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Ocoee appeared on track last week to pass an ordinance to dissolve the city’s citizen-staffed Code Enforcement Board (CEB) and transfer responsibility for ruling on residential code violations to a special magistrate.
But after the board's vice chair, Warren Lewis, submitted a proposal for a citizen-magistrate hybrid board and its chair, Joseph Bandur, presented a petition with approximately 100 signatures supporting the board, the commission reversed itself. During the April 7 commission meeting, commissioners voted to do nothing at all and leave the CEB exactly as it is.
The vote was unanimous with Commissioner George Oliver III absent.
Commissioners also voted to retain the higher fine schedule in the now-scuttled ordinance. Fines, which had been as low as $25 per day, are being bumped up to $1,000 a day for first violations, $5,000 per day for repeat violations and $15,000 for “irreparable or irreversible” violations.
A separate ordinance reflecting that new direction will return to the commission for another vote at a later date.
The city’s new special magistrate, Abigayl Osborne-Liborio, who already oversees nonresidential violations, will work as a liaison to the citizen board, providing coaching and feedback to help meet the commission’s expectations, City Manager Craig Shadrix said.
Following the vote, Lewis stood outside the commission chambers surrounded by a crowd of well-wishers.
“The commission looked at everything, and I’m glad they reevaluated and at least have the citizens board back in place,” he told VoxPopuli.
“I’m just looking forward to working with the city to help improve the board,” Bandur said.
Ocoee Police Chief Vince Ogburn, whose Feb. 3 presentation to the commission recommended replacing the board with a special magistrate, said he had no comment about the turnaround.
Last week’s vote ended a two-month deliberation over ending one of the city’s longest-serving citizen boards. The Code Enforcement Board has operated in Ocoee since 1981.
In his presentation, Ogburn had said there was a “need for consistency and accountability in the way we enforce these violations” and that a special magistrate was necessary because the CEB too often failed to muster a quorum to meet and were too lenient with imposing fines.
Lewis and other board members took issue with the characterization of the board as ineffective and inefficient.
However, a March 30 memo, from Ogburn to Shadrix, included in the April 7 meeting agenda packet, shows the CEB had difficulty maintaining quorums. The board met nine times in 2024; five times in 2025 and only once so far in 2026. According to the memo, CEB also reduced fines in nine situations since 2024, including one last month — often by 50 percent.
Commissioner Scott Kennedy — who described himself as “ one of the more outspoken commissioners in expressing my displeasure, and the residents that contact me their displeasure, with the speed with which their issues receive resolution due to the quorum issues" — said that he had a “very candid conversation” with Lewis and Bandur about the problems with the CEB and found the duo “very receptive to feedback.”
He explained during the meeting that while he voted for the magistrate in March, he was now "open" to reevaluating the situation. Commissioners Richard Firstner and Rosemary Wilsen agreed. Mayor Rusty Johnson seemed frustrated that the commission was not following through with the ordinance that they’d asked city staff to draft in February.
“Somebody made a motion to do this, so they had a reason,” Johnson said. He circled back to this point a little later, saying, “Nobody's got the guts to do things sometimes when they're supposed to. That's the problem about sitting at a job like this. You gotta have guts to do what you're supposed to do … I knew that this was going to come about tonight because I knew you gotta have this steadfast to stick to what you say you are going to do, and it don’t look like it do.”
Still, the magistrate as minder, keeping the CEB on track, had broad appeal and helped sell the idea of maintaining the citizen board.
" I think the citizen board approach is good," said Kennedy. "I think what's been lacking is probably some feedback and coaching, and I think the hybrid model is worth considering. I think if there was a magistrate there to advise and give feedback to the board, I think that's a reasonable request, and I think the rest of the commission's complaints can be resolved through a process like that."
“I absolutely believe that something that has been lacking is a more aggressive liaison and attorney presence with the Code Board,” Shadrix said. “I also believe that the Code Board needs more training as does city staff that are clerking the Code Board, and that's something that is easily corrected. I think getting everyone on the right path … is what's in order here, and then we can properly evaluate their performance after we make sure that everyone's clear on what their mission is.”
