001yes okay so I'll get started here uh welcome everyone to the October 19th 2023 meeting of the anabor renters commission the purpose of the renters commission is to advise the city council and the city administrator in matters affecting renters in our city uh our commission is made up of voting members who are appointed by the mayor and approved by city council two non- voting city council Liaisons two non- voting members representing different landlord perspectives and a non- voting representative from the University of Michigan Student Legal Services to speak during any one of the Public Public comment opportunities you'll be able to speak through the webinar link or by phone for phone access please call 877 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 935 8801 941 it's 935 941 uh to be called on to speak callers
002must press star9 if you're calling in by phone or use the raise hand feature if you're doing it through the web link which is a2gov.org renters commmission meeting the first letter of each word is capitalized so renters commission meeting uh you will then be called on by staff and you can give um a three-minute comment um City staff will indicate when callers have 30 seconds left of your three minute comment and then after which you will be placed on mute so we can go to the next speaker so moving on to roll call uh which is item two please State the uh the city that you're calling from um so we'll go to list commissioner Chen is not here commissioner Peterson is not here commissioner Kelly here calling in from an Arbor Michigan welcome Patrick
003commissioner dran present from an arbor welcome commissioner Els here in an arbor very nice to see you commissioner Lowe is not here commissioner Tibbits is not here commissioner Rose is not here commissioner Ratcliffe is not here uh commissioner Thomas is not here commissioner Pitts here from an arbor so nice to see you Cam commissioner good here Ann Arbor welcome um I am also here calling in from an arbor Comm council member redina is not yet here council member Harrison I'm here from an arbor I'm um off camera because I'm under the weather but I'm here welcome good to see you all nice to hear you okay item three and I hope you feel better soon um thank you item three approval of our agenda at this point we can't approve our agenda right since we
004don't meet Quorum okay however we can and we can also not approve our minutes from the previous uh meeting which is item four so we move directly on to uh item five which is our first general public comment period which uh I think we should still do all right public comment can be made by phone at 877 85352 47 or 888 78899 and ing the meeting ID 935 881 941 can also address the renters commission using the web link and that is um sorry a2gov.org runers commission meeting um and if you are joining with the web link you can use the raise hand feature um or if you're calling in you can press star n we'll give it just a second if you'd um like to address the renters commission for up to three minutes
005go ahead and raise your hand we'll call on you no attendees have okay thank you Kristen uh we can move on to item six which is old business uh we had talked or we had asked for an update about the um recommendation that the commission had made back in it was April um to ban pre- tenancy fees uh this is in response to the weit list uh fee issue in the city um and so I guess I'll I'll ask um our council member here today um if there are any more updates on that um no updates on that we're working on it um I think we were uh well we're in the process of meeting with Zachariah and um who else are we Gail yes um so we will bring to you two first and
006um yeah but we are we're making uh progress so that's the only update there thank you um are there any comments or questions about the proposal from April Jordan I think my um I'm glad we're working on this as we are getting into wasting season this is you know we're hearing these stories already um being at the capital a couple of times over the last couple weeks and hearing about the bills that are working on there it doesn't sound like they're going to be very fast so I think it would be good for us to get going on these kind of things here um the one thing I just kind of you know I read the recommendations in April and read them again just I want to be I hopefully we can be very clear
007on that um the second recommendation about the verbiage of the the leasing um we weren't as clear as reading it again now and kind of going a few more months with all of the stories and knowledge I think that we we need to be clear on what we're requesting of city council and I assume that you guys are I just kind of wanted to verbalize the with the timelines and the when you can hand someone a lease and what situations you can hand someone Elis is still kind of um unclear to to folks in the community so I think it would help to clarify that was my only thought I was reading through it again today yeah thank you Jordan I can pull up the two recommendations made and you were referring to the second
008recommendation which uh was to consider clarifying the language in uh the early leasing the amended early leasing ordinance yeah I think you know we say here that it doesn't say that the landlord shall shall not offer a lease I mean there are situations in which the landlord could offer a lease if that you know they've given the renewal offer it's requested by the tenant unless we're changing the ELO to me when I read this I wasn't clear were we saying we want to change the ELO to say for example you can't even get a renewal lease until 180 days or are we saying that you this is just to prevent the counter signing situation do you get what I'm saying like I I read this again and I couldn't remember back from April what we
009were what we were thinking with this specific bullet point because um sh not offer a lease to a prospective tenant for signing um if the tenant's requesting it that's fine as the way things are right now so I wasn't sure I wasn't sure what we were saying uh in this bullet point I guess looking at it now okay yeah my understanding is that we were saying that it shouldn't that Council should consider just making it not allowed to for landlords to even offer leases and and then would we say until 180 days I just felt like there was a piece you know what I'm saying like that there was a piece yeah I think we should talk more on that yeah thank you Julia um well I don't know do we want to talk more
010about that because mine was a different question um well let's I want to hear your question I think let let's hear your question and then we can loop back around if um I think I need some time to think about what Jordan said personally okay I um saw the uh kind of report about the junk fees and stuff and but I don't recall ever seeeing any draft legislation is there any draft legislation the commission didn't draft any legislation yet my understanding is that yeah go ahead CIA yeah that's what we're working on with um Mr Riser okay um and I guess if there's any way we could help with that I you know I'd appreciate it if you bring it back to the commission I think we will be we will be we're going to
011meet with we're meeting with Zachariah and Gail and then we will at that point bring it to the commission okay great any other questions or comments I think um put my hand up but um I think as I'm looking at this the specific case that we were trying to outlaw here is when a brand new tenant not somebody who's renewing was getting offered a lease um way earlier than it was allowed for someone to for the landlord to sign it right and that doesn't seem right to me that they should be able to to say they have an occupied unit and they have a perspect you know a new tenant who's interested if they offer it to the new tenant and they know that they can't sign up for months and they get the signature
012from that new tenant and then they take that and refuse to counter sign it that that that's just the case we think that as we as we were writing that the recommendation I think we came to the conclusion that it wasn't right that the landlord could offer the lease to that prospective tenant knowing that they couldn't sign it for months and not even knowing if the current tenant was going to renew or not in many cases so we I think that's why we said we don't even think that they should be able to offer it at that at that stage to a brand new tenant not not for Renewal gaale so I realize I'm coming in in the middle of this but I am seeing I am seeing those that happen already where landlords are
013offering leases that the tenants will sign and and and the landlord says they can't counter sign until March or whatever you know and and of course the problem with that is that you know arguably the tenant is now bound to the lease even though the landlord is is not um you know so a tenant who changes their mind may not be able to go someplace else because they've already signed the lease even though the lease hasn't been countersigned so that's you know it I'm I'm I'm slowly starting to see some right to renew early leasing ordinance issues and questions and stuff right now um not a not a ton but this is this is one of them so just putting that out there yeah I think we had talked about oh sorry I think we
014had talked about 10 like making a I don't know I thought it was this meeting one of them making it like the landlord must sign the leas within 10 days or so I thought at one point we had had some discussion surrounding language of like if a lease is signed by a tenant a landlord has to sign it within 10 days or or something at some point in one of our conversations but they they can't because of the early leasing I mean you well that's what I'm saying so you couldn't you couldn't that that language then would prevent them from I mean I think we were talking about different ways to go at it and I thought at one point we had considered that right and then this this is another ISS sorry zachari I
015so this is another issue I'm seeing we're starting to see and maybe this isn't the time for this discussion at all but you know we're starting to see issues where and you tell me if it's not and I'll wait um where where landlords are and maybe we talked about this last year too where landlords are saying you know I'll renew I'll renew your lease you don't have to let me know until 150 days from the end of the lease but I'm willing to um you know give it to you have you give it to you in a much lower rent if you sign now so I don't know if that's come up or if now's not a good time for it or whatever Zachariah is smiling I'm not sure what that means but I'll let
016you go well um Julia you're next go ahead um I was just gonna mention that kind of thing because I've definitely heard some of the larger landlords in town saying yeah we can't sign a lease yet but we'll give you this discount if would get your commitment now those kinds of things so I think that this number two would help current tenants too I'll point out that you know there's no guarantee that the discount that they're giving isn't just the regular rate and that the regular rate that you would be getting if you waited longer is just a hiked up rent you know and so I think from the perspective of a tenant it's like not oh you're giving me a discount now if I sign early it's if you if I don't sign early
017and if I don't exercise my right to wait you'll be raising my rent and I think that when we talked to Nick RL who was on this commission um he thought that there was a good chance that that was not legal given the language of right to renew because that's in his eyes not good faith negotiating not a good not a good faith offer yeah no I I agree with him I just didn't know if that was something that we discussed here and it may be that we have to litigate it to make you know to determine if that's allowed or not and maybe maybe we're heading there soon but I just didn't know if you guys discussed it if that was if that's come up at all I don't know if other people are
018seeing it in their worlds but I'm starting to see it for sure yeah we we have not we we discussed it since I I know that some landlords did this last year I know cppo dco did that um among others but I think it right is there an alternative to testing it in the courts I don't know I mean last last year the the issue was there was or or another issue was that um you know there was a dispute about whether or not the right to renew ordinance sorry sorry the dog say BR or something whether or not the right to renew ordinance um was in effect for leases that had already been signed so nothing happened last year now that I mean it's it's clear that the right to renew ordinance is in
019effect for leases that are currently in effect so that other argument's taken away um yeah and I don't know if there's another way to resolve this outside of outside of litigation but but I'll take all thoughts thanks SC any other questions thoughts about the recommendations of the report or the process that we're going through now um with our council members I mean I don't have any additional thoughts other than what's been discussed already some of these um methods that landlords are use I mean they don't sound it doesn't sound it sounds predatory to me so that's my opinion just sounds like a way to skirt around you know to skirt around it so thanks Cynthia um yeah I really hope that we can get something implemented as soon as possible because I think this has
020been going on for you know two and a half years or so and it pains me to see that uh especially seems to have a greater effect on student tenants but it's not just student tenants um to see them have to go through that is very uh unfortunate and I don't hope we can address it yeah we definitely will I'll um you know talk with uh I'll reach out to Mr Riser about that as well and we can we can discuss as well the four of us when we meet yep thank you so as for the second recommendation there I know Jordan you that you brought up um I'm not sure if we want how we want to continue their conversation if we think we should um yeah I mean I I I think your
021goal right I think I agree I think your goal was to to deal with this counter sign thing I mean we have two big issues right we have the the counter signing thing which seems like next level predatory because these students are trapped I mean it could be six months that these students are trapped thinking they have an agreement and also thinking they have a house without knowing I mean that was the other issue last year I signed a lease but then I was told I didn't actually have a house um and so then they're they're panicking and as late as April I heard some so that's one issue and the other thing is is the you know the dealing with the timing and the the increasing the rent the predatory I'm going to increase
022this over time and so I don't know if you I mean if you guys are working on it I don't think we necessarily need need to come back to the conversation right now as long as city council isn't going to put something through without bringing it back for all of us to have a peek at and say no no this this wouldn't cover this situation um I think right I don't know that we need to spend more time on it or is there I guess Cynthia and Zachariah and Gil is there anything that you that that I've said that you want more clarity on or is there anything that would be helpful to the three of you if not I don't I don't think we need to be laborate if we're going to see it
023again before it's good I think there's any needs to be clarified I'm not sure if that was on the topic on the agenda for discussion for our future meeting I think we were just talking about the Banning of fees but I think it definitely should be on the agenda so uh if we have the time we certainly will discuss it when we are able to meet yeah that sounds good great any other questions comments on that point 6-a okay we can move on to uh item seven which is our new business uh we have a report from tenant our tenant education committee can someone who attended that committee please give like a brief summary of what you remember us talking about um I think I'm the only one here uh and I was trying to
024look at my notes I remember it was said um coming out of the last commissioner's meeting we had talked a little bit about education and people said they didn't feel fully up to speed on evictions and on security deposits um as two areas as Commissioners we wanted our own personal information on um so there was a bit of discussion whether it makes sense to have uh you know a session just for Commissioners or whether it makes more sense to do a broader public um education Forum kind of thing where Commissioners could go but also any general tenants that wanted to go um I think with evictions the decision was because we uh have a video on evictions um from uh legal services south central Michigan that we would ask all the Commissioners to view that
025and then at next month's meeting if people have any questions or would like any further detail um we'll have um eviction law on the agenda for the next meeting so this is a request for everybody to please watch that and then security deposits we're going to talk about at the next meeting so we kind of booted that one um there were a couple of things in the scope of evictions besides just general law this is the way it works you get a 7day notice you go to court blah blah blah um there's also uh I was going to follow up with um Hawk which handles money in the county to help with eviction prevention um so try to get statistics from them and see what where they're at now that the uh Federal money um
026from the pandemic is gone and uh there was going to be some checking in with other groups too Jamie was going to talk to Poverty solutions to see if they have any updated stats on evictions in an arbor and Zachariah was going to talk to the county to see where if they're taking any movement towards a addressing evictions with something like an eviction diversion program so that was probably a longer report than you wanted but once I started it was hard to stop thank you so much Julia that was a very good report I thought um I Jordan I know you were there too was there anything that uh Julia didn't catch she covered all of what I remember as well so I did contact the County Commissioner and uh we're going to see if
027we can get a staff member from the County government to come and talk to us about what they're trying to do on the issue of housing generally um I'm waiting to hear an update but they it sounded like there there was definitely a possibility and I know that at yesterday's County Commission meeting they I think they had a work session and they were talking about a lot of really relevant issues uh rosanita who was on the commission um made me aware of that and um I was not able to watch that meeting but if you're interested you can check it out any questions for um the people who attended the the committee meeting I was just going to ask about the the link to the the video on evictions um would that be sent around
028uh after the meeting Kristen or has it already been sent around and maybe I missed it yes I plan to send it out after this meeting thank you um I I brought this up at the tenant education committee meeting um that since we were talking a lot about evictions and you know we're talking about eviction diversion program we also talked about a right to counsel program these things can help people who are facing evictions um and I'm just wondering if it I want to gauge your opinions about engaging other bodies like other parts of the city government on the issue of exploring these these policy options of eviction diversion and right to counsel um I was thinking of sending an email to hsab and the Human Rights Commission but I don't know who else I
029should contact or I mean if does anyone have think that that's not a good idea or think that other people should be invited to that conversation isn't uh Jeffrey our representative on the Human Services one it's a good point I think I should definitely ask Jeff about that I don't have any concerns about about um reaching out and think it think it' be be a good idea okay great I saw that rosanita was just able to join us so we have we do have a quorum now um so welcome rosanita hi sorry I'm late I had a another meeting before this that every month I never get to the end to so I figured I needed to actually stay for that one once understandable glad to have you um you know um Kristen at this
030point should we go appr approve the agenda in the minutes that would be great yeah okay so I'll just take R for you rosanita you're obviously here where are you calling from oh I'm calling from Ann Arbor great welcome so we have Quorum um do we have a motion to approve the agenda we've been going through I'll move to approve the agenda thank you res I need a second second second by Julia um all in favor say yay yay yay y all oppos say a okay we just approved the agenda and then we can move on to the approval of our minutes do have a motion for to approve the last meeting's minutes uh that's September 21st meeting's minutes on motion thank you Patrick motion by Patrick um second second second by Julia um all
031those in favor say yay yay y I post a nay okay so we approved our minutes great um and then we'll just continue with the the agenda where we were so oh I'm sorry you know I totally missed that we did have the right to counsil on the agenda I we should have discussed that at that point I apologize okay we can move on to 7-b and update from the green Fair event we had a table there um would anyone like to give an update Julia and Kim both of you were there on night table as well um you know it it was a pretty lowkey event um but a fair amount of booklets people did come by and pick up the you know City booklets from us um and I you know it was
032less than a dozen I think people came and talked about specific um questions on issues they were coming up with I don't remember what the tally was on that little board yeah I think we weren't really prompting people to to do the board we were just mostly talking with people so yeah but definitely you know uh the bulk of the complaints were about how hard it is to live in an arbor because it's so expensive and it's it's expensive without being good you know it's not like it's upscale expensive and like oh it's worth spending extra of my income because it's so nice you know it's kind of like oh my God it's barely possible and I'm paying all my income anything you want to add Kim um I just thought it was a good
033turnout actually you know because I did walk around a little bit so it was nice to see the people um and uh you know I was surprised that people would walk up and start you know I think you engaged them a lot Zachariah so I think that was important and you you were able to pull information out because I I thought they were pretty nice you know people didn't come in and start yelling or complaining they just you know were very interested in who we were you know as well so yeah I was I was excited about it yeah ready for next year I think I'll be ready thank you Kim well I certainly had a great help engaging people um I I know one tenant came up and talked to us about having an
034eviction on his record and he wanted to know what to do because he was going to move to an arbor soon and he was looking for tips on that and I truthfully didn't know what to tell him but Julia thankfully had some good tips um you want to share those just so we all know what to you know a good way to respond when somebody says asks a question like that Julia uh specifically with the eviction record yeah I you know I I think it's just the general life kind of advice when you're upfront and honest you usually get a better reaction um and if it's you know if it's a a credit kind of issue to be able to come and and say look at you know this is what my credit score is
035this is where I'm at I've got a good job now you can call them for a reference I'm GNA be a good tenant um just kind of to make that speech for yourself yeah thanks juliia um yeah so overall I was very happy with just talking with people I think it's a great thing to go out and table and have those kinds of conversations uh so I hope we can consider doing another tabling event um just maybe at Liberty Plaza or some someplace like that just talk to people okay anything else on that the green Fair okay we can move on to 7-c um which is discussion about landlords asking tenants to act as agents so in an arbor you need to have if you're if you're the landlord you have to either live in
036or near the city and be your own agent or hire an agent I believe I got that right is that right Jordan and and Bob yeah okay Jordan you want correct the record okay TR to make sure um so what you can't do is if you're totally outside of the city you can't just buy a property and rent it to somebody without having someone locally um to act as the agent um and apparently City staff is saying that tenants are now being asked to act as the agents which is a new phenomenon to my knowledge um Jordan yeah I mean I that's not entirely unusual I'm not sure it's a new phenomenon I think there's a couple ways that happens right um students are desperate for housing and they want to get a leg up
037so students think that if they and I haven't heard of this outside of students so that's why I'm using the term students if they think that they can go knock on a house and say hey are you renewing and the tenants say no we're not they say can we look at your house your home and we're here and then they walk them through the house now this is obviously a huge safety risk I don't know why anyone would feel comfortable with this on either side but it happens all the time and I can tell you that in all the parent groups right now that's the answer parents are giving other parents just have your kid go around and knock on doors of a house that looks wellmaintained so in some ways this the renters do
038this they seek this out I think we're probably talking about a little different thing but it would be remiss not to mention that that there are times that that's happening now I we email all of our tenants we say do not show the house to anybody do not tell them if you're releasing do not say anything yet you know it's just we haven't asked you yet first of all if you're renewing and so please don't don't let people into your house do not feel pressured to even answer a door if someone knocks you're not expecting it Etc not everyone does that so that's kind of one situation um the other situation is I think they they do say you know oh you can go knock on the door some landlords do tell tenants they can
039do that very thing um or uh probably in terms of inspections though I haven't heard this directly I usually hear it more in terms of leasing there's an inspection you know can you be home the inspector's coming on this day at 3 p.m. and I think that's the other scenario in which they're asking them to do some work for them the third thing would be there's a repair person coming and you know if it's for example I can think of last week we had a plumbing issue it was 11 o'clock at night when they call us we can get a plumber out there at 2: in the morning we ask the tenants if they feel okay they say oh yeah nobody has to come over here we'll just meet them we know they're coming and
040they let them in so I think there's three situations in which landlords sometimes ask people to do the work for them um but agent in term of leasing so I think those are kind of the three scenarios the repair thing um you know that that's kind of usually a joint decision but the leasing the two other leasing concerns are where I hear it most so I'm curious if I see you had it come on the agenda so I'm curious as to if you hearing like other variations of the situation but that's that's my knowledge of kind of what it might look like Julia so those all sounded like perhaps very reasonable times where a tenant might assist the landlord in the business of the property what happened with us is that we or why this
041is on here is that um through the city clerk's office was it Christian um some rental housing staff let me know that they're getting like the volume is up on this a little bit um other rental housing staff said that occasionally you get stuff like this where a tenant is like working with the city as the agent with inspections and scheduling and stuff like that and that's where it's a little bit tricky it's not my understanding is that it's not super common um but it is either my my guess is either it is more common than it has been in the past or maybe there's been a couple like kind of time consuming ones that step so maybe it seems like it's happening more but really it's maybe one or two cases um that are
042coming up a lot so I haven't heard of this I haven't experienced this as a renter in an arbor um think of what else for the Julia I don't I don't think anybody should be asking anybody else to show an apartment that that is a job of like I mean I I don't think those kind of things are okay I think that the I just wanted to give the whole Spectrum like I do think if at 2 in the morning the tenant's comfortable there's a house full of seven people and they're like yeah we'll meet Roto rder that we then don't have to pay a maintenance person to go meet them you know I guess I just want to give the whole Spectrum I don't think that anybody should be asking a tenant to show
043a house or make leasing decisions or unless it's a subase so that's the other situation but it sounds like we're talking about um something entirely different perhaps which is the work of managing the property and unless you're being compensated specifically to do that as a manager of a building or a super or something like that though you don't hear those terms much anymore that that to me doesn't seem all that reasonable unless you're being compensated we have one house that's a big house that the it's the deal that the basement apartment takes the trash cans out or something there's you know and that's they sign it that's in their lease it's just a minor respon you know those kind of things are discussed ahead of time but this this is more work um for everybody
044if we doing it it it it's not just an issue of the amount of work it's the issue of actually being registered with the city as exactly yeah yeah that too so I have a question about that process I mean if you're just let if the repair person comes for example I know you mentioned that scenario Jordan I mean you don't have to be registered with the city as an agent to accept them right yeah no but I think what you're talking about is like people making I I would consider scheduling an inspection kind of making a decision for a property you're saying it's not the registered owner but to be honest because we own and manage I don't know the process for having Oxford manage the house that I own because as far as
045the city it should say both maybe Kristen you can clarify because on the when you look at things on on E Track at or stream it does have the owner and the the agent right they're both both on there and if you're uh owner manager it has your name for both but I frequently don't see the current management company correct on those forms for what it's worth I look up a lot of housing records for random U ofm parents but maybe Kristen can kind of clarify what that's supposed to look like because that that I think would help us understand too I don't have a good information on that I think that if they're different it just hasn't been updated um and that's just like a like an administrative process maybe that rental housing is
046working on um I want to add that rental housing said that um um agents or landlords don't need to be present for an inspection anyone over the age of 18 can open the door for a city inspector um so that's not required um and then the other thing I wanted to share is that I spoke with Attorney John Riser and Chris McFarland in the rent in um rental housing and Chris said that issuing a ticket to a agent who is also a tenant is extremely rare um because we were when I was talking with Riser about it we were kind of like it's kind of the circle of the tenant maybe is responsible for maintenance um because they would be issued the ticket because they're the agent and that's where the issue is but when
047we spoke to rental housing they were like that's not what we see as much so thanks Kristen Julia I just wanted to say this was this is on the books to have a local agent as a way to protect tenants from absentee landlords um that there was a big problem somebody would own one or two properties but they lived in Arizona and you could never get a hold of them to get anything done so it was a tenant win to get this requiring a local agent yeah I think the purpose is defeated if they make the tenant the agent and they could still be on their vacation in Florida what Arizona wherever it is um but just this is on the city's website U just so everyone is understanding what what agent you know what
048we're referring to it says the homeowner may represent the property as their own uh agent if they do not live or have an office within 25 miles of the city of an arbor they must choose a local agent an agent can be a friend relative or hired Property Management Service the agent does not have to be a licensed real estate agent um and it says that that you are required to complete and upload the property update and registration form on Stream So these changes may may include phone number email address agent information or other changes so that's how it gets into the system you have to there's a system obviously for that requires that you upload that info but so they're they're not doing that when a tenant is the agent Kristen is that I
049mean and I guess I have two questions they're they're not updating that agent thing each year I'm sure um but I'm curious to hear if you've seen something different but then the second piece being um you said something about a ticket you're talking about like a ticket for trash cans being out or something is that when you're when you're saying are you talking about something different like a like a like a citation like didn't pass the exection now you have um he said that those it is not common practice to give those to tenants because they understand they he kind of like I understand the tenant doesn't have okay so so the inspectors are nervous to fail an inspection if the tenant is the agent no they would issue to the land they would issue
050to the owner in that case well sure yeah I mean I don't I wouldn't expect that a tenant would ever get a like you failed the inspection I mean it's I don't know I guess in our experience like have to get a reinspect it's not like you get a fine the the owner gets the owner gets the I know but I don't I don't get a fine if I fail an inspection because something is out of code um which does happen even when you're the best landlord there's something that that you can miss that's small and they come back and do a reinspection like I don't get a big ticket as the owner for having you pay it you get one inspection at least my understanding my husband does most of that but you get
051you get get an inspection and you get one reinspection for free and then beyond that there would be more fees but those aren't like tickets it's not like a trash your trash cans are still out ticket so I'd be I guess what was I'm curious more a little bit more maybe is what what is rental housing they just wanted us to know what are they looking for help with a part of this like what um or they just wanted us to kind of know what was going on I guess I'm more curious as to like what what spurred it because in our experience these aren't things like and it is complicated with a ticket we had I bring up the trash can thing we just had a tenant that got trash can ticket for having
052their trash cans out too long um they had a they had a dispute it was a neighbor they had photos um they could act basically you know we we didn't have the evidence so we wouldn't go to court for the ticket they acted as our agent with our permission maybe this is what they're talking about they acted as our agent in court because it was their trash cans their ticket and they took the pictures like I don't know yeah so if you have any more information on what they're what they're asking for help with or why they were telling us maybe maybe that would be helpful we we've asked Ral housing in the past can you let us know if you're seeing anything new or weird kind of like in the rental like in their
053in their world what are Trends they're seeing and I think this is that was the intent of this communication to say like we're getting incre like we have increased volume of work related to this issue um just wanted to let you know it's kind to me it kind of seemed like um from the information that I have was that some like landlord type responsibilities were falling on the tenant um I think related to inspections and that type of thing that makes sense and I mean if the increased work is like this person doesn't know where anything is in the house I mean if my maintenance guy is there he's showing you where the utility room is he's you're speeding through the house and if somebody who doesn't know those things I mean I guess I'd
054just be curious as to what specifically was the increased work but thank you that makes sense I think it is um my understanding was that like the the work the tenant was doing was as the agent working with the city to do scheduling and compliance stuff like that thanks that's yucky any questions uh comments on this issue I have one more thing on Monday I am meeting with it to learn how to run the report that shows um registered address agent address so we can see um exactly how R it is great thank you okay well I I would encourage everyone to think about this issue um maybe if you happen to have the time to do some research and see if other cities have similar systems and what they if they allow something like
055this be interesting to know okay we move on to 7-d which is a draft motion by commissioner good uh Julia do you want to introduce this so this kind of came out of the green Fair we're standing around talking about electricity and so then we start talking about outages and it kind of let us down this uh path of how outages are harder on tenants than they are on homeowners um and so that led to the draft of this um I'm not sure if people have comments it makes more sense to go more into that or I was hoping any comments or question yeah go ahead Bob so I think this is a incredibly good statement about the problems that uh that renters face in uh you know with with the current uh less than
056reliable uh electric grid that we uh that we face um I wonder if it's the motion would be better suited to say we'd really like this fixed uh however however it it it can it can evolve that uh you know to to give City you know to give city council the message that here are four bullets that are are difficult and we would like them fixed please um because I don't know that we can say with certainty what the solution to this would would be um and I have no opinion on it particularly other than uh I share uh this um uh sort of uh uh dismay with what's going on and would like it fixed as well thanks Bob Ros I agree a lot of with what Bob had to say I think that
057it's important to relate to council the four bullet points um I don't think that given the phase one report that the city received that we can say with you know 100% certainty that the city having its own public utility is going to solve all of these problems number one number two staff we haven't received anything from was it what happened at the you know from all this was that the OSI staff was supposed to you know really look at everything and then make recommendations for what was to happen moving you know what they think should happen moving forward people who are experts right who have degrees in you know energy and whatever else um and we haven't seen those recommendations yet um they haven't said whether or not they recommend a phase 2 study um
058that hasn't been presented at a council meeting at this point and so I don't necessarily agree with um the last sentence I I think that it's best to just focus on the four and you know informing Council that we need to see this resulted um and pursue all reasonable Pathways to resolving that that's all thanks ranito um I'll open up by saying I do have quite strong feelings on this issue um and I sounds like there's no dispute no disc you controversy over the problems that are facing tenants and that the fact that this has um um a larger impact on most tenants than those homeowners um and I I could attest to that personally unfortunately um I I think that if people aren't comfortable making a a direct recommendation about the way forward we
059you know one one of the things one potential um option is to um recommend that there's more investigation and that would one way to do that is to say that we think that the phase two study on this issue should be funded so basically that the study that just came out on this issue and other electri you know energy issues um this is called like the one um energy options analysis um it did it did recommend that this the municipalization should be investigated further and um I know the osi's recommendations which is the office of sustainability and Innovations recommendations won't be out for several months this is my understanding and I think that other commissions are taking up the issue of whether a study a phase two study is um U warranted so if we're
060you know if we're going to proceed with this I think that no controversy over over the problems and if we are going to talk about a path forward I'll say I'm I'm open to many things but we could just say this warrant more investigation rosanita oh I'll um let council member Rina go first because I saw his hand was raised thank you uh commissioner I I just wanted I I don't want to um to to jump in too much on the actual dialogue here I um obviously got the presentation at the work session on the the report um one thing I did want to say is I don't believe that the next recommendation will be coming just from OSI um so I kind of wanted to OSI OSI is not a like public utility expert
061necessarily and so um obviously if we were to move forward with with the utility we would need to hire experts outside of OSI to do that work um so I think we will receive a broader staff recommendation on next steps um but I don't want to put all of that burden onto OSI so I just wanted to say that um uh and then you know I I think I I largely agree think with with what's being said I think um Zachariah is correct the the report that we received um from the consultant um did recommend moving forward with a phase 2 study which would be the the valuation of all those assets understanding what the actual cost would be um they acknowledged in that report that that phase two could ultimately determine that moving forward
062beyond that would make that this could be financially infeasible um but they weren't ready to make that that decision yet because we don't have those numbers um but I do want to acknowledge that one of the things we learned during that work session was the priorities for the community and the the top three things that came out of that were reliability resilience and cost um and and obviously the the problems here are directly related to some of the reliability and resilience problems of the network um I will acknowledge you know I'm I've talked to Zachariah about this I've talked to others that are engaged with Anor for Public Power that at this stage kind of reading through that report waiting to hear back from staff I'm I'm kind of leaning in favor of going forward
063with phase two um but I will also acknowledge that one of the biggest challenges for me is simply that if DTE were not to fight us and were to say here take over um and the storm came through tomorrow all of the same houses that are without power would be without power again so just taking over the utility um is not going to solve for reliability or resilience it requires kind of a different different approach to how um we handle uh maintaining the network and making sure that we have a reliable grid um I do think DTE is failing um in that respect um but I I also want to just be to acknowledge that being publicly owned doesn't solve that problem it's the flexibility I think that I think zachari would agree with this
064the flexibility of of being able to make those decisions locally um and and being able to invest differently into how we maintain the grid that would create those Solutions longer term um I do think DT has been failing us on this front thanks um ranita um I it I believe in a phase two study because I I am very much a nerd and so I did read through the the the original report um and I there was a lot that they left out because what is it it costs money to pursue the other avenues to know what's you know I guess the legal aspects of it as well as trying to figure out you know really the true cost of what it would be um and trying to figure out more about the actual conditions
065and bringing in others who can try to figure that out for the the infrastructure as well as the Staffing that it would that it would entail um I I think that so I agree with this uh fa you know it endorsing a phase two study if you will um but I do think that this we still should be advocating that Council pursue um other you know all ways of resolving those four bullet points because it it would take a while to you know start the phase to study and complete it and so I think that it those four should still be worked on thanks was juliia um we can go through a formal motion process where we do this and then do a friendly Amendment or we can wait and do this next month and
066I can try to rewrite it um but I I just wanted to make a comment maybe this is something we need to do as a commission I feel I'm kind of frustrated with the OS I um that I was on their um green rental housing task force and we made recommendations for changing um some of the code around weatherization um you know all within things that you know are allowed by state law and it it felt like a hot cake like it never went forward and we couldn't even get OSI to make a statement saying they supported the existing weatherization law um you know inspectors don't routinely go up into addicts to look for whether the installation meets the required amount um and Os I wasn't willing to support that so I'm a little um
067think maybe this commission needs to reach out to them to see if they could do a little bit more on rental stuff and and then I'm open to the commission how we want to handle this um motion I'll just point out I I did contact OSI about the green rental housing task Force's recommendations um and I asked them how quickly they they you know if they're still pursuing them how quickly this would be cre drafted into an ordinance and it seems like they're still working on it so I think that they probably would be open to um hearing our perspective on any of the issues related to that issue I I can't say more than that but I sounds like they are working hard on it um and um I will you know I I'll
068pass this off to D rosanita in a second but it seems like since there's some discussion back and forth about what this motion should look like it might might make sense to table this until the next meeting in the meantime anybody who has feelings on this can reach out to to Julia and maybe we can have a collaborative writing process of editing uh this motion uh rosanita I was just going to say that maybe yeah we could I don't know talk about it and is it something that we could Workshop in is it next month's tenant Education meeting so that way it's it's ready for the um the regular interest commission meeting um it's a good question I think that I'm not sure if the tenant Education meeting is the correct place for that um
069would you would we be willing to to send out a win to meet to meet just on this topic specifically for you know 30 minutes or so how long it takes yeah I'm willing is that so then it's just creating like a little ad hoc committee yeah I just don't want to eat into the tenant education committee if they have things that they want to discuss it's not this you know okay okay Julia what would you like to do with this motion uh table it until the next meeting okay um does that require a second and all that or does that just is automatically Ted yeah we hadn't moved it yet so I don't think so okay thank you um okay we can continue here thank you for the discussion um I appreciated everyone's perspectives
070and I'm glad there's consensus that with the way things are it's not okay because I lost a lot of soup a lot of soup that way I'm very upset about that I'm afraid to make a new homemade soup because I know I'm gonna lose power again okay s-e write to council uh we had discussed this before um um but I'll open the floor real quick and you know we can have a short discussion about it again um does anyone have thoughts about about the proposed right to counsil program I know previously I said I'm interested in exploring right to counsil and an eviction diversion program since they are similar in the their goals um uh and I think that it might make sense to engage other parts of the city government hhsb the housing and
071Human Services Advisory Board Human Rights Commission um and probably some outside groups rosanita um is it well I'm not diametrically opposed to right to council if things get to the point of an eviction Court I do think that um as the renters commission we should be looking at ways to avoid helping tenants avoid get getting to the point that it ends up in um in court or filed with court not like as you know us taking taking things on but there are other cities do have other programs like tenant landlord mediation programs um as well and those have also been found to have been rather successful um and so I think that to me that's also a path that I'd like to explore or for to see about the city possibly exploring thanks ranita Julia
072um I really support that and that uh that kind of mediation before going before a judge is what Philadelphia is doing um and that's worked really well there um I also want to push the point that uh Michigan is a little unique in the United States in that you are allowed to withhold rent legally here um if you don't pay all your rent in Illinois Indiana Ohio you're just evicted here you can say you know go in the court and say look at I tried to get repairs from the landlord here's a notice that I sent them they didn't respond the apartment's not worth full amount if I don't have heat all I can do is you know I had to buy a space heater so the landlord should pay for those space heaters they
073should pay for the electricity those kinds of things and then the eviction judge certainly in the past I don't know if they've changed considerably but then the response was always yes you should pay rent but there's a diminished value to the apartment because of these lack of repairs so you have to pay this amount and then you don't get evicted um and that's the only way that they're really was viable for tenants to fight for repairs because you can't sue your landlord who can afford to hire an attorney to go sue their landlord to force them to do repairs it it's not really a route that's feasible by any means um so I think uh a a diversion mediation typee process would still allow for this but I think it's important to recognize that the
074eviction Court judges were the only judges that were helping uh tenants in in their poor conditions in their units thanks Julian any thoughts or questions okay well I will go ahead um I agree with everything that's been said um I think that if you were to just do an EV um um a right to counsel program that it would be somewhat reactive and you might waste a lot of resources that way when you could just prevent people from going getting to that point in the first place um I think there's a number of measures from eviction diversion programs to just increasing the cost to file an eviction um which there's some research on the the correlation between the cost of an eviction to file an eviction and the number of evictions which is very interesting
075out there um but uh I'm going to go ahead and talk with Jeff our leaz on to the hhsb since um he's our U he's our intermediary uh um to that body I will send an email to Human Rights Commission and I think from initial discussions with those groups we can um start contacting other organizations and do some research contact with other organizations so if anyone is anyone here interested in participating in that process of exploring ways to reduce evictions Gail Jordan Julia Patrick rosanita I should write this okay uh and Patrick okay okay rosanita Gail Jordan Julia and Patrick right good everybody great wonderful all right then um well I think we can move on to our next U discussion Point 7-f uh which is discussion on oh inspection fines yeah I think if
076I remember correctly last time we um had asked Kristen to um try to do some fact finding on how frequently uh inspection fines you know how can we Access Data regarding inspection fines I was hoping to have an update for you today I'm meeting with rental housing staff tomorrow afternoon I was hoping to squeeze that in before the meeting um are you wondering specifically like just like Annual fees collected about inspections or did you have anything else specific I I I think it it's both the fees for having the inspection and actual fines for violations and if there's any historical data on that too and for me this is coming from it's seeming like the building department is a little overwhelmed with the number of inspections they have to carry out in a year and
077if there's any way we could look at this data to try to come up with ideas on how that department could have more money for more inspectors thank you I'm also uh wondering on the specific issue of the tenant handbook um they said that they usually give a warning if they figure out that a landlord has not beg giving out the the booklet but I'm wondering do they keep a record on that because how would they know if there was a repeat offender if they didn't keep records on it um because last time I check I don't think there had been really any finds issued for that I can ask that too okay um I actually also have other questions regarding short-term rentals um um and I guess just a broad question is like is
078there anywh that we can find their short-term rental enforcement policy because I think I've been really curious to know how they go about that process if they if they identif first of all how do they identify short-term illegal short-term rentals and what's the process they go through once they do sorry to load you up with lots of questions I know that there is a web page about short-term rentals I will um take a look look at that tomorrow before I talk with Leisa um but I will add that to the list okay thank you if they're actually Gathering fines on short-term rentals that aren't legally registered it seems like that could be a big way to make money in a way that tenants and homeowners would be happy to help because a lot of those
079buildings are pain in the neck if you the neighbor anything else on the issue of an inspection fines related to rental Housing Services okay great well then we can move on to um 7-g a plan for our November 16th meeting so we are set to review our bylaws review and draft a work plan for 2023 and review our meeting date at our next meeting that's just automatic right Kristen yeah those are good um November housekeeping items definitely take a look at the CTN schedule that's attached there it shows um where the conflicts are for recording and broadcasting evening meetings if the group is interested in um changing from this um like third Thursday at 7:30 time there's not a ton of other options but uh I think it'd be good to start a discussion on
080short-term rentals we might get to the meeting and realize we don't have time for that I at which point we could just take it off the agenda but I think it's good to start that conversation any other points of disc discussion for our next meeting Julie um I I was feeling a little uh unsure of myself when I was writing the motion about electricity um because I just read like the report on junk fees so part of that was leading to me wondering exactly like what the city council was expecting from us as a commission um should we just randomly be throwing out stuff like Electric outages are hard on tenants or do would they rather see a booklet of here's 25 tenant laws that would really improve things in an arbor um you know
081like it I I think a better feeling for what that expectation is would make it easier for me to work on the work plan I apiz go ahead Travis um I can try to answer that for you uh I would say there's generally a range of things that we will get from the commissions um I think for something like a statement being made about um the impacts of the outages coming to us in a resolution as a statement from the body kind of adding to an already existing conversation that's taking place I think is more than enough to just kind of weigh in from this body as well um I know that on junk fees in particular um that's something that we're ultimately going to you know work to develop into an ordinance it's probably
082not something that other bodies are going to be weighing in on to the extent that you guys are so I think it really does vary um issue to isue um I would say like we do not need a report for every single thing um that's that's kind of above and beyond um right so part of part of our role Cynthia and I our role is um is to take some of these recommendations back to council and then Council ultimately decides if we want to move forward with with taking some sort of action on them or or not that's you know those are sometimes we do get recommendations from from commissions that we don't take action on um because the council feels differently about it um but um but you know you don't have to go
083through a report is absolutely not necessary um because that council is going to do that work also right like you're ultimately making a recommendation um that can gener come in a resolution um and then we're going to work with staff on on next steps anyway um to the extent that you know there's on on some of these rental ordinances that we're working on obviously we are looking to have renters informing these discussions which is why this body is so important and so that's where we have seen kind of this body go a little bit of a step further in making some of those actual policy recommendations that they'd like to see implemented because we do we do acknowledge that we don't have that voice on Council right now I don't know if that fully answers
084your question because it's it was really an either or um but I would say I don't think you have don't ever feel like you have to put together a full like white paper um in order to come back yeah you know a a a resolution making a statement to council is is generally the standard yeah thank you Travis um okay I think that answered your question Julia think we're good to move on to item eight reports uh we can go to 8- a report from city council would either of our council members like to give us a report it sounds like and I apologize that I was late uh sorry I just went without raising my hand um uh I was late it sounds like uh council member Harrison has already given a bit of
085an update on the junk fees ordinance that we're working on um so I will skip over that um the other thing that um I participated in and I know council member Harrison um was was going to join us this morning but but couldn't make it um and said that it would be helpful for me to give an update on is that we had a tour this morning of um some of the can uh locations in the community um and so we were able to go to um the Bryant Center Green backer Court Brick and high cone um to view the community centers and kind of see some of those Supportive Services that are available for some of the um some of the communities are subsidized housing Bryant neighborhood is a a community center for for
086a neighborhood um that has traditionally been more affordable although I will acknowledge is is starting to see that upward trajectory as we are seeing this affordability crisis um there is a we we heard today on the tour that in 2008 and granted there was the you know the bubble head burst at that point um in 2008 the houses in the Bryant neighborhood were going for about $46,000 um one of those same houses is currently listed at about $260,000 um so the prices are astronomical um but we have um Bryant Community Center particularly this is obvious it's my neighborhood it's the one I'm most familiar with um also uh so they're serving the residents there about half of the the residents are homeowners about half our renters um and so it is still a heavily Rental
087Community um and in that neighborhood in particular that's where Bryant and OSI have a really strong partnership right now and are working on sustainability issues um helping to cut some of those electric costs helping to in one case literally save lives because as they were doing one of their inspections of the house and going through to find out what um upgrades could be made they found out that gas was leaking from the stove into the house and was actually creating health issues for the tenant or for the the tenants there um and so um that's some of the work that's happening there um I will acknowledge that one of the biggest things that we heard on the tour was um there are simply resource challenges for for these um these really important services in the
088community um Can used to be a beneficiary of kofu funding U the coordinated funding kofu um when kofu fell apart um that was replaced by the city and the county uh creating the new Human Services partnership uh funding that uh can just found out that they did not receive funding in their Grant application this year um and so they're they're going to have to find some additional sources through other grants or funding available um but one of their biggest needs is actually um their food pantries are are seeing increased increased need um and the reality is that food gatherers which is their partner um does not have the resources available to provide them um so there is definitely a food shortage that is impacting residents throughout the community those in need um and so it
089is absolutely something again where that partnership with that HHS liaison um might be valuable to have some of those discussions as well because a lot of the families that are being served by these centers that are um that are currently struggling a little bit are renters as well and so yeah thank you very much any questions comments wasita um with the um with for was in the past K had um some like a couple of americore me members uh connected with them correct are they going do you know if they're going to be getting an increased number of americore members who can perhaps help with development AKA you know AKA searching out uh grants and helping them to you know write those Grant applications um yeah um I don't know if they're going to get
090more americore members um I know that I think we met one today I know that there's still a partnership with the program um but I do know we did hear today that they do have a staff person who write they have a a grant writer on staff now um and so that is a person's job um because that's they've had to ultimately find and replace those funds um and so it sounds like they've had some success obviously on the sustainability front they just announced a pretty substantial Grant that's doing help here in the Bryant neighborhood um but but obviously some of that you know food delivery those types of things those are that's still an area of need thank you Cynthia yeah I just wanted to um mention that we um on Monday we passed
091a resolution to ask our city administrator to complete a visibility study using building inspectors to complete the home energy score assessments as a voluntary service during the renovation process so um doing during the um the ORD you know we passed ordinance a couple meetings ago to uh bring the home energy inspections into the um real estate process and um you know in a year in the city of Van Arbor we may there may be about at most roughly about 1500 real estate transactions and roughly a third of those are actually um condos condominium so um by putting the this in the um building and inspection process like basically when anytime you know someone goes to pull a permit for a Rena or you know there an addition or you know some something they're doing on
092their home this provides an opportunity to get the score and we do roughly about I mean upwards of anywhere 10,000 to 14,000 of these in a year so um this is was in my opinion a better way to do it but we passed the ordinance so we are asking our city administrator to do a feasibility study a six-month study and come back to council um to let us know what and and that would increase um inspectors or well I shouldn't I won't speak too much on it but anyway I just wanted to share with you and both Travis and I were on um that uh res we were sponsors on that resolution so that's good thing I appreciate that shout out but credit goes to Cynthia on that um speaking of of white papers I
093think what what was the research document we put together 86 Pages uh so so Cynthia Cynthia did her did her homework and put together a really good proposal um to to move that forward so now I'm gonna I'm gonna give some credit then also so since we're giving credit I'm gonna give some credit to rosan because she uh she called herself a nerd so um uh but she you know much credit to rosanita for for helping with that research so yes thank you thank you Travis thank you rosanita very nice nice well thank you for your work on these issues um I uh let's I know we don't have a report from HHS Le is on Jeff night here said he's going to email us his report um and I think um I guess yeah
094go ahead Kristen I have um kind of a brief report I can give if we're ready to move this report I'll share my screen also this out also um um you had asked about the rights and duties of tenant booklet to get some information on how those are getting handed out and I have um one of the admin assistants in our office put together a Spong sheet that I was really really pleased with so I attached it I'll show it next um but we are the clerk's office is working to update the city written section of the booklet on the white section we're looking to include um updates on the resource pages to kind of reflect the same as what's on the renters commission web page and then we're also trying to um if there's
095enough space and it works out to include um like an infographic kind of like this or this one for ELO to reflect some of the new changes in code um what else oh we're also handing these out when we hand out um the booklists these kind of print outs of like at a glance right to R do an ELO um rental housing gave that information on um the agent tenant issue we also the clerk's office also sent rental housing all of the text and graphics on the rental housing laws in an arbor page because we got a a couple of questions to our office about um where they're kind of like hey what's right to R you I've never never heard of it do you have information on that so uh we gave that information
096on rental housing and then we also gave them um just the text that's on the renters commission page so they don't have to uh duplicate work um the rent control motion that you all passed last time was included on the 1016 city council meeting agenda what else oh I was surprised to see that email subscriptions are up to 538 so it's up about 200 Since I checked last um so that's pretty interesting and I send out emails um before every regular meeting um if you'd like me to send out more um like for committee meetings I'm happy to um also this is kind of news for renters commission you have visible tab now on the clerk's boards and commissions page so it's no longer um a web page that you can only find by typing
097in a2gov.org commmission um that's exciting um also the clerk's office posted on their Instagram that there's a vacancy for the attorney with experience representing landlord's position um we didn't receive any applications unfortunately but many people saw it so um if anybody has any ideas or contacts for how to reach somebody um who fits that um criteria um let me know and we can work on it oh and then this is thank you so much Kristen yeah thank you great yeah lately it's been busy because it's kind of um well what was like move in time um yeah yeah let me know if you have any questions okay um Jordan that is super awesome I have little muffin that is expiring very quickly so I have to go but I wanted to make one announcement um
098I was at the capital on Tuesday for um Senate Bill HB 4878 which is fair chance access to housing um right now it's kind of stuck and we really need uh representative Coleman to get it out of the house so if anybody or any listeners have it in them to um send representative Coleman an email and tell him that you support fair chance uh access to housing that would be great essentially this bill would make it so that landlords could not look at criminal backgrounds um to prevent them from housing there are some carve outs uh for example if the conviction was a year ago um arson and human trafficking as well as somebody on the lifetime sex offender list those could still all be something to um preclude you but essentially this is is
099trying to get it just so that these folks are looked at for the type of tenant they will be the type of neighbor they will be um we know statistically that most people do not reoffend a second time and the portion of the of our population here in Michigan that this affects is huge it's almost onethird of michiganders have a conviction so um we really do um need to look at some of these things uh we also know that this um essentially gives landlords a way to racially discriminate if we're going to acknowledge that the criminal justice system is is unfair and bias and dis proportionately impacts um black and brown citizens and then we know that if we are using criminal records to allow them to not have housing um you know that just
100kind of feeds into that discrimination so um if you do support it please um you can follow one group that has been doing a lot of advocacy as Nation outside um so you can follow them on Facebook uh to get some email writing tips um they've been really um vocal and helpful in getting the bill uh written and getting things going um and if you have any questions also you can email the renters commission and Kristen can get those to me and I can try to help too so um that was my last announcement thank you guys all for being here and sorry to to duck out early but it's not GNA be pretty here in a few more minutes so thank you all thank you for that thank you I'm sorry I didn't raise
101my hand thank you Jordan for your advocacy absolutely no no worries at all um okay yeah uh so are there Christen I I think I would love to discuss the I am so happy to hear about all those developments I think we should maybe discuss those at our next meeting if if possible because I I have lots of questions and um very uh grateful for work and the work of other staff members on this um but let's keep going with reports from Commissioners are there any other reports okay go once and twice all right um we can go on to item nine second general public comment all right um public comment can be made by phone by calling 877 853 5247 or 888 78899 and entering meeting ID 935 8814 or 1 941 um or
102by Zoom um by joining the zoom Link at a2gov.org renters commission meeting and if you are in the zoom meeting you can press star n to raise your or you can press the raise hand feature to raise your hand if you're calling you can press star9 to raise your hand um and you can address the renters commission about any topic for up to three minutes so if there is anyone who would like to address the renters commission go ahead and raise your hand now and we'll call on you all right oh we do have someone perect go ahead I'm wondering if the tenant education Community has any plans on educating future potential renters to stop shopping so early I think demand is driving a lot of this the the chair of the uh education committee
103isn't here so I'm going to jump in for um we have been talking about having some public type sessions uh where we give education about the law um we did talk earlier in this meeting about um considering some changes or whether it would take a a legal suit to um get some more protections to make it a little bit easier to enforce the um early leasing ordinance so there's I don't have any date to give you right now but it is on kind of our agenda thank you all right and there are no other attendees thank you Kristen okay we can move on to item 10 which is communication we have three emails um all related to Courthouse Square I have read through these I don't think there's anything for us that is actionable personally
104but I'm willing to if anyone has any points or questions or you know disagrees with that point of view I'll open the floor I'm sorry I didn't read them is anybody still complaining that the elevator isn't working they're different complaints regarding I think like HUD rules uh and rent increases I think it's just sort of impossible for it's not our place to really get super involved in this besides just trying to connect them to to resources which I think has been attempted um and it's I don't think we can really get a full picture of what's Happening um the I did try to reach out to the attorney who's at legal services of South Central Michigan who has been working at the courthouse Square Apartment complex and I haven't received a response but I did
105get another name for someone to reach out to so I haven't yet done that I got to say green fair and um I will do that uh tomorrow morning just to check in and make sure that they have they're connected with this the res the lawyers connected with the resources that they need okay um last chance for any questions or comments on this okay we can move to um item 11 which is adjournment do we have a motion to adjourn motion I'll second Patrick do seconded by rosanita thank you all those in favor of ruring yay yay yay also post a name that we are adjourned thank you everybody thank you thank you very much have a great night you good night bye