Building safety week May 5-11 and is intended to bring awarness of the code enforcement community to contractors, elected officials, other departments, and the general public. As code officials we need to use this opportunity to talk to the public about building code safety. Here are some sample ideas on what you could do

• Bring together all of the departments within you municipality and discuss when permits are needed, what the role of the building and safety department is, and how to have citizens contact you.

Host a meet and great with the inspectors and local contractors. Provide coffee and doughnuts. Have plenty of materials to hand out including checklists, department contact information, and the like

Put together a joint video that can be posted on your department's web-page on what your department does. A great example has been put together by Rochester Hills Building Department in Michigan. The video is titled "Defenders of Public Safety."

What are you doing for BSW this year?

We want to highlight some of our building departments during and after building safety week. Please send us an email that highlights some of the great things you have done or are planning on doing to make building safety week a great success.