Founded in the 1870s, Revere, Massachusetts, is a thriving coastal town home to almost 52,000 residents. Revere sits in close proximity to Boston and enjoys the benefits of healthy tourism on its pristine beaches and in its picturesque downtown. In order to maintain its status as a welcoming vacation destination, Revere actively enforces ordinances on trash, high weeds, and graffiti to promote happiness and safety for residents and visitors alike.

Last Spring, Revere implemented United Public Safety’s CodeCite mobile enforcement solution on N5Print handheld devices as a key component of their modernized code enforcement process. As Nick Catinazzo, Director of Municipal Inspections, explained, “I have 31 people in the department and 4 dedicated enforcement officers who go out and cite violations. The N5Print handhelds are so much better for the inspectors when they are out in the field. They’re very easy to use.” He added, “If we had a new inspector, we could completely train them in a week or two. It’s easy to learn.”

“In the old way, we had to handwrite every ticket. Then,” Mr. Catinazzo continued, “we’d have to send a copy out to the owner—it was a long process.” Like most municipalities, Revere enforced violations by handwriting citations and manually transcribing those citations into their databases. Unfortunately, errors in this process resulted in court dismissals and the persistence of unsightly and unsafe violations within the community. Obviously, something needed to be changed.

Since the implementation of their upgraded solution in May 2015, the Revere municipal inspections department revenue increased fourfold. “We use the UPsafety mobile solution along with another system to handle everything from trash to things like illegal apartments. We can now go after the banks who own these properties but don’t even know there’s a problem there. Under the old system, we used to bring in $100,000 in violations and another $100,000 on liens on the violations that weren’t paid. In the new system, putting it all together, we brought in $800,000 this past year.”

“The problem,” Mr. Catinazzo continued, “is that a lot of towns don’t have the manpower or the money. They need a solution that can handle their individual code enforcement needs. We have a lot of cities and towns calling us to see our processes. In fact, we had some people in yesterday who were very impressed by the handhelds. I’m proud to demonstrate it.” When asked about productivity, he added, “The officer gathers evidence, syncs it with the assessor’s office, prints out the ticket, and the property owner receives a notification.” It really is that simple.

When asked for his thoughts on UPsafety, Mr. Catinazzo enthusiastically replied, “I’ve got to tell you that the customer service in your company is excellent. Just excellent! I think it’s a great system: the handhelds, the photos, the printing. Everything is really working the way it was promised. Even if something comes up, it’s fixed immediately. Our first year contract is up this month, and I just sent the information over to our new mayor so we can renew the contract.”

UPsafety thanks Revere for allowing us to transform their violations process. We look forward to delivering continued code enforcement efficiency and performance.

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