06-22-15 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING JUNE 22, 2015 and being able to make payments. We are willing to work with anybody to allow payment plans and work with them to get someone to cut their grass. Council, as you know I have been at every meeting that you've asked me to attend. Same with any residence, I have an open door if you want to meet with me just give me a call. I'll gladly let you ride with one of our inspectors, I'll meet with you any time you want to talk about anything. Those wishing to speak in opposition: David Wilson, 1109 21st St., South Bend —'The only question I want to ask is, what about the leaves? I have a house next to mine that my fence is covered with leaves. Their grass is covered with leaves and starting to grow into the siding of the house, how do you take care of that? Jason Banicki- Critchlow, 3822 W. Ford St., South Bend— I live in the 6" District, I see Oliver helping us out with the code plenty. What I see is we have a Mayor that was in a hurry to tear down 1,000 houses in 1,000 days and didn't have a contingency plan to deal with those lots afterwards. Most of my neighbors keep their yards well maintained, most people in the 2 °d District keep their yards well maintained. What I see is a ton of vacant lots that are three (3) and four (4) feet, before we consider any new ordinance and set the fine three (3) times higher than the initial fee, we need to ensure that we can enforce what we have before creating new laws without the enforcement mechanism in place that are verifiable. Make sure the city is behind what we are doing, that the management structure is in place; to not have communication between departments already in place doesn't make any sense. I agree we need to update part of the code to make it more conformed. But we cannot neglect to say that the Mayor for the last 3 t/2 years has been rushing to tear down these houses but he has not worked with code to make sure those lots are properly maintained without a plan on what we are going to do moving forward; not six (6) months from now, but six (6) days from now. So I don't have to go for a run around my neighborhood where I have to worry about rats or raccoons coming out to attack me. This is a quality of life issue when you don't have a clean neighborhood. It gets dangerous when you have three (3) to four (4) foot grass. I don't think that throwing new dollars at this and turning them over to collections, saying we are going to get better by charging people when most people over there don't have the money to waste, is going to fix our problem. Roy Saenz, 921 W. Colfax, South Bend — I want to know how this is not circumventing the budget process. If we have 44% compliance that means we have 66% non - compliance, which means out of the Mayor's 1,000 houses that's 660 properties and we are going to spend money ahead of time to mow these as an expense as dollars, that we may not get back. Even though we have a collections process, what do you do when over the last five (5) years with folks that have bought lots under LLC's, corporations, or land trust and are now unable to be tracked back to collect those real dollars? The second question is whose going to keep the city in check for their properties, I have a property adjacent to one of mine, where the cities grass is this high where I maintain the lots around it? Samuel Brown, 222 E. Navarre St., South Bend— I represent the group Citizens United for a Better Government. I am asking you to not pass this ordinance tonight until the city steps up to do their part as it is hard to make homeowners do their part, especially when we have a budget for it. I don't know the reason why they are not doing what they are supposed to do, as you can ride around the city and see it for yourself. Don't put this burden on the citizens of South Bend to do this, let's start where the problem really lies. At 1105 Huey St. I know the guy that cuts that lot, but the lot next door where they took down a house doesn't get cut on a regular basis, what do I do? So please don't pass this law until the city steps up and does their part. Jesse Davis, P.O. Box 10205, South Bend — I was up here last time, I brought up the issue of finding the proper people. I have a property in Mishawaka where I was getting letters from code to mow my grass and cut down trees even though the house had sold in 2013, I did that for two (2) years at my expense. I tracked down the LLC in Colorado that bought my house and asked why they weren't maintaining it and did not transfer over the deed to their name? As code enforcement calls here and the recorder says Mr. Davis is the owner of that property, so I get the fine even though I'm not the owner. There are a lot of other things that come in to play here, as you may be chasing a dead goat. There needs to be other things that need to be looked into, tax sales, deeds... Something needs to be fixed there. You have councilmembers, Dr. Ferlic making 12