Thursday, September 26, 2019

Garland Code Compliance Officer Ignores Violations of His Neighbors As Well As His Own

In May of 2017, I was unfairly targeted by an employee with the City of Garland, Code Compliance Department. I say "employee" because said employee was not licensed as a Code Compliance Officer with the Texas Department of Health. (Note: Code Compliance Officers were regulated by the Department of Health Services at that time. Regulation of Code Compliance departments was transferred to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation in September of 2017.)

The now-Officer's name is Dawood Haq, also known as "Sal" Haq. Mr. Haq parked his pickup truck next to my 8ft privacy fence and proceeded to stand on the side of the truck bed to look over the top of the fence and take pictures of the back yard. The 8ft fence effectively blocked any angle where the yard could be seen from a standpoint of public view.

This article is not about the events that took place with my property rather, it is about the unethical practices of code compliance officer Dawood Haq. More specifically, how Mr. Haq does not abide by the Code of Ordinances with his own home that is located in the City of Garland and overlooks multiple violations committed by one of his neighbors, located just three houses away.
Several of those violations are listed below.

The violations were identified by using Google maps of the residential area that is published to the public online and therefore a matter of public information. No privacy rights have been violated with the collection of the information contained in this article.

The photo shown below is a screenshot obtained by Google Maps


Image by Google Maps
Multiple code violations of Inspector Haq's property
and immediate neighbors.



Image by Google Maps
View from public alley of neighbor of Code
Inspector Dawood Haq.



Image by Google Maps 2018
Public view of Garland Code Compliance Officer
Dawood Haq. Several visible Improper Storage violations.


The following is a list of violations by definition listed under the Charter and Code of Ordinances For the City of Garland located within the County of Dallas in the State of Texas.

Filth shall mean any matter in a putrescent state.

Improper storage shall mean the outdoor storage, for a period greater than 24 hours, in a residential district, as defined by the zoning ordinance, of articles and material subject to deterioration by the elements, including but not limited to furniture and appliances other than those customarily installed or used out-of-doors, boxes, vehicle parts, and paper; any material which is stored in a disorderly manner or in such a manner as to offer harborage to vermin; any cut wood, firewood, lumber, or other building material, except masonry, which is not stored a minimum of six inches above the ground.

Impure or unwholesome matter shall mean any putrescible or nonputrescible condition, object or matter which tends, may or could produce injury, death or disease to human beings.

Nuisance shall include stagnant or unwholesome water, sinks, privies, filth, carrion, weeds, rubbish, brush and refuse, impure or unwholesome matter of any kind, sewage exposed to the atmosphere, objectionable, unsightly or unsanitary matter of whatever nature, litter as defined elsewhere in this Code, harborage for rodents or parasitic insects, open wells, abandoned refrigerators, animal pen or enclosures which have become offensive, improper storage, graffiti, encroachment, substandard premises, junk motor vehicles, junked boats, junked off-road motorcycles or junked all terrain vehicles, poison ivy, poison oak, or poison sumac (within 50 feet of an occupied dwelling,) and potable water nuisances.

Objectionable, unsightly or unsanitary matter shall mean any matter, condition or object which is objectionable, unsightly or unsanitary to a person of ordinary sensitivity.

Refuse shall mean any homogeneous or heterogeneous accumulation of worn out, used up, broken, rejected or worthless materials.

Rubbish shall mean trash, debris, rubble, stone, fragments of building materials, mounds of dirt or rock and any other material.


Residents of the City of Garland are very familiar with the practices of city employees. I can personally speak about how stacked the odds are against residents for fighting back against unethical city employees. Code Compliance ignores State regulations regarding city employee conduct. They know they will not be held accountable because the Garland Municipal Court will back their actions knowing a resident is unlikely to invest thousands of dollars in pursuing a suit against the City. Without a pending lawsuit against the City, it is pointless to file an ethics and conduct complaint with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations. There is no motivation for the TDLR to hold the City accountable when they are not under investigation by the Texas Attorney General. It is easiest to just brush resident complaints aside while maintaining the attitude you would expect when facing the Mafia... 'Yeah? Well what are you gonna do about it?'

Residents who can't afford the time or money to defend themselves legally are left with only one effective tool to fight back against being wronged..... Tell the public all about it on the Internet because it is protected as free speech under the First Amendment.

Thursday, August 1, 2019

City of Garland Code Enforcement Department Allows Employees to Work as Officers Without Being Licensed

The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) is the government entity that oversees and regulates all municipal Code Enforcement conducted within the State of Texas.
In order for a person to legally conduct code enforcement activities, the law states that an individual to hold a Code Compliance Officer license or hold a Code Compliance Officer In Training certificate. All Code Compliance Officers In Training must be physically supervised by a departments designated, licensed Code Compliance Officer. The rules are clear... A license is required in order for an individual to legally conduct Code Enforcement in Texas... Period.

The City of Garland has ignored that rule and allows employees to act and work as code enforcement officers. Dawood Haq is one individual who was allowed to work without holding a license or a officer in training certificate. He issued citations to homeowners and the department management was behind him.
When a resident complained to Code Compliance Director, Steve Killen, he sent an email to Haq's supervisor, Oswaldo Rodruigez, to see if the complaint was valid. The supervisor checked with the state and was told that Haq was not licensed. The email sent by Rodruigez stated that TDLR informed him that Haq had taken the exam to become licensed in April of that year (2017) but, the state was behind with processing the licenses.
The department heads were covering for Haq not being licensed when he issued the first citation to the resident in June, 2017. This cover-up only covered for Haq for that time period from April 2017 until the license was officially issued on July 28th, 2017.
Copy of list of licensed code enforcement officers as of 7-4-2017
Dawood Haq is not on the list

The problem was the department didn't realize that they needed to go back longer to cover for Haq conducting code enforcement without a license. How long had Haq been working without a license? In a sworn affidavit to establish probable cause to request a search and abatement warrant, Haq stated that he had been working in his current job for the past two and a half years. He must have meant, months since the date of the affidavit was July 6, 2017.  No, that wasn't the case.

By his own, sworn admission, Dawood Haq AKA Sal Haq had been working and conducting code enforcement for the City of Garland without holding a license, for two and a half years. Haq is only to blame to a certain point. The bulk of the blame for Haq working without a license goes to the management and the director of the City of Garland Code Compliance department, Steve Killen.

With it being proven that Garland's code compliance department operates illegally and unethically, there is another part of Garland's government that is directly involved with code enforcement's activities and that is the municipal court. They collect the fines for the citations and abatements and they prosecute offenders for the city.
The municipal court and the city attorney's office works hand in hand with code compliance and all of them work together against the residents of Garland. The court allows code compliance to operate above the law.

I will provide additional evidence in a future post that focuses on the role Garland's municipal court plays with the code compliance department and their willful and intentional disregard for following the laws that they are supposed to be following. It is absolutely disgusting how blatant the level of wrongdoing that goes on every day in Garland. More to come soon.