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REGULAR MEETING May 9, 2016 bureau specifically dedicated to housing and housing issues. Mr. Davis also suggested establishing tax abatements for landlords and homeowners that invest thousands of dollars for repairs or upgrades of their houses. Jesse Davis, P.O. Box 10205 South Bend, stated a registry maybe should be enacted but this is not the right bill. We have a Code Department and that department is supposed to do this work and they are paid to do this work to make sure violations are not happening. The County offices are there to keep records and we should use them. It is not necessarily the City's job to keep records. MACOG is not the only option there are websites out there for free that you can hover mouse cursors over lots in South Bend and bring up all the information for a property. It is not that difficult to find the owners of these properties. This is going to make landlords leave this City and not invest in this City. It's the same exact people for six (6) years now that when you want something passed they come to the microphone and speak in favor of the bill and it always passes. This ordinance is repetitious because there is already the nuisance ordinance. You already have laws in place and departments that are paid to do this work. Drew Duncan, 439 South Michigan Street, spoke against the bill. The City has done nothing to reach out to good landlords up to this point so it's doubtful they would start now. The Human Rights Commission's endorsement is in question and there are a lot of questions that need to be analyzed. The performance measures have been changed drastically since it was first filed. It seems as if the City is being fuelled by how many people they could fine and how many fines have been issued and collected. Code Enforcement should not be the people who do this performance review. The majority of the money Code Enforcement collects is on the sorrows of the poor and this bill will not change that. As a result of this, landlords will either pull out of South Bend or they will be forced to raise the rent which will reduce the amount of low income properties for the poor in South Bend. There does need to be a database where landlords can be contacted but to fine someone $300 for filing late is ridiculous. If the property is not in disrepair the City should not care about that person as they are taking care of the property. It does seem every time we come here the City is in the pocket of the citizens. There is no accountability and no due diligence in the crafting of this bill. Why are we not looking at other laws outside of Indiana? We need to look at this issue from every angle and upturn every stone. A vote for this bill tonight is a vote against due diligence. Bob Masters, 350 Columbia Street South Bend, spoke on behalf of the Real Estate Investors Association of North Central Indiana. By a rough estimate they own or manage roughly 2,000 properties in South Bend and are opposed to this bill in the form it is now. This would be an easy bill to pass provided you did not ask any questions. The testimony in favor of the bill raises far more questions than it answers. We heard very passionate stories concerns bad and criminal landlords but if the Police, Fire and Code Departments cannot find these bad landlords how is a newsletter or an email going to get ahold of these landlords. There are serious practical issues with this bill and its ability to find the bad landlords. There is also a concerning that this bill appears to be deviating from a codified procedure for giving notice of issues affecting properties. Some of the information that this bill asks for seems to be designed to create new ways of contacting landlords to send them legal notices such as the request that corporate landlords provide the name of its IRS Responsible Parry. No one has explained why the bill calls for those corporate landlords to ask for that name. There is no reason the City needs that information. He also expressed concern about the application fraud that was added in relatively recently and what appears to be targeting a specific industry to pay for public works. With all these questions please slow down and table this for maybe a month and invite real estate groups to the table to discuss this. There should be a registry but it can be a much better registry than the one this bill creates. Pete Taddeo, Access Properties, his company owns or operates approximately four - hundred and fifty (450) properties in South Bend. He has worked in the past with neighborhood associations who worked to develop a landlord registry but this one has serious flaws. If you fail to renew your registration it is a 6,000% penalty and if you provide misinformation you are subject to a 20,000% penalty. Playing follow the leader with Indianapolis and Evansville does not help us in any way. State law allows any fees to be passed onto tenants and this will happen if this bill passes. Mr. Taddeo stated he would not do that and he tries to provide low income housing and 13