Wheatland's 1971 housing code ordinance authorized creating a Code Appeals Board to give residents a chance to argue their cases before an impartial authority.

But the board wasn't created until Wednesday. It hadn't been needed.

"Normally, the letter did it," said Mayor Thomas Stanton.

The borough had taken the informal approach of sending letters to people who let the conditions of their properties deteriorate beyond certain standards.

Those standards were set by the American Public Health Association in 1971, but in 1983 the borough went with Building Officials and Code Administrators International.

What prompted Wednesday's action was four property owners who did not heed letters from the borough asking them to fix up or demolish garages.

The appointment of the board allows the borough to enforce the code as far as the court system, Stanton said.

The appeals board is charged with interpreting code provisions and hearing appeals of a code officer's actions and requests for variances. A variance could be granted when enforcing the code would result in "practical difficulty or unnecessary hardship and where the public health and safety shall not be jeopardized," the ordinance said.

Stanton said the appeals board should be "non-political" and not beholden to the code officer. He said it will perform a function similar to the Wheatland Zoning Hearing Board.

Council appointed Sam Pacora to a one-year term, Jim Drascovic to a two-year term and John Goda to a three-year term. All subsequent terms will be for three years.

According to the ordinance, appeals board decisions can be appealed to Mercer County Common Pleas Court. Stanton said the ordinance was approved before Pennsylvania adopted the district justice system. Appeals might end up first at the office of District Justice Henry J. Russo, Hermitage, he said.

While some legal questions were unclear to borough officials, Stanton said that if a property owner loses an appeal but does not correct the problem, the code officer probably would file a citation at Russo's office. The property owner would then have the option of pleading guilty and paying a fine or pleading not guilty and asking for a hearing before Russo.

A problem for the borough remains that enforcing the code ordinance to court makes more work for building code officer Edd Buczo, with no means of paying him.

Buczo said he was hired for building inspections and paid from the money brought in by building permits.

"They want me to do this and do that -- for what?" he said. "They want me to get into this too much."

Buczo said he wouldn't mind taking cases to court if he will be paid for his time. He said council members, who are preparing a 2002 budget, have told him they are looking for a way to pay him.