Code Enforcer Prefers Gentle Approach

Scott Emmerson knocks softly and carries no stick. No gun either, no uniform, and his badge is usually in his pocket.

He stands just to the side of the grubbiest doorway of the filthiest porch around and knocks.

No one answers. No one should. Officially the house is vacant, the owner in a nursing home. The water and electricity is shut off. No one should be living here, but someone is.

They’re cooking in the front yard, throwing their garbage on the porch, partying loud enough for the neighbors to notice, and what they’re using for a bathroom is anyone’s worst guess.

That’s where Officer Emmerson comes in. He’s the code enforcement officer for the East Central neighborhood, working the bad neighbor beat.

“I meet a lot of people who don’t want to see me,” he says. “With this job you have people screaming at you every day; if you take it personally, you’re going to have a hard time.”

Having trained as a Marine, where people yell at you all the time, helps. Having the Spokane police as backup helps. Having fellow officers who know exactly what you’re going through helps.

But it doesn’t make it easy.

Code enforcement has one of the highest turnover rates in the city. Four unarmed officers, each covering a quadrant of Spokane, respond to the calls the police no longer have time for: nearly 6,000 a year.

At one duplex, neighbors complained of liquid seeping through a common wall. It was cat urine. Emmerson discovered their neighbor, a working woman, had 29 feral cats and 6 inches of cat feces in her home. He fined the woman $5,000 and made sure the landlord replaced the entire floor and subfloor to protect future tenants.

“You don’t want them to just replace the carpet and have some unsuspecting parent of young kids move in,” he says. The landlord complied.

“Now you drive by and you’d never know what had happened.”

Emmerson has responded to devil worshippers who hung severed animal heads in their yard, and a mentally ill hoarder who collected so many cat food cans that there was no room for him to sleep inside.

Part social-worker/part police officer, Emmerson works closely with Elderly Services and other agencies to get people help.

When he began working East Central three years ago, the neighborhood was thick with transients in ruined houses, 4-foot-high weeds and junk cars.

Block by block, bit by bit, Emmerson is changing that.

“He has just moved mountains for us,” says Laurel McKinney, who owns rental property in the Eighth Avenue area.

Dressed in Dockers and heavy boots with plastic bottoms, the 29-year-old Emmerson looks athletic, helpful and, mostly, young. He wore a suit to work once - his first day - and quickly learned you don’t wear cashmere to respond to a diaper problem.

The suit is only for court now, a rare occurrence. Most people comply once they realize they’re acting illegally. Others get multiple chances to correct the problem.

But Emmerson’s gentle demeanor, like his knock, can be misleading.

He has condemned houses, overseen their destruction and cited incorrigibles into court. You can clean up the health hazard in your yard, or he’ll do it and bill you for the cost.

He licenses adult entertainment facilities, walking through bookstores and video stores to ensure everyone is old enough and dressed. Two businesses have closed in the city, and no new ones have opened under such pressure.

In one neighborhood, he got property owners to clear a blocked sidewalk so a wheelchair user can now make it to the local pool. In another, he took neighbors’ concerns to City Hall.

“He has changed how I feel about government employees,” McKinney says. “I used to work in government; I know what he’s up against. He has an incredibly difficult job.”

Threatened with everything from lawsuits to a rifle, Emmerson says there are days when it feels the world is against him. But then a neighborhood group or a property owner is so relieved to see him it makes it worth it.

He knows it is impossible for most people to move away from their problems.

He and his wife (who also served in the Marine Corps) and three children had a drug house move into their neighborhood. It took police nearly two years to drive the criminals out, and Emmerson uses that experience to empathize with frightened and outraged neighbors.

But he could also use it to show what a difference one good neighbor can make.

One day his daughters yelled that the neighbors were having a knife fight. Emmerson jumped in the middle, took the weapon and then made the two teenagers sit on the curb and talk it out.

It’s the approach he takes on the job.

He ditched the uniform and wants to get rid of the flashing light bar on his car - too much like police. He doesn’t regret working unarmed.

“If I had guns, we might not leave,” he says. “And you have to be flexible. It’s only garbage.”

Even on bad days, he knocks softly.

“There are a lot of people out there who need help, and it doesn’t take a strong-arm approach,” he says. “I’d rather just say, ‘I’m Scott,’ nice and low-key.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo