San Jose staff described a three‑pronged approach to reducing blight: accelerate enforcement against chronic violators, expand prevention and education, and coordinate enforcement across departments and partners.

Angel Rios (WCD manager) and code‑enforcement deputy Rachel Roberts presented the new CORE pilot designed to expedite enforcement against properties with repeated or significant violations. Roberts said the pilot will prioritize incoming cases that meet a multi‑case criterion (more than one violation in the last three years or owners with violations on multiple properties) and that selected properties will enter a two‑year program with a 30‑day compliance notice and formal legal action if unresolved.

Roberts said staff revised the escalating enforcement policy and trained staff in September; the city also contracted Guidehouse to complete a fine study after council increased the maximum administrative remedy fine in August to $20,000 per day (with a $500,000 maximum). Staff said the consultant work was recently kicked off and that the timeline to return recommended amendments to council has shifted from February to May to allow for study completion and administrative processing.

Deputy Chief Brandon Sanchez described anti‑graffiti enforcement: two detectives focused on gang‑motivated graffiti opened 204 graffiti investigations across the two tracked intervals, sought 249 warrants or investigative actions and made 33 arrests, he said. John Ciccarelli said a coordinated downtown working group and closer evidence gathering have accelerated enforcement in targeted storefront and vacant‑building cases.

Illegal dumping remains a large cost driver. Staff reported collecting more than 5,000 tons of illegally dumped material in the past fiscal year and showed pilot results using cameras and automatic license‑plate readers: 73 referrals from camera monitoring resulted in 18 warnings and 17 citations to date. The presentation also described outreach to multifamily property managers, an expanded junk‑pickup campaign credited with a 66% increase in participation year‑over‑year in some areas, and a shopping‑cart pilot that recovered 734 carts across two pilot areas.

A public commenter from the Winchester Orchard Neighborhood Association urged additional partnership and targeted actions around the Cypress Community Center, which staff said they will coordinate on.

Council members asked about enforcement equity, how cases are prioritized for the CORE pilot, whether enforcement changes will be distributed citywide, and how education and diversion are being strengthened. Staff said CORE will prioritize new incoming cases that meet the chronic‑offender criteria, that pilot cases will receive a 30‑day compliance window and that the pilot will run at least six months with a status report to the committee in April.

The committee accepted the report unanimously.