By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
City Attorney Mike Marsh threw cold water on the idea of registering and inspecting rental properties
Federal district courts have thrown out two other cities’ attempts to do just that, and in the case of one, Oakwood, ordered it to pay back the fees and fines landlords had to pay under the system since about 1992.
Marsh said the courts, in separate rulings found that the registration and inspections were violations of the fourth amendment — the fees and fines amounted to confiscation of property and the inspections illegal searches.
The discussion came in a City Council Committee of the Whole meeting Monday.
Those decisions were in other jurisdictions, he said, but it would be unwise to assume a judge here wouldn’t come to the same conclusion.
Adopting such a system, he said, would be “asking for enforcement problems and asking to be sued.”
Council Member Sandy Rowland said Oxford had a system in place that seemed to work.
Marsh said he believed they felt because it was civil, not criminal, it may pass muster.
At the request of City Council President Mike Aspacher, city officials asked, according to Marsh: “What can we do with the mechanisms we already have in place to address the concerns a lot of people have?”
Aspacher said he asked the administration about “ways to more directly address the housing concerns coming out of the neighborhoods” such as litter and garbage. He also was looking for a component to better educate tenants about their rights.
While an inspection required by law may not pass constitutional muster, a tenant can ask to have their residence inspected, said Joe Fawcett, assistant city administrator.
Fawcett said the administration looked at how they could retool existing laws and city entities to address the issue.
This would entail in fall the creation of a civil enforcement division within the Police Division using existing personnel now assigned to parking duties and animal control. Changes in the way the city is handling parking and the county taking over responsibility for aspects of dog control would free up those officers’ time.
That division would handle various nuisance issues, such as grass mowing sidewalk clearing, and garbage removal. This would be more efficient and better insure that complaints do not get missed, Fawcett said.
The city would also retool and revive a nuisance conditions working group of administrators to oversee the various efforts in this regard.
The city will also collaborate more closely with the student legal services office on campus to help educate students.
New publications on the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants are in the works. A new website will be launched to bring together all the information on these issues in one place.
Fawcett said there efforts will give the city more ways to address nuisance and health and safety issues without major expenditures, yet in a more thorough and efficient way.
City Prosecutor Hunter Brown said the city will now start enforcing these concerns as criminal, rather than civil, complaints. The process to resolve them through a civil process can take as long as a year, criminal citations, such as parking tickets or possession of cannabis, move through the system much more quickly.
Fawcett said the process would be education at first, then a civil citation, before a minor misdemeanor charge is filed.
All this is just a first step, Fawcett, said, not “a silver bullet.” More modifications will be needed.
Several members of council who have supported rental registration had questions.
Rowland said that the concerns seem to mostly address exterior issues and not health and safety.
As a Realtor she has shown rental properties to potential buyers. She sees jury-rigged electric systems, maybe the work of owners, or maybe the work of tenants. She also sees very old furnaces that could pose a carbon monoxide danger.
While tenants can complain about conditions, often they are reluctant because they don’t want to be evicted.
Marsh said with a 20-percent vacancy rate, they should be able to find another place.
Rowland said students certainly would not want to be faced with that in the middle of the year.
She also said that she’s been told that 25 percent of the cases student legal services handles are health and safety related.
Bruce Jeffers also questioned whether the changes adequately addressed the safety issues.
Council member Mark Hollenbaugh said after looking through what the administration was proposing that “I don’t think this is the end of these discussions.”
