The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON-Did you know the City of Dayton has two residential zones? Do you know what animals city residents can keep and house in each zone?

The City of Dayton has a new code compliance department, staffed by a new code compliance officer, who is going to provide answers to those questions, and more, and who will make sure public nuisance, animal control, street, building and zoning ordinances are complied with inside city limits.

Clint Atteberry was hired on Feb. 18, to tackle municipal code violations and public health and safety issues. He will also be helping with nuisance abatement and non-permitted work.

Atteberry is eager to get the new Code Compliance Program up and running. "I'll be looking at the whole city, area by area," he said.

But first Atteberry is going to process a backlog of about twenty complaints the city has received since 2014.

"The number-one priority will be public complaints," he said.

Atteberry said he will be guided by a new city municipal code ordinance that is set for adoption later in the month.

Atteberry said that when a complaint comes to him, and it is not a pressing public health or safety issue, he will issue a warning, along with informational flyers about the code violation in question. The violator will have 14 days in which to comply, he said.

If there is noncompliance, a notice to abate will be issued, but if Atteberry has to send out two notices to abate, and there is still noncompliance, the violation will be turned over to the prosecuting attorney's office for handling.

"We are very glad to have (Atteberry) on board," said Mayor Craig George, who said hiring a code compliance officer was a number one priority for the city in 2016, based on the citizens' complaints.

An amount of $33,400.00 was specifically set aside out of the 2016 budget to hire a part-time Code Compliance Officer, according to City officials.

Atteberry said, "Hopefully, this is just a beginning for me. I'm excited about it."

Atteberry is a 1998 Dayton High School graduate and a former Running Start student at Walla Walla Community College. He has been working mostly in construction for the past seven years, and he said that he is licensed in electrical administration through the state of Washington.

The answers to the questions about residential zones in the city, and rules about animals, can be found in the Dayton Municipal Code, Section DMC 11-03.020 on the City's website.

Complaints can be made to Atteberry in the Code Compliance Department at: 386-2343, or by e-mail at: catterberry@daytonwa.com , or by filling out a code complaint form online at the city's website at: http://www.daytonwa.com/. Look under code compliance.