Yes! However half the committee is landlords and at least on of them was getting instructions on how to vote from the Apartment Association of Sourth Central Wisconsin and Maniaci was very late and missed the vote, so it fails, 2 – 2. You can read the silly details here, including the police reasoning they won’t give tickets – even if the laws are in place. And, I don’t think the committee even knew what they were voting on.
[First, let me note, I think the draft they are looking at doesn’t accurately reflect what is current and what is changed. I think the city attorney’s office screwed up in the drafting due to previous attempts to fix the ordinance. Someone should get that straightened out so that accurately reflects what is current and what is changing. This is what is currently in the ordinance that is on-line:
– Removing doors or windows without consent of tenant. 32.05(1)(b) $600, 1st; $1000, 2nd
– Confiscating tenants’ personal property in lieu of rent. 32.05(1)(c) $600, 1st;
1000, 2nd
– Entering tenant’s leased premises without at least 24 hours notice. 32.05(1)(d) $600, 1st; $1000, 2nd
– Failure to provide rent credit. 32.07(3) $600
– Failure to return security deposit. 32.07(8) $600
It does a real disservice to committee members when they aren’t voting on the correct item. Here’s what was proposed in the past, but never passed.]
Maureen or Adriana [?? I’ve never seen her before, don’t know her last name.] from city Attorney’s office says the third offense citation in the same year is the increase. The underlined ones are the added ones. The judge can have a range, unless they don’t contest it, then he gives the max.
Lieutenant Kristin Roman represented the police department. She said their approach to landlord tenant issues is that it is a civil matter so when an officer has to respond, they document it and seldom take immediate enforcement action, even when they have the ability to give a ticket. [That’s a major change in philosphy, they used to have Tenant Resource Center come in and do a section during trainings. And, they even had us re-write their training manual at one point. Things were much more tenant friendly back in the days of Captain Silverwood. It’s also interesting in that many police and sheriff departments around the state come to trainings from the Tenant Resource Center and one even recently asked if they could load our training manual on their in car computers. It was a former Criminal Justice classmate of mine from UW-Platteville who seems to still believe in true community policing – so I had to say yes.]
She didn’t have any numbers or statistics with her and seemed completely unprepared to discuss the issue or be helpful in any way. She said in 20 years she has never written a citation on the spot, but she said if repeated or with further investigation, a citation might be issued. In general it’s a civil matter and the will have the documentation available. She said when a citation might be warranted, most officers would have to consult the bail schedules and do some research.
David Sparer asks how it is helpful to use to get voluntary compliance. She said any tool would be useful, but the question here is how often would it be used or would it be used unilaterally without further investigation. She says it is useful to have tools to gain compliance but citing somebody would not be the first response most often. That is how they are trained. [Well, I guess that confirms it – they don’t even try to work on these issues any more, unlike other police and sheriff departments.]
Phil Ejercito asked how they handle self reporting forms if someone filed a complaint – what would happen after that? [That made me laugh out loud, before she even had a chance to answer I knew the answer! Nothing!]
Roman said unless it is flagged in some way, a self report on tenant landlord dispute they won’t follow up and it will simply be documented. It goes on file as a documented incident.
Nancy Jensen testifies and says that the Apartment Association of South Central Wisconsin is in opposition – it’s a civil issue and it takes good information from each party and belongs in the court. Not a good use of our resources. Don’t support any addition to the bail schedule. They don’t like the size of the increase, the penalties are necessary but up to 5,000 but is not to scale with more egregious portions. Those are the fines in the ordinance in general. The penalties for the things already there, the third penalty seems reasonable, someone who did it a third time in the year there is a good reason to have that fine in there. The rest of the ordinance they testified to before and they are only concerned with the bail schedule. She says that the chronic nuisance penalties seem to make sense because the police are already involved and they will have a lot of knowledge about what is going on.
Sparer asks if they can address the issue of if the bail schedule option is useful at all like confiscating personal property without a lien agreement.
Roman says that they always had the bail schedule authority, so these additions they don’t hinder their process, they would need more info anyways and would like to do more gathering of information than could happen in a long form process. She says this won’t have an impact on their immediate ability to enforce the law.
Sparer asks about what if the landlord says to the police they took their TV, would that be a clear cut case that would make their job easier in that case.
City attorney says that civil or criminal doesn’t matter about the long form complaint. It makes a lot more work for the city attorney. A long form is employed when there is a month of violations that take place. A citation is a good way to deal with a one-time issue.
Roman says that even if they could write a ticket, they would say knock it off, give the TV back and then they wouldn’t write a citation.
Sparer notes that Taylor Johnson registered in support.
Eagon says the reason he wrote this is because of student concerns and in the campus community. He sat down with Nancy Jensen and assured them that this is not something they are forcing down anyone’s throat and that he hasn’t drawn a line in the sand, but he brought it up to give them teeth. He says he feels strongly more about some than others. He is happy there is discretion, he doesn’t think tickets should be issued in all cases, but having it as a tool is an interesting idea and warrants support at some level. He appreciates the 10 point font increase and thanks them for supporting it. He’s open to changes and amendments and invites discussion and amendments. He says that they should have a mediation service. In general they can provide an avenue for first time renters to be involved in mediation. Especially students. It would be a great addition to the court system. The bail bond schedules and ticketing method would provide an additional options.
Alicia Bosben (a landlord on the committee) asks if the first time ticket was lower would they be more likely to issue them or is it the process itself.
Rooman says it is a case by case situation, a high fine amount would weigh against the officer issuing a ticket and they might be hesitant to issue if they feel it doesn’t match the offense. It would also rely on them having a lot of information and have a clear cut scenario and they would be more hesitant to do that with a higher fine.
Sparer asks if $600 is high?
Roman hasn’t even looked at the ordinance proposal and doesn’t have a copy, so she looks at it. She says that this is significantly higher.
Eagon says it is high and it is an unintended consequence that the amount is high, that provides officer the need for more proof. They might be more reluctant to issue the fines. He thinks having it higher doesn’t allow for abuse of issuing ticket, but provides a strong deterrent.
Roman says that the goal ultimately here is to deter abuse and provide some consequence if there is abuse. Says there is no deterrent factor if they aren’t giving any tickets, but she doesn’t have any data. The fine amount might make them hesitant to issue. She’s not sure this meets the goals Eagon is trying to accomplish.
Ejercito asks where most tenant landlord related complaints that come to the city attorney’s office come from? Do they go directly to the city attorney’s office? She doesn’t know. [Wow, both the police and the city attorney’s office clearly are taking this seriously and sent their best informed staff to help the committee . . .]
George Hank from Building Inspection says that they receive a lot of the calls and recommend that the tenant contact police and ask for a report and then the police forward the issue for review by city attorney’s office.
Curt Brink [The other landlord on the committee] says that it’s too premature to add these extra fines right now. He says that failure of landlord to deliver possession is one of his concerns – there are many reasons that might happen. August 15rh and June to Sept in suburbs it is a delicate balancing act on turnover. He says they need more discussion. If it isn’t available on August 15th, it is likely the tenant isn’t gone and the landlord doesn’t have control over that. There is lots of weather issues with 90 degrees or rainy. He isn’t allowed to remove the property. If there is damage they need to take pictures, they don’t get reimbursement for it. No fine on the tenant if the apartment isn’t ready. It’s one sided. He says that without the tenants’ rights and responsibility pamphlet is $600. Small landlords might not know. Chapter 32 is almost 50 pages long, we have good building inspection, but everything is for protection of the tenants. The other part, if the tenant is bad they have a long eviction process. Before we arbitrarily start adding fines, we need to have a discussion. Plus, we don’t have one judge or one commissioner hearing all the cases. He says on August 15th they have to work out agreement. It too early to do this if we don’t have testimony from tenants to say this is necessary. With chapter 32, building inspection and city attorney they don’t need this. Is it one owner on one day. It’s premature without looking at all of this. Some of this stuff is totally out of line. No ticket that goes to the tenant.[He’s right, but the same is true with most consumer protection laws, they are there to protect the consumer. Not the business, and in many cases, big business.]
Sparer asks for a motion.
Ejercito recommends approval for the housing committee.
Bosben notes they don’t have to second as Nancy Jensen who is not on the committee is explaining to her two committee members that it fails without a second.
Sparer, the chair, seconds the motion.
Eagon asks the city attorney why they drafted the fines with different amounts? Eagon says he is confused on which part is which.
Sparer explains that 32.05 is exclusive possession.
Eagon says some of the recommendations were made by his predecessor. He suggests more ranges to give police more discretion but says he is open to discussion.
Ejercito says that he would move to strike a few of the changes. He says that he’d move to amend to failure to provide rights and response and possession revert back to report to city attorney instead of having a fine.
Brink seconds that!
Eagon says it is ok.
Unanimously pass that amendment.
The city attorney says that there might be confusion about the ones that they are adding. It is still an offense and could still be an offense, these don’t create new offenses, just a ticket.
Sparer speaks to adoption. He really recommends that they consider adopting it. He says that something of this sort will keep coming back and it will be in front of the whole committee, no matter what they pass it. If this is the best thing we can agree on today, then they can move that along and get it in front of the full committee. He also says that we need to remember they already are offenses, the landlords can’t do them, the question is enforcement. It’s stupid to adopt rules and not have a way to enforce them. He says that some of these seem preposterous and he can tell you a story about each one. Do we want to have a technique available to city staff so that they can be the person on the spot to say to the offending landlord that you just can’t do that and that they will find them if they don’t put the lock back on the door or confiscate the property because they owe you rent. You can imagine the way that would work would be that the landlord has to return the TV because the tenant owes the rent. The TV is almost stolen, but there is no intent to keep it permanently, but it could be months and months before it could be resolved. It’s an opportunity for the police to solve the problem on the spot. And you heard from police they won’t issue the ticket if it isn’t clear, but if it is clear, it is a way to resolve the issues quickly. He says that some of these things like illegal eviction are serious and need immediate attention. If you feel like the numbers need to be different, then let’s have some amendments to change the numbers. He urges adoption because it would be useful to the city and landlords and tenants. [Sparer nails it, there are some things that would take months to get to court and the damages would increase immensely and the police could provide immediate relief and actually, save the landlord money in the long run. An illegal eviction can cost the landlord quite a bit of money because they are subject to double damages, court costs and reasonable attorney fees.]
Eagon has to leave to go to the Public Safety Review Committee where they are discussing several tenant/landlord issues as well, which makes it real easy for people who are interested in these issues.]. He looks forward to continuing to work on it and work with people to make changes to keep it as even as possible.
Ejercito asks about the third offense items. Jensen is instructing Bosben how to vote in the background. Ejercito says that we aren’t really bumping anything up, $600 and 1000 are what they are now and where new offenses have been added, it just makes they available and the $1800 is new. Speaking to the whole issue says strongly in favor, he says this deterrence and compliance. After hearing from the police that it won’t be used by vindictive tenants, he is doubtful that it will be deterrence, it seemed like it will really be compliance and the police can use that discretion and he’d like to give the police that discretion. He says that some of these issues are safety issue – landlord entry – because tenants can’t have just anyone walking into their apartment – they should be able to call the police. They should not have the first instinct be to call Building Inspection or City Attorney. He is speaking from personal experience that this applies downtown and throughout the city – he says it is an issue across the city.
Brink is going to vote against it. He says that with the lock being changed, the tenant can do that too and they don’t get an $600 fine. If the TV is left there after it is moved out, do I call and get a ticket for the stuff that is left in there? He says the stuff taken is taken because it is left there, [That is not what this ordinance is about.] he says it gets unbalanced and the way it is fixed is going to court. He says that this has been brought up time after time and he won’t support it until the tenants can get a ticket for tenant changing the locks. If the landlord is wrong, they get nailed, this isn’t balanced and he won’t just pass it through. The court commissioner or judge will give double damages, it is not a balanced thing right now, it’s an abuse of the system and its one way.
Hank says that the amounts listed here are not the amounts that will appear on the ticket. These are the amounts in chapter 1, you add court costs and other things and so a $1000 amount will be $1300 or $1308 so there will be amounts added.
There’s a complicated formula that the city attorney said.
ROLL CALL:
Brink No
Boben says she doesn’t think it is effective or necessary. Not convinced it can even be something that you can get an answer to on the spot like that.
Ejercito Aye.
Sparer says he’d vote Aye if he could, but the chair cannot vote.
Phil moves to refer to full housing committee without a recommendation. Phil says that he’d withdraw the motion and just move to table. Sparer seconds.
Ejercito or Sparer says that Alders are proposing it, city attorney’s office came up with the numbers and Brink is suggesting that there be discussion of additional things, they can talk about all that stuff. Or, they can come up with a whole new proposal.
Ejercito suggests they table it. Brink and Bosben won’t table it.
Ejercito asks if he can change his vote, but he can’t. I’m sure he’s thinking reconsideration, which he could have done when Maniaci showed up.
The issue should go to the full committee now with a recommendation to reject 2 – 1.
