City of Tempe Hearing Officer Meeting - November 18, 2025
City of Tempe Hearing Officer Meeting - November 18, 2025
An executive summary of the City of Tempe Hearing Officer meeting held on November 18, 2025, presided over by Hearing Officer Vanessa McDonald. The hearing focused on reviewing minutes from the previous session and evaluating five requests for 180-day open abatements brought by the City's Code Compliance Division regarding code violations including deteriorated landscaping, inoperable vehicles, and debris.
Consented Calendar
- Approval of the meeting minutes from November 4, 2025, deemed accurate by the Hearing Officer.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Raymond White (Property Owner at 1716 North Camellia Street):
- Expressed financial distress due to a fixed income (SSI) and food stamps, stating he could not afford a homeowner's loan or hire labor, noting that a $600 fine prevented him from purchasing glasses and put him behind on utilities.
- Argued that the city previously directed him to move a vehicle to the backyard for privacy reasons, and that he is attempting to manage the situation alone despite temperatures between 103°F and 115°F.
- Stated that while a carport tarp is being replaced, he is waiting for rain to clear before doing a final clean to avoid working twice.
- Claimed the Care 7 service did not respond as expected regarding sorting debris versus discarding it all.
- Expressed concern that the city abatement would result in the loss of money regarding antique motorcycle parts.
- No members of the public appeared for the Grafis property (Agenda Item 2), the Rifkin property (Agenda Item 4), or the Tura property (Agenda Item 6).
Discussion Items
- Grafis Property (210 East Vaughn Drive):
- Inspector Melissa Ensing presented violations of deteriorated landscape, trash, debris, and inoperable/unregistered vehicles, noting a history of multiple complaints between 2020 and 2025. The Hearing Officer noted a separate, active criminal case regarding the roof condition.
- Rifkin Property (1200 South Ash Avenue):
- Inspector Melissa Ensing presented a dead tree that remains after the owner removed only a portion, noting the owner (son of deceased original owners) failed to appear in court for a citation on the original dead tree violation.
- White Property (1716 North Camellia Street):
- Inspector Michael Moreno presented violations including trash, debris, inoperable vehicles, and deteriorated landscaping, detailing an eight-month history of citations, extensions, and lack of communication since April 2025. The inspector noted debris had been relocated to the alley.
- The Hearing Officer questioned White regarding the City's Care 7 service and the timeline of violations, noting previous correspondence from November of the prior year regarding a pickup truck.
- White argued that the city's previous inspector approved his actions and that the current state is due to extreme heat and financial constraints. The Hearing Officer countered that visible junk and vehicles violate code visibility rules from the public right of way regardless of prior verbal approval.
- Tura Property (1241 West Romo Jones Street):
- Inspector Melissa Ensing presented violations of commercial equipment, materials, and trash on a residential property, noting the landscaping had been corrected but commercial equipment remains. The Hearing Officer noted the pattern of the owner failing to appear in court for multiple citations.
Key Outcomes
- Agenda Item 2 (Grafis Property): 180-day open abatement approved for case CE207434 due to health and safety issues regarding landscape, vehicles, and debris.
- Agenda Item 3: Skipped as the property has been brought into compliance.
- Agenda Item 4 (Rifkin Property): 180-day open abatement approved for case CE245608 to address the remaining portion of the dead tree.
- Agenda Item 5 (White Property): 180-day open abatement approved for case CE251503. The Hearing Officer determined the city must intervene despite the owner's circumstances, offering a two-week window for the owner to bring the property into compliance; otherwise, the City of Tempe will abate the property and collect costs as an assessment against the property.
- Agenda Item 6 (Tura Property): 180-day open abatement approved for case CE247091 to allow time for the removal of commercial equipment and materials.
Meeting Transcript
Good afternoon. Today is Tuesday, November 18th, 2025. This is the hearing officer for the City of Tempe. My name's Vanessa McDonald. I'll be conducting the hearing this afternoon. I'm going to go ahead and read something into the record before we get into our cases this evening. The City of Tempe Hearing Officer is authorized by Arizona revised statutes and the City of Tempe Zoning and Development Code. The hearing officer is granted the authority to conduct public hearings to decide upon the abatement of code violations occurring on properties within the city. These violations include deteriorated pools, structures or landscaping, storage of junk or refuse, and storage of inoperable or unregistered vehicles. Abatement actions are brought before the hearing officer by the city's code compliance division, typically after numerous attempts at contacting the property owner to obtain voluntary compliance with the code. The hearing officer may issue an order directing the owner, occupant, property manager, or other responsible person to remediate a code violation or may authorize the city to abate the property. The cost of the abatement is the responsibility of the owner of the property where the violation occurs and will be collected as an assessment against the property in violation of the code. On today's agenda, we have five items. We have a set of minutes from November 4th, 2025, and we have four property abatements. Today the first item on our agenda is a set of meeting minutes for from November 4th, 2025. I had a chance to review them when they were sent to me after that hearing, and I think they accurately reflect what took place at that hearing. So I'm going to go ahead and approve the minutes from November 4th, 2025. Agenda item number two is a request for approval to abate public nuisance items at the Grafis property. This property is located at 210 East Vaughn Drive. Applicant is the City of Tempe, represented this afternoon by Inspector Melissa Ensing. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thank you, Madame Hearing Officer. My name is Melissa Insing, and I'm a code compliance inspector with the City of Tempe Code Compliance Division. I am here this evening to request a 180-day open abatement for the property located at 210 East Vaughn Drive. Tempe, Arizona 85283. Code compliance abated the front yard on September 16th, 2025. During this abatement, I observed deteriorated landscape that included dead palm fronds, trash and debris, unregistered and inoperable vehicles in the rear yard. I mailed and emailed the property owner an updated final notice for deteriorated landscape inoperable and unregistered vehicles and trash and debris in the rear yard. I have been in contact with Mr. Grafis and have discussed what violations need to be corrected. At this time, I'd like to present photos taken today of the existing violations. You can see there's a boat and then another boat, and then there's two cars underneath all these the trash and debris, the metal, there's wood buckets. He has items from the front of the fence all the way around the property or the backyard. Here's a picture of the palm trees. There's three of them, and the palm fronds come all the way down to the ground. Again, you can see miscellaneous trash and debris around the palm trees as well. As stated before, I am seeking a 180-day open abatement for deteriorated landscape, inoperable and unregistered vehicles along with trash and debris in the rear yard located at 210 East Bond Drive, Tempe, Arizona 85283. Thank you. And just to note for the record, I did see in the packet that between the years of 2020 and 2025, this property has also received multiple complaints. Criminal citations previously abated. So even though this particular abatement has started just this year, this property has a long history with code compliance. I do have a question about the roof. What do we do about the roof? Because it is in pretty bad shape. Do we there's a current criminal packet or case going on with it? Um the owner is trying to work with programming to get help. Um it is an active case right now, so we are still addressing that. We're um still going through the process of it. I just didn't know how that worked when it's actually attached to the structure.
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