Code Enforcement in Bay County, FL: 10 Years, 3 Cities, 2 Officers & 1 Software Program
Bay County, Florida is home to more than a dozen cities and communities along the Emerald Coast in northwest Florida. Within the county, Marla Clark and Kerry “Monty” Odom have worked code enforcement in three of them. The duo first worked together at Panama City, Florida (population: 34,000). When Odom left for next-door Lynn Haven (population: 19,000), Clark joined him shortly after – then when Clark took a position in nearby Springfield, Odom joined suit shortly after.
A work partnership that began ten years and three municipalities ago is still going strong – but it wasn’t just each other that Clark and Odom were introduced to all those years ago in Panama City. During their time with the municipality, Clark and Odom also became familiar with Comcate’s code enforcement software – another relationship that is still going strong.
“We liked Comcate so much and found it so valuable that Monty went to Lynn Haven and got it set up there and I came to Springfield and got it set up here,” said Clark. “That is how much we enjoy using the program.”
Clark and Odom have worked together at three municipalities in Bay County, FL: Panama City, Lynn Haven and now Springfield.
A Rocky Start to a New Role
The city of Springfield, Florida is less than 5 square miles and home to about 8,000 people. Whereas many of the nearby cities in the county experienced a financial boost from real estate, Springfield was largely left out of this recent boom. Its ordinance enforcement needs are served by a two-person department – with half of Odom’s time split between code enforcement and storm water inspections.
When Clark moved over to Springfield in July 2022, she immediately began advocating for her new municipality to adopt Comcate’s code enforcement software. “I told them I can’t function without it. And that was the truth,” Clark said. “That’s the program I know. That’s the program I am familiar with. That’s the best program I feel there is for code enforcement, and I just can’t function without it.”
The Springfield administration knew how strongly Clark felt about the software, so after a quick presentation from Comcate and a budget check, Springfield’s mayor signed off on the contract. Clark was able to get her new department up and running with code enforcement software within the first month – and a good thing, too, considering the state of the situation she had walked into.
From day one, Clark had her work cut out for her. To start, the department had previously been using Excel and Word to track inspections and generate letters. “Excel and Word are very time consuming in comparison to Comcate,” Clark said. “If you go out and open 20 cases today and each case has one to five different violations, you might spend an entire day just typing letters,” Odom said.
In addition to operating on manual processes, Clark’s predecessor had stored all of the department’s information on an external hard drive that went missing after his departure – leaving Clark with no case history, no forms or letters, and no system of operations in place for her to pick up and move forward with.
“I was freaking out. I basically walked into an office where I had to generate everything for the program, all of it,” Clark said. Thankfully, the city of Springfield will never have to face that situation again, as a software solution naturally captures historical information on properties and cases and stores it in a place that can be accessible by many.
Less Paperwork, More Time in the Field
Having worked with Comcate at three separate municipalities, Clark and Odom have had plenty of time to get familiar with the program. One of their favorite things about Comcate are all the ways it saves them time.
“The thing I find the most helpful is the fact that it generates our letters. It puts in the statutes and writes out all the information,” Clark said. “It also gives you your re-inspection dates, so it’s not something we have to try to track. Comcate cuts all the ‘think work’ out for you, which allows code officers to have a lot more time to be on the road instead of in the office. We don’t have secretaries, so we have to do all the fieldwork and the paperwork.”
Both officers also appreciate the program’s ability to quickly generate a new case. “It takes literally two minutes to open a case in Comcate,” Clark said.
Two minutes hasn’t always been their experience with other software programs. When Clark and Odom worked together at Panama City, the municipality was in the process of moving all departments, including code, to a single software system. “I was mad about it, because it took so many steps to do anything,” Odom said.
According to Odom, the afternoon before the new program was supposed to go live, “One of the people from the city asked me, ‘What do you think about the new system?’ And I snapped. I said, ‘Come here.’ We sat down at my computer and I said, ‘We’re going to open up a mock case.’” It took Odom ten minutes of going back and forth between multiple pages to complete all the steps necessary to open a case. “And then I said, ‘Now we’re going to open a case in Comcate.’ And in two minutes’ time I got a case open and submitted and was on to the next one. I was at Panama City another six months after that, and we still had not gone live with that new system.”
Flexibility for Multiple Uses
Apart from the efficiencies that Comcate gives them, both Clark and Odom appreciate the flexibility of the program. “I like how we’re able to modify things,” Clark said. “So we’re not stuck with exactly how it is. We have the ability to take something out of the letters or add it back in.”
Odom has also found the software flexible enough to handle his stormwater inspection duties, which take up about half of his time. He uses Comcate mainly for record keeping, to track inspections and store his forms.
“That way, if DEP [the Florida Department of Environmental Protection] audits us or wants to know about the history of a particular jobsite, we have a digital copy of all inspections, which is another great ability of Comcate,” Odom said. “Any type of department that uses inspections, I think Cocmate would work great for, whether it be permitting, or building inspections for building departments, or code enforcement.”
Marla Clark (left) and Kerry “Monty” Odom have worked together in code enforcement in Bay County, FL for about a decade. “Who says code enforcement can’t be fun?” said Clark.
A Solid Program for Springfield Moving Forward
While the initial start of their time at Springfield was rocky, Clark is proud of how far they’ve come. “It was very challenging,” Clark said. “But you know what? It worked out and now we have this amazing program, and anybody could step right in behind us and have no issues. I take pride in it, to look back at what we started with and where we are now. We’re cruising now.”
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