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REGULAR MEETING May 9, 2016 the County Tax Sale where people from all over the country and even all over the world buy up these houses and then they don't take of them or put in the effort to keep them nice. It is very important that when we pass these laws we realize landlords will pass these fees and fines over to the tenants. The Human Rights Commission has not taken a vote on this bill and people should not take that email for face value. The police should arrest these people when they go to these houses. The police should call us the first time they go to a house and not the third. The success of this bill should be based off of affordable housing in South Bend and if the landlords leave next year and invest in areas where they are not hit with high costs. George Calhoun, Woodside Dr., spoke against the bill. This bill is going to be a crowbar that divides the City against itself. Councilmember Tim Scott gave a rebuttal. He thanked everyone who came out who came out to speak in favor and those who spoke against the bill as well. We have changed this bill about four (4) times and that shows we have considered everything to make this the best possible law we can. The fines are right down the middle of examples with other cities. It is up to home rule to set the fines, the state has not restricted us in that matter. Other cities, like Evansville, have stiffer and more expensive fines than this bill. This is a good bill and will be a good law. Councilmember Scott pledged to set the date for the anniversary review as soon as this bill passes to look at the success or failure of this bill. Councilmember Karen White also thanked everyone who came out on both sides of the issue. This is a tool and we will set timelines to respond to the community. The Councilmembers were given a chance to share their comments on the bill. Councilmember Regina Williams- Preston agreed with those who spoke from those neighborhoods on the Westside because she too lives in those neighborhoods. She lives in the midst of those issues. She also wanted to use the framework of perceived versus actual effects of the bill that Ms. Outlaw established. The perception is this bill would address the issue of contacting absentee landlords and bad landlords. The reality is that this bill will not solve that problem or the problems of domestic violence and drug issues. Those violent problems need to be addressed by the police. This bill does not get at those problems. A lot of the issues that we are lumping into this ordinance will not be solved or addressed. It will solve a problem and it may benefit tenants and residents because people will be able to be contacted but those problem landlords will not register and the City will still be spending all that time and legwork to reach them. She gave her support for a landlord registration just not in the form it is currently written. Councilmember Williams- Preston expressed her support for other solutions such as the new software Code Enforcement purchased to track landlords down or changing the County Tax Sale so that it is not online so people from all over the world cannot purchase these properties. She agreed with Henry Davis Jr. that residential tax abatements may encourage landlords to beautify their properties and keep up their properties. Another perception is that we have had these long meetings and so the issue has been vetted. In reality, we have met with professionals but many of the requested changers were not made that the real estate professionals wanted. The real estate leadership asked this bill to be continued due to scheduling issues so they could be here and that is bad government that we did not listen to them. That is not transparent. If we are going to truly represent the people we need to hear from all of the people. There is a perception that this law is valid and there are no concerns with civil rights violations or disparate impact. In reality, a law can be valid on its face but produce a disparate impact if administered in a way that is unequitable. Why are we not listening to experts like Notre Dame professor Jim Kelly who is a foremost figure on dealing with vacant housing strategies and has stated that local organizations must take actions to be race equal not just have a law which is valid on its face. There is a disparate amount of Code violations issued in low income neighborhoods, so we already have this problem here even though we don't have laws that expressly discriminate against those neighborhoods. The strategy of having people coming to Code Enforcement trying to strike a deal is not efficient and is an unequitable application of the law. What if the person does not speak English or what if they do not know where to go? There is the perception that this will not be aggressive enforcement but in reality we have a document from the Vacant and Abandoned Task Force in their report says Code Enforcement should aggressively pursue repair orders. So we have said that Code is aggressive in our own documents. There is the perception that higher 15