At December’s Meet and Greet at City Hall, Costa Mesa CEO Tom Hatch presented code enforcement officer Mike Tucker with the CEO Leadership Award for December.

Tucker was hired in January of 2000 as an Equipment Mechanic II.

In April of 2009, he transferred to a Senior Maintenance worker position and in September of 2012, he was promoted to Code Enforcement Officer and assigned to the Community Improvement Division. Tucker was given projects that were designed to address high priority concerns within the City’s residential zones with the goal of achieving a higher quality of life for the City’s residents. One such project was located in the Mission/Mendoza area at the north end of the City.

Tucker, along with his team members, took a wider view of this residential neighborhood to determine what steps were needed outside of the normal code enforcement processes to achieve the City’s goal. This led to an organized effort by property owners, tenants and City staff to address substandard conditions, property maintenance issues and capital improvements.

Continuing with this theme, Tucker was re-assigned to his current project, which is to combat the negative impacts of group homes in our residential neighborhoods.

This issue is new to code enforcement, but Tucker took on the task and self-educated himself about this industry. He has become our leading expert on this topic and continuously shares his knowledge with the rest of the team.

This is a high priority for the residents of Costa Mesa and with Tucker’s can-do attitude, the code enforcement division has been successful in reducing those impacts.

In addition, CEO Hatch welcomed 17 new employees and recognized seven employees who had been recently promoted and two retirees, crime prevention specialist Kelly Vucinic and animal control officer Art Beames.