Farewell Pam Brady and Ginna Sanders. The neighborhoods of Colorado Springs that you served as land-use inspectors are going to miss you. Even if they don’t know who you are.

Here’s Brady and Sanders.

Brady, 58, and Sanders, 62, retired effective Friday from their long-time jobs enforcing city zoning codes. It was a thankless job that ususally started with a phoned-in complaint from a Springs resident about something a neighbor was doing from their home.

 It might be a backyard butchering operation. Or an all-night auto repair or body shop. Or a permanent garage sale business. Or all sorts of head-scratching stuff!

In 2005, the inspectors won a victory in how they do their job when the City Council agreed to give them more power — including fines and the power to take people to court — to combat chronic zoning code violators.

 Until the change, inspectors had little enforcement power and 43 percent of their caseload dragged on for more than two years.  Now, they can fine first-time offenders who fail to improve their situations $100, repeat offenders $250  chronic repeat offenders $500. If they don’t pay, inspectors can file tax liens against their properties.

Both Brady and Sanders have shown up frequently in Side Streets columns over the years.

Here’s a Side Streets column I wrote in 2003 about Brady and her work.

Here’s a link to a 2002 Gazette story about how Brady helped a birdseed business come into compliance with city zoning rules.

 And here’s a 2003 story that shows a typical issue they faced: a man who converted an old bus into a mobile taquería.

In 2006, I wrote about Sanders and a huge recycling center opened in a neighborhood and how she handled it.

Here’s a 2005 piece I wrote about the zoning inspectors seeking additional power to deal with chonic code violators.

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