A. An owner shall be assessed a civil penalty for each day that the owner fails to abate the conditions after the date specified on the notice by which the owner was required to abate the conditions. The civil penalty shall be twenty five dollars ($25.00) per day for the first ten (10) days following the date specified on the notice, fifty dollars ($50.00) per day for the next twenty (20) days, and one hundred dollars ($100.00) per day thereafter. The cumulative civil penalties shall not exceed the greater of ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00) or three (3) times the cost of abatement actually incurred by the county to abate the condition or, if the property is not abated by the county, the estimated cost as provided by notice to the owner.
B. Abatement under this chapter by the county shall be conducted after an authorized inspector sends to the owner of the property, at the address provided by the owner in the real property records of the county, written notice of the estimated costs to abate the condition and the accrued civil penalties, unless such notice is waived in writing by the owner. The notice shall be sent by certified mail, return receipt requested.
C. After billing for that reason, but before payment in full, any owner who has been assessed a civil penalty may request in writing a hearing before the board to reduce the civil penalty. The request shall be accompanied by a cash bond of one hundred dollars ($100.00) or ten percent (10%) of the civil penalties, whichever is greater, or a judgment by confession in a form prescribed by the county for the civil penalties as may or may not thereafter be reduced, suspended or conditioned. After application to the civil penalties, any balance remaining on the bond shall be returned to the owner, in accordance with the decision of the designee of the board. The penalty shall be reduced if it is at law grossly disproportionate to the gravity of the owner's conduct, and may be reduced in consideration of all relevant circumstances, including conditions on use of the property and suspension, for up to five (5) years, in the reasoned discretion of the designee of the board. (Ord. 283, 2011)