She keeps an eye on city's eyesores

On a blazing hot afternoon, Pam Wilderman, Marlborough's first code enforcement officer, knocked on the door of a run-down house on Miles Standish Drive. Residents from the well-kept, middle-class neighborhood had complained to police that the house was an eyesore and a nighttime hangout for teenagers.

Wilderman, 57, did not know what she was walking into. Maybe the house was empty; maybe not.

It's all in the job. Wilderman has toured Marlborough's underbelly and has seen it all: cat hoarding, a storage shed used as a rooming house, and an apartment with no plumbing.

Her position was created two years ago, originally for a tryout period. City leaders, impressed with Wilderman, have made the job permanent at a salary of about $50,000. Now, the City Council is considering hiring an assistant for her, to help with paperwork so she can spend more time on the streets. More time to explore houses that may be abandoned.

She knocked on the door of the Miles Standish Drive house. No response. She turned the doorknob and walked in.

"Hello, Building Department. Anybody here?"

No one answered.

She walked upstairs, past a stairway railing that had been smashed into splinters. She inspected the bedrooms and the kitchen, her only backup a "Marlborough Building Inspector" badge.

"Oh, thank God - nobody in the fridge," she said, peeking behind the refrigerator door.

Wilderman, a former theater major, is a good storyteller, and she has collected a lot of fodder from her job. One of her favorites occurred when suspicious neighbors reported seeing a man empty a bucket outside his basement apartment every morning. Wilderman checked it out, and indeed the apartment had no toilet. What really shocked her, though, was the landlord's reaction when she called. "He's not paying much rent," the landlord said of the tenant, as if that were an excuse. Not really the point, said Wilderman, before issuing an order to vacate.

Towns the size of Marlborough, with its population of some 36,000, often don't have a code inspector. Instead, various departments - health, fire, police, building inspection - each handle their own piece of the enforcement pie. (That's the case in both Franklin and Shrewsbury, for example, which are both towns of about 30,000.) As towns grow, they sometimes find enforcement becomes more complex.

Framingham, which has a population around 67,000, has one code enforcement officer now and plans to hire two more this year, according to Town Manager Julian Suso.

"There was a general consensus that the challenge for that position in a community that continues to grow and expand . . . really merited additional staff assistance to get the job done," he said.

Another reason for the additional staff in Framingham is a new bylaw, currently awaiting approval from the state attorney general, requiring annual inspections of lodging houses, he said.

Similarly, Marlborough found its needs changed about four years ago, after it adopted a blight ordinance. The ordinance targeted such eyesores and hazards as unregistered vehicles dumped in yards, uncut grass, and tree branches blocking a sidewalk. "That's the stuff that drives people nuts," said Wilderman, who worked as planning board secretary before she became the code enforcer.

Wilderman gets 50 to 75 complaints every week. One of the most common is concerns about overcrowded houses - private houses that are taking in boarders illegally.

That appears to have been the case with the abandoned house on Miles Standish Drive. There were keys in each of three bedroom doors, a "clear indication" that the address was used illegally as a rooming house, said Wilderman. Since that inspection turned up nothing else, Wilderman locked the doors and called police to suggest they drive by at night to check for teenagers. The house will eventually be auctioned off by the bank that owns it, she said.

Illegal rooming houses often draw immigrants, said Wilderman, and some see the crackdown on overcrowding as an effort targeted at Brazilians, Guatemalans, or other new arrivals. Wilderman doesn't see her job that way.

Neither does City Councilor Maura Navin Webster. She proposed that Wilderman get a part-time assistant in response, she said, to another council initiative to investigate the possibility of opening a city-funded federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Marlborough. That proposal died due to a lack of interest from the federal government and a concern from city attorneys that it was illegal to use city money for a federal purpose. Webster was the only councilor to vote against even exploring the idea, and she said there wouldn't be so much angst over illegal immigration if the cultural divide could be bridged.

"Cultural differences are a big part of the general misunderstanding of our laws," said Webster. "[Wilderman] is not just there to drop the hammer. She's there to help people understand how to go about things the right way."

People hear ethnic music blasting from a house that appears to be overcrowded and assume illegal immigrants are the culprits, said Webster. But the reality is there's no way to know how many of Marlborough's immigrants are here illegally. Local government has no purview over illegal immigration, so Webster said Wilderman's role of improving quality of life is a much more practical way to address the frustrations that arise between newcomers and natives.

"I want to do everything I can to make Marlborough a more cohesive community," said Webster. "Let's address the issues at hand."

John Loureiro, owner of Juniper Farms-Bolton Oil, was the subject of Wilderman's enforcement actions after it was discovered that he didn't have a needed permit for his business. His case was complicated, because his business is in Marlborough but the road access is in Hudson. Wilderman collected several town officials in one room to meet with him.

"It was a little overwhelming because I had about six or seven city officials sitting there with myself - I thought I was at the Last Supper," said Loureiro. "She was a big help; she was very good to me."

Wilderman has become a recognizable figure in the city. Driving around in her white Buick Regal, she is greeted by some in the immigrant community as "Miss Pam."

Of course, she has made some enemies, too. Wilderman never knows what she is walking into and occasionally, she will ask for a police escort.

"I have a healthy respect for the hair on the back of my neck," she said. "There have been times when something just wasn't right."

Once, after getting what she felt were threatening calls from someone she was dealing with, she called the police chief to file a report. She said the two joked about the long list of suspects that would arise if she were ever the subject of foul play.

"I just want it fixed," said Wilderman. "I'm not here to make your life miserable."

Lisa Kocian can be reached at 508-820-4231 or lkocian@globe.com.