MARK WAITE / PVT Barbara Taylor, right, and her successor, newly-hired code compliance officer Dick Johnson, address Nye County Commnissioners. SPECIAL TO THE PVT A dog aggressively fends off intruders at a messy lot on West Irene Street that is on the current list of nuisances. Advertisement

When Nye County's first code enforcement officer Barbara Taylor came into Pahrump five and a half years ago, she was given a desk, a telephone and a handful of three complaints.

"When I came here Feb. 5, 2001, code enforcement didn't exist. They didn't know what it was," Taylor said.

Originally, Taylor came to Nye County when Charles Abbott and Associates, a private contractor that operates the county building and safety department, was assigned septic tank inspections after county officials had complained it took state inspectors took long to issue septic permits. Charles Abbott didn't want to get into enforcement of health issues, she recalled.

Shortly after arriving, however, Taylor was targeting unkempt lots where some Pahrump residents kept junked cars, old trailers, construction debris and other items that might be considered one man's trash but another man's treasure. Angry residents who were cited for nuisances showed up at county commission meetings to plead their cases.

At first, Taylor said residents weren't aware of the codes. Some people thought if the accessories on the property were taxed by the county assessor's office, they were legal.

"The Board of County Commissioners in the beginning wanted to let people do exactly what they wanted to do," Taylor said. "As the community complained about the situation, they complained to government."

Nye County adopted a code compliance manual in the summer of 2001. Taylor thought the phones would ring off the hook. "Now you can't stop them from coming in, they're endless."

Taylor said she never walked on private property without permission.

"My job was to view the property from the street, and you can take pictures at whatever angle you can view what's on the complaint," Taylor said. "Code enforcement isn't there to irritate people."

In five and a half years, Taylor said, "I have probably 2,000 letters of code compliance that have been sent out in the community. That's just first notices."

The number of notices to property owners to bring their property into compliance with county codes have steadily increased. Taylor knew the numbers by heart: she sent out 198 first notices in 2001, 248 in 2002, 323 in 2003, 398 in 2004 and 438 last year. In 2006, Taylor expects over 500 notices to property owners. Those are only the first notices. The code compliance office sends out three notices to those that don't comply before taking further action.

About one-fourth of the time people comply and clean up their nuisance after the first courtesy notice, she said.

"There are many property owners within this community I feel that do not respect their neighbors," Taylor said. It's an obsession, hoarding of items on their property."

Despite all those letters, she said there were only a couple of instances where the county actually abated the nuisances, that is, spent county money to remove the items and put a lien on a property. County officials don't want to abate nuisances, they keep asking property owners to comply, she said. One instance when the county removed property was on Moapa Avenue, where there were four old trailers and children playing in open sewage. The trailers were taken away.

Taylor said complaints about nuisances and unsightly lots should first try to be worked out civilly between the neighbors, the person with the junky yard and the person who complains.

When offenders appear in front of the Nye County Commission, it usually involves an "outrageous" case that can't be resolved otherwise, Taylor said. Often, commissioners heard quarterly updates on the nuisances.

While some people cited to appear before commissioners spoke derisively about her, Taylor said, "I never walked in fear in this community. I never felt fear, even though I've been threatened."

It's been quite a transition for someone who went to school to study commercial art and business. Taylor said she also had a medical background and worked for a law practice. She was called to testify in district court as an expert witness, something she credited to her experience viewing over 3,000 properties in Pahrump.

However, while she has cracked down on the unsightly lots and health hazards, Taylor said Nye County doesn't have a health department.

"That is one of the misunderstood things in the valley. Code compliance cannot respond to a health violation because there's no health department," she said.

Taylor said, however, she's taken a complaint about a septic tank violation to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which issued a $25,000 fine.

Taylor said she closed 200 or 300 cases of code violations.

Some of the bigger issues were resolved in her early years; now the complaints involve big accumulations of unused items, like construction debris and machinery, she said.

Back in 2001, Nye County allowed mobile homes that didn't meed standards of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development. "Pre-HUD homes," they were called. Mobile home transporters and set-up companies moved them from Las Vegas to Pahrump, she said. They were being set up as storage or homes for residents, which is illegal.

It's a struggle for the county to keep up with people setting up manufactured homes without the required fees, regulations, pads, and other requirements, she said.

In addition to the old trailers, car crushers have come out to flatten and take out junk cars, Taylor said. However, a committee has been set up to determine which ones are "classic cars."

Taylor said the public wasn't aware of the clean ups of big piles of trash in the desert, like a clean up of a privately-owned site at the base of the Spring Mountains on the edge of Redelsperger Street.

"They had crushers up there for a month taking cars out," she said.

During her last county commission meeting July 18, appeals of three nuisance complaints were heard. Rick Flores, 561 W. Irene St,, appealed his nuisance letter. Taylor listed scrap metal, garage doors, furniture, metal frames, tires, wheels, wood, wire bundles, a truck filled with trash, automobiles and two antique fire trucks on the lot.

Commissioner Candice Trummell told him the manufactured homes needed to be removed by Oct. 18.

Lilian Flores asked what they were supposed to do with the trailers. They couldn't afford to take them to the dump.

William and Venita Elliott, 2420 W. McMurray Drive, were originally given 60 days to remove abandoned vehicles Sept. 20, 2005. William Elliott said he's trying to dismantle 14 trailers.

Robert and Jeanette Smith, 1660 W. Jornada St., were supposed to have items in the front yard relocated to the back yard and a six-foot privacy fence built around them last April 18. Jeanette Smith said her husband Robert has been in bad health and unable to do the work.

"It's been a very busy job for one person and I feel there is a need for another code compliance person to address the needs of the community," Taylor said. She's moving to California to run her family business.