Inspired by an epic piece of art, Seaside rethinks how it does code enforcement.

Oftentimes, change happens when feathers get ruffled.

Such is the case in Seaside, where Etienne Constable had a fishing boat – in perfectly fine condition – parked in his driveway for years.

But after the city brought on a code enforcement officer in recent years, often enforcing codes that have long been ignored, Constable received a letter in July 2023, informing him that the boat parked in his driveway violated Seaside City Code 17.34.150 – Parking Of Other Than Passenger Vehicles. Per the code, Constable is required to screen the view of his boat with a 6-foot-tall fence.

Constable, who’s owned his home in Seaside for 29 years, was pissed off. But instead of shouting about it (although he says he did leave an angry voicemail, then another to apologize), he took a more creative approach – he commissioned his next-door neighbor, artist Hanif Panni, aka Hanif Wondir, to paint a facsimile of the boat on the fence he built.

In May, Panni came through with a masterpiece, a detailed rendering, including the plants on the sides of the driveway, of exactly how the boat would look if the fence wasn’t there. Images of the mural went viral on social media, and the story was picked up by newspapers across the country.

When Nick Borges, Seaside’s police chief and acting city manager, heard of the drama, he went and met with Constable on May 16 and literally gave him a high-five.

And Borges got to thinking about enforcement without adversarial letters. A few ideas swam through his mind. One that stuck, after talking to a resident who was complaining about uncut weeds on medians and private property – unsightly to some, but a fire risk to all – was: Helping Improve Gardens & High Weeds 5 times a year. It’s not a perfect acronym for HIGH 5, nor is the new initiative limited to five, but it gets to the spirit of what Borges is going for.

The idea is that instead of sending code violation letters to residents for overgrown weeds, the City will instead send a letter inviting them to apply to a lottery for public works to clear their weeds for them. Initially, it will be five residents per year, which could later expand.

The new program is all inspired by Constable and Panni’s work, after which Borges asked himself: “How do we honor that and be inspired ourselves and get creative?”

Borges expects the project will launch by the end of June.