Nearly a year after beefing up the Code Enforcement Unit with additional personnel, the city of Ceres is noticeably cleaner, Ceres Police Captain Chris Perry reported to the Ceres City Council Monday evening.

Seven days a week, the expanded team works on cleaning up illegal dump sites, graffiti, trash in vacant lots and addressing zoning violations, public nuisances, business violations, unlicensed street vending and abandoned shopping carts. 

The one-man team in place before the city hired additional staff wasn’t working keeping up, said Perry.

“It was really hard for him to handle the show all by himself,” said Perry of Senior Code Enforcement Officer Jeff Varni. Most of that time Varni was behind on getting to reports of blight or violations by 100 cases.

Now, Perry said, the city is “caught up and we actually handle calls on our GOGov app as they come in, one by one, each day.”

“If anybody reports anything to our Code Enforcement Division via the GOGov app, those calls are handled that day,” Perry told the council.

In March the city added Code Enforcement Officers Jeff Hopkins and Jack Taylor, a full-time secretary in Lauren Medina and two part-time officers, including David Garcia. The city is recruiting for the second part-time code enforcement officer.

Lt. Trenton Johnson is now overseeing Code Enforcement as the supervisor.

“You can see that a lot of our numbers have increased with the increase in staff,” said Perry. “These folks are out there every day hitting the streets and doing a really good job … as the numbers show.” 

In 2022, the city handled 869 illegal dumps and the problem remains a “real challenge” for the crew. To help stay on top of dumping, the city has set up an illegal dump hotline for the public at 209-538-DUMP (3867).

The unit abated 265 homeless encampments in 2022, cited 107 for 107 citations for unlicensed street vending after numerous warnings, and made 2,337 inspections and re-inspections on properties and homeless camps.

“Our crew meets every Wednesday for an hour briefing. We actually challenge ourselves internally in areas that we can go out and how much garbage that we can pick up and things like that. We’ve almost turned it into a small inner competition which I love because at the end of the day it’s getting all of this trash out of the community anyway. So whatever motivates us, so be it. I’m happy with it.”

He also noted that the unit will take on one special project one day each week, such as picking up trash on specific streets such as El Camino, clamping down on homeless camps behind businesses, or cleaning alleys. Those specific projects are driven by public complaints or staff observations.

Perry showed the council photos of illegal dumps which the crew can clean up with a hydraulic dump trailer and haul to Bertolotti Disposal’s yard.

In December the crew hauled off 37,545 pounds of trash to Bertolotti Disposal and in January 34,190 pounds.

The unit has also worked to clean up severely blighted homes and yards by red-tagging them. Besides trash, the city can red tag a property for substandard living conditions, unsafe building conditions, lack of water, dilapidated structures and conditions that threaten health.

Perry highlighted the formerly filthy conditions at 2121 Venus Drive, a home once piled up with debris, no running water, electrical problems, broken windows, abandoned vehicles and discarded appliances and furniture which was all the bane of the neighborhood.

“We did a lot of things to work with the property owner to get the property cleaned up,” said Perry, adding city crews physically do a clean-up.

The property is under new ownership and the neighbors are pleased with the results, he said.

More shocking was the blight at 437 W. Hackett Road where similar conditions existed before the city took action. Perry showed before and after photos which showed an amazing difference.

Other city departments like Streets and Public Works have been called on to help clean up trash sites with equipment and muscle. One such area waiting to be tackled after the rain stops will be cleaning up trash left by the homeless in a drainage basin behind Penske Rentals.

“I’ve been at the Ceres Police Department for almost 30 years now and I’ve actually had never seen a relationship between police officers and Code Enforcement officers like I see today.”

Police officers have been good, he said, about keeping an eye out for squatters at addresses where Code Enforcement is focused on cleaning. They made at least eight trespassing arrests and responded to 269 calls made by the Code Enforcement team. Police also provide security in cases where homeless individuals are resistant to demands to leave illegal camp sites.

The unit’s part-time workers have even tackled weeds in center medians and some landscaped areas.

Perry noted that during the Feb. 4 community debris drop-off event, the city collected 10,162 pounds of e-waste, including 175 TV monitors, 214 discarded mattresses and 1,250 tires. The total weight of trash brought to the site by the public for the one-day event was 87,900 pounds.

“It was a huge success,” said Perry. “I definitely think it’s something we should do every year. The community loved it. We were thanked like crazy.”

Ceres resident Gene Yeakley, who has been a critic of the city’s blight eradication efforts in the past, praised Perry’s report as “way beyond expectation.”

However, he expressed frustration as a resident who is bothered by barking dogs. Those matters are handled in Ceres by the Stanislaus Animal Services Agency, which does not have round-the-clock officers.