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"CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK about that. The question that came up when talking to City Legal was, who determines or how do you determine whether someone is fined what amount? That is where the subjectivity came in and that is where the City Attorney at the time said we have to do something different. At that time she put a moratorium on giving civil penalties, they went back and created some guidelines, and they now have, and I haven't seen it, but as I understand it they now have more of a guideline for the hearing judge and inspectors to decide who gets what rate. I think that makes a lot of sense. This is what it is about. It is about uncovering what can be wrong or what might be harmful to residents and then improve that practice so that we can all justify what those issues are. So that was one (1) thing and that happened in February of 2017. She continued, So the problem with the special assessments, as I was explaining with the civil penalties, is, those could be, if they've not been paid, they can be put on your tax bill and it would be called a special assessment. So what happens sometimes is that someone's property taxes might be about$1,900 over the course of two (2)years. But there could be a special assessment for about $6,000. So that being put onto the taxes, someone might have been able to pay the $2,000 but not able to pay the $6,000. So then they could put the property on tax sale and it would actually sell for about $10,000. So those are some of the things and that is why when they said they want to streamline the process for special assessments I wanted to make sure that if we are going to be doing special assessments more frequently, we need to do them in a way to justify it and in ways that it make sense. Again, part of the issue is we have some issues with absentee landlords and nuisance properties, but then we also have people that just don't have the money to fix up their homes. So how do we distinguish between the two (2)? So there were times where more of a broad brush was used and so some of the people who didn't have the money were being caught up in this process and then eventually losing their homes. The new Director, Tracy, is now sitting in on the hearings and listens to the stories. Just by her presence, she would connect with the person afterwards and offer assistance and help. This started when she was still Deputy Director but she wanted to start teasing out the people who needed actual assistance from the people who are being neglectful. She went on, In recent years, we've gone even further. We have monies now and we are figuring out how to connect people who are in need to the resources that we have available. So we are actually helping people fix up their homes. President Scott actually had an idea that if Code Enforcement sees a property in need, before they ticket them, they should refer them to some of these programs available. Again, the idea behind this is when we work with neighborhoods, we have a much better connection. One(1)thing I just love that Code Enforcement is now doing, and it came naturally, there is a neighborhood association and there is a man who is retired and has a truck and loves to go out and cut people's lawns and clean up the brush. The inspector sees someone who has an issue, handicapped, old, whatever, and calls the neighborhood association, and they come out and clean up the property for them. So I think that is a success story. I think even though it may be hard to talk about what has happened in the past, that it is also something to be celebrated that we are really moving in a different direction. So that is my presentation, any questions? Councilmember Scott stated, I truly believe there needs to be improvement in Code. We will talk more about this. I think you went a little fast over this all. Every person that goes through this process has due process and has a chance to come before a hearing. Even Randy and people for EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend.Indiana 46601 p 574.235.92211f574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 5