Late last year a dog poked its head through its fenced-in backyard and chomped another dog that had been walking with its owner on the nearby sidewalk, earning the biter the Auburn animal control officer’s unwelcome designation of “dangerous dog.”

And earlier this year a landlord imposed undue utility fees on a tenant, to which the tenant objected.

What unites these cases and six others over the last year is that Auburn residents who felt they’d been wronged appealed their griefs to City Hearing Examiner Phil Olbrechts or to his alternate.

Once a month, or as necessary, Olbrechts and his alternate hold public hearings related to land-use permitting actions, receive and examine all admissible evidence regarding cases to be heard, inspect properties and submit written findings, conclusions, recommendations and decisions. They also conduct other public hearings that are not related to land use or code enforcement actions.

“It might be a little bit of a surprise to you, but I think that 80 percent of the examiner’s time was spent on issues that didn’t have anything to do with development permits,” Olbrechts said as he presented his annual report to the Auburn City Council during a study session Monday evening. “It was other parts of your code that took up most of my time.”

Per the 2010 contract, the City pays Olbrechts $140 an hour for his services. Appellants also pay initial application fees and processing charges when their matters have been adjudicated.

Here are five of the decisions:

On Oct. 9, 2015, Olbrechts approved a special home occupation permit for a landscape contractor. Case was that in the mornings, the contractor’s 20 employees parked their vehicles at his 10-acre home-site, where he gave them their assignments for off-site projects. But the guy’s neighbors hated the morning traffic and noise. So, while Olbrechts approved the permit, he tailored conditions to limit the contractor to three business vehicles parked on-site, restricted off-site impacts to the 100 trips per day a subdivision of the site would generate, and required him to rebuild his driveway to avoid off-site traffic congestion in the mornings. Olbrechts emphasized that while the contractor may not have found it feasible to comply, the conditions were necessary to assure compatibility with the neighborhood.

Olbrechts called the case above the most complex decision he’s rendered in his years of service to Auburn.

On Dec. 7, 2015 Olbrechts decided that Auburn’s animal control officer had correctly designated one canine as a dangerous dog after the animal stuck its head through its fenced backyard and bit a dog while that dog’s owner was walking it on an adjoining sidewalk.

On March 3, 2016 the hearing examiner approved the City of Auburn’s critical areas variance request. The City had asked for it to reduce the stream buffer from 75 feet to 49 feet near the old Valley 6 Outdoor Theater business to facilitate improvements to South 277th Street.

On June 27 Olbrechts turned thumbs down on Green Solutions Place’s appeal of the City’s denial of its business license application and a stop-work order, which the City had imposed when Green Solutions started operating without a business license. While administrative appeals are available for stop-work orders issued via the City’s building codes, there are none for stop-work orders the City imposes through its code enforcement regulations. Olbrechts also dismissed the appeal of the denied business license application on the grounds that the City had yet to make a decision on the building license application at the time Green Solutions filed its appeal. Green Solutions is pursuing a second appeal.

And on June 30, 2016 he found for a tenant who was appealing charges his landlord had imposed on him. Olbrechts agreed that the landlord had violated several City Code provisions, among them: exceeded authorized late fee charges; gave the tenant improper notice as to billing methodology; shortened the authorized time periods that triggered late fees; and assessed late fees while billing disputes were in process. In the end, the landlord had to pay a $100 fine and refund the $20 late fees and the $25 appeal filing fee.

“It was the first (utility fee appeal) I’ve ever had in the city of Auburn. … The expanse of our time and staff time, and even the tenant landlord time fighting it isn’t anywhere near what the fines and fees are, but I’m certain that the landlord now can see if they don’t follow these procedures, they could be subject to this type of appeal, so in that sense it’s probably worthwhile to do,” Olbrechts said.