Board of Aldermen Page 24
June 14, 2016
Alderman Clemons
| read Attorney Nicosia’s statement and where it says that there were no changes and | think what he
meant, because | had a conversation with him, is that when this was brought back through committee
and it went to the Substandard Living Conditions Committee, the discussion that was had in the
committee was at lease to me and to several other people that were present, that the ordinance was
going to come back and it was going to look a lot different than what it looks like now. That there was
going to be an appeals process put in there, a mandatory warning was going to be put in there, there
was going to be a clearer definition of what some of the fines were and what some of the definitions in
the ordinance were. | have to say that when | got the initial e-mail with what is now before us, the
amended version, my first reaction was nothing has changed. None of the things that were discussed in
the committee were adopted into the ordinance. The closest thing that came out of that was the
discretionary warning but it’s not a mandatory warning. That language is already codified so it’s not
anything new either. When you hear that terminology that there were no changes and you understand it
from that perspective then yes there were no changes. | had worked with one of the city’s attorneys to
go over how to put in a mandatory warning. | had asked the chairman of the committee to put that on the
agenda and | was denied. | left it at that and | didn’t want to bring it forward here tonight but there is an
alternative out there and the alternative would require a mandatory warning. Why | feel that is important
and why | think that this doesn’t pertain or why there should be a mandatory warning is because right
now we have codified the discretionary warning but there is no fine associated with it. This ordinance
seeks to put in a fine so if we are going to fine someone then we should at least warn them ahead time.
If we don’t have the decency to put that mandatory warning in our ordinances, why bother having any
warning at all, you may as well take out the discretionary warning too and just hope that the code
enforcement officers use some kind of discretion. | am not necessarily against putting in these fines but
it has to be done in a way that gets the community involved, that gets the landlords involved and the
property owners involved and it does it in a way that everybody can come out and say that | am satisfied
with the outcome of this because | compromised here or there. We do not have that in front of us
tonight. What we have in front of us is an ordinance that isn’t going to change anything with either of the
two properties that are of concern to us. What are we going to do when we go to Temple Street and
there are bedbugs? We have already been told tonight by the Mayor that when we go there they fix the
problem. | suppose we could fine them but | am sure that they could slap up their rent by another $10.00
per room for a week and cover the fine. It’s not going to solve the problem. They will pay the fine but the
reality is the person that’s going to end up paying the fine is the person that is renting the room. The
same thing with the Country Barn Hotel, this isn’t going to change anything. The only instance that was
given at the Substandard Living Conditions Committee where this might be useful is when the Fire
Marshall has a problem, like the ovens in restaurants that need to be cleaned and right now what they do
is play this game of cat and mouse so maybe in that case a fine would help because the restaurant
owner wouldn’t want to get a fine. To say that this is somehow going to clean up the properties of the
worst offending landlords is incorrect, it’s not going to do anything because you can’t put a law like this
into place and change an immoral person’s behavior. They will say here is the table of fines and | will
multiply that by how many rooms | have and |’m going to increase the rent on everybody, that’s just
reality. What we really should be focusing on here is going back and seeing how this schedule is going
to actually help us. | think there are some ways where it could be useful but in this form and without a
mandatory warning, | cannot and will not support it. | don’t think that it’s fair to say that because I’m
against this or if somebody votes no that they don’t care about the bad properties in this city. In fact, |
think that by voting no on this and maybe tabling it and bringing it back to committee, | think that’s going
to show those property owners that maybe we should retool this so that we can come up with something
that really is going to go after them and really is going to solve the problem because this isn’t going to do
it.
Alderman LeBrun
| feel compelled to explain my no vote on this. | either misplaced or | do not have the amendment and
therefore | felt compelled to vote on something that | had no knowledge of.
