t believe in doing that.

According to Pearson, unless a violation is “really outlandish” or “really blatant” or the subject of complaints from neighbors, the township is not going to involve itself. “We don’t go knocking on people’s doors,” he said.

Graham doesn’t take “the hammer-and-nail approach” when it comes to ordinance enforcement. He said he believes in working with people, handling situations with civility and attempting to resolve issues as quickly and painlessly as possible. If there are special circumstances surrounding a violation, such as an illness or personal crisis, Graham said he tries to be understanding and patient.

At the end of the day, Graham said his job is to help make the township a “more pleasant place to live” and to do that, residents must realize there are ordinances on the books and his role is to gain compliance.

“It’s got to be done,” he said. “Just because you’ve lived there for 130 years and your great-grandfather founded Addison Township, it doesn’t cut you any slack. There are people like that (who tell you), ‘I moved out here to do what I want with my property.’ And that’s fine as long as you don’t violate the law. The laws are there for a reason – and I didn’t make them.”

Graham believes in enforcing ordinances fairly, so if he receives a complaint about a violation in a neighborhood, then discovers other homes are “doing the same thing” there, “everybody’s getting a letter.”

“I can’t single somebody out . . . That just wouldn’t be right,” he said.