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.