The City of Erie is considering additional measures to help improve its quality-of-life ticketing system.

As it stands right now, Erie City Code Enforcement can enforce a total of 41 quality-of-life violations, with the most common being high grass and excessive garbage.

In June, the fines quadrupled from $25.00 to $100.00.

According to Erie Code Enforcement manager Andy Zimmerman, his office has handed out an estimated 80 tickets since increasing the fines.

Zimmerman says there is now talk of creating a housing court, in which an out-of-town judge would oversee these cases.

"If our property maintenance inspectors issue citations or quality-of-life tickets, they would go in front of that judge who would spend the day here and deal with all of the violations that we have listed," said Zimmerman. "Bringing in an out-of-town judge, it takes a lot of the burden off of our local district justices that have to deal with it, so it could be a win-win situation for us."

According to Zimmerman, the city is also considering having a third-party agency collect the fines.

"We've talked about a third-party agency collecting those fees," said Zimmerman. "There's a lot of things we are looking at that will help us in dealing with blight."