Recommendation to receive and file an update on the Proactive Rental Housing Inspection Program.  (Citywide)
Item 15. Thank you. Sorry about that. Item 15 Report from Development Services Recommendation to receive and file an update on the proactive rental housing inspection program citywide. Okay. It's an emotion. And a second. Mr. City Manager. Yes? We have a report on the status of this program by our development services director, Amy Barack and her team. Madam Vice Mayor, members of the City Council, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce to you Kurt Keating, my code enforcement officer from the city of Long Beach. And then Lisa Fall, my administrative and Financial Services Bureau manager. They have been intimately involved in the implementation of the ordinance since last year, both from a financial perspective, a strategic perspective, and then also the actual implementation of the program. Approximately a year ago, a year ago next month, the City Council adopted an ordinance amending the municipal code by adding a brand new chapter to the municipal code related to proactive rental housing inspections. The the program had previously existed. It had been codified under the California Health and Safety Code and had resided for a number of years in the Health Department. But as part of government reform in 2013, that function shifted to the Department of Development Services to better align it with our existing code enforcement functions. As a result of the move to development services, there was a desire to go above and beyond what the state's health and Safety Code requires at a bare minimum, and to enhance the program. So we embarked on about a 12 month effort to work with stakeholders on crafting an ordinance that would enhance the type of inspections that we do on rental housing. The Council had very robust discussions about this last year and had a number of specific recommendations that were included in the ordinance that was ultimately adopted by the City Council and that we're attempting to implement. We have since. So I want to step back and give you an idea of the volume that we're talking about. The city defines rental housing as four units or more. So if someone owns a duplex or a triplex, that is not considered a commercial property within the city's definitions, and this program only inspects or attempts to inspect those those units that are either a four plex or greater. We have within the city approximately 7500 buildings that are either a four plex or greater. And it totals about 67,500 units, individual units. And that's just for plex's and above. If we were to consider the stock of Triplexes and duplexes, that would result in approximately 17,000 individual properties and 88,000 individual units. We have a goal in the ordinance of inspecting these units in these buildings once a year. I will tell you that we have been having a very difficult time with the implementation of the program. Meeting that task, I had hoped that in year one, when we rolled out the program, that we would be inspecting approximately half of the buildings. We're closer to a third than a half of the buildings, or I should say we're on target to inspecting about a third of the buildings by the end of this fiscal year. However, we have done a number of other things that the City Council had asked of us last year, and that includes coming up with a comprehensive outreach program and a comprehensive communications program related to the to how we let people know about it. We developed a series of door hangers, fliers for both tenants and landlords, translated those into our four language access program languages that the City Council has directed and are distributing those when we go out on inspection calls, when we attend community meetings, when we attend resource fairs. We have within my department not only code enforcement, but we also have our affordable housing division. And we have a very close relationship with the health department as well. So these fliers are getting distributed by all of those resources as well. The city council also asked us to allocate some of the department's general fund moneys last year to conducting an RFP and selecting a consultant who would actually help us reach out to the more disadvantaged neighborhoods and really get tenants and landlords aware of the program. We have recently contracted with the successful bidder, which is going to be the Orange County Fair Housing Association, and we're working with them on. A scope of work that would allow us to reach out to specific neighborhoods in particular. The city council also asked us to to prioritize the those landlords that may be more challenging to deal with, that may have units that are subject to frequent complaints or are habitually substandard in some of their compliance issues. We do have a a working list of of those that we believe are the more challenging landlords that we're working on. We've also prioritized our inspection areas based on census data that focuses on the age of the housing stock, the population density, the density of the housing units and other census factors, so that we are focusing on where we think the most area of need may be. The City Council also asked us to consider a, um, an incentive program for inspections for those landlords or property owners who are better at maintaining their properties, tend not to get code enforcement violations and are generally providing much more habitable conditions for our residents. I will tell you that since the rollout of the program has been much more slow than we anticipated, we are not at the point where we we believe that we're capable of of providing a recommendation to you on what that incentive program would be. We also discussed the potential for a fee increase. Currently, there is a. I'm looking for. I'm blanking on the word. There is an annual fee that is a tiered fee process so that there are three or four different fee categories, three fee categories. So if you own a four plex up to a ten plex building, you pay one fee. If you own an 11 plex to a 20 unit building, you pay another fee. And if you own a building that is 21 units or higher, that's a third tier of a fee. The fees equate. To about $26 per unit. And I will tell you that that allows us to support a program with approximately 11 full time employees, nine inspectors and a couple of clerical to actually run the program with that level of staffing. As I said, we are about a third of the way through the 7500 buildings that we have to inspect on an annual basis. We do believe that a fee increase at some point is necessary. We also believe that a restructuring of the fee so that it is a flat per unit fee is going to be warranted. But I'm not coming to you today with that suggestion at this point. We still need to do additional analysis on that fee. We still did commit to having meetings with stakeholders on those fees, but it is something that would be necessary in order for us to continue to move forward with these inspections. That summarizes my report. We've provided you a lot of information as part of your staff report, and I and my team are available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Gonzales. If it is okay, I'd like to defer to public comment first. Sure, we can do that at this time. We can go ahead and take public comment on item 15, please. Queue up. State your name. Good evening. I'm Dr. Ken Roth. You might remember me from December 1st when I appeared before you over housing stability issues at that time. I think that this is a gross waste of money to thank you. This is a gross this is a gross waste of money to inspect these properties. What you should do and what this council should do is to enforce state law. I was evicted on and actually won in court because it was I was evicted because I didn't want to have mice in my home. I paid for rent for ten months with mice in my home. I paid for rent for ten months with backed up sinks in my home. And so after ten months, I refused to pay rent any further. Given the law, the state law says I can withhold rent until those things were fixed. What happened? Instead, they came in, they fixed them and they evicted me. They took me to court and I beat them. I have a student here tonight that is no longer in my classes because she has been fighting the same battle in another district. She is a veteran. She is suffering from PTSD. Her sinks are backed up. She can't cook in her home. And when she went out and paid the plumber herself to pick to fix the house and ask her landlord to reimburse her, she was evicted or received eviction that has now been rescinded because I've stepped in and helped her with that. I also want to let you know that I have a number of my other students here, journalism students. And could you raise your hands? These are journalism students who are paying attention to what's going on and will probably be future watchdogs in our in our community. And I think it's important that that this this council begin to look at the 54%, the majority of residents in this city who are living in untenable conditions, because this body will not simply pass an ordinance to enforce state law. All you have to do is enforce the state law. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. My name is Lianna Noble. I'm a homeowner in the downtown area on fourth near Pine. I'm very active in the North Pine Neighborhood Group. And I found as I was getting ready to think about what I wanted to say tonight, I really thought it was very ironic that in the Long Beach Post today we had a great article about how the Newberry Lofts are going to soon be on the market. And that's great. That's one that's a neighbor building. But at the same time, we've got a story in the Long Beach Post about a renter who had similar horrible story to tell and has been living. That horror since. December of last year. I'm here as a homeowner because what. You do. Or do not do is are elected officials. Impacts. My neighbors who are tenants. And that impacts me and my entire neighborhood. And I'm very concerned that while I can hear the the hard work that staff has done, that they're telling us that only 30% of the units have been inspected that need terribly to be inspected. I am interested as a homeowner, as an activist in my neighborhood group, to know who the heck are these 87 properties? That evidently must be pretty darn bad that the staff has made a list of them. I'd like to know how many are in my neighborhood, and I understand that there's limitations to what the city staff can do or what you, as our elected officials can do about those kinds of slumlords, because that's what they are. They're ripping off my neighborhood and our city. And I would like to know who are the owners of those 87 properties? I would like to know what are the targeted neighborhoods based on the criteria that you were using? Because I know that there are many blocks and thousands of renters in my neighborhood who need not only these inspections, but also they need to be protected. I'm here tonight as a homeowner because the people who are my neighbors, who are tenants will not speak up because they know if they do, they will be evicted or they'll be threatened with eviction. So there are very important problems here, and they're urgent. And I urge you to take stronger and stronger leadership and utilize the public. Think you know what is going on so we can play a role and get rid of these slumlord. Your time is up. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Yeah. Hi. My name is Bill Hui. I'm the president of the Fair Housing Coalition. We are a civil rights organization for L.A. landlords, and we believe in equality under the law for landlords and renters. This rip and skip thing is very corrupt. It lends itself in L.A. Let me just tell you what's happened in L.A. landlords. We have a very unfair rent control system. So you have landlords who are collecting $400 a month rent for an apartment that's worth 15. I know the renters like that. That's okay. But what the city does is they come around and they cite landlords for not making repairs and they want the building in pristine condition. When you're collecting $400 a month, you can't do it. So what they do is they prosecute the landlords. So a lot of these landlords have put two and two together, say, hey, I'm getting out of L.A. So they sell their older buildings to developers. Now, in the last 15 years, 200,000 apartments, rent controlled older buildings have been torn down. At the same time, the homelessness population has exploded in L.A. The L.A. City Council doesn't have a clue how this happened. Just read the numbers. The cities own numbers. They've driven the landlords out of business who were making affordable housing available to poor people by overregulating them. So it's a good idea. Going bad now in the state of Minnesota, some of the renters got together with their landlords and they challenged the concept of these forced inspection skip and they won in court. And in Minnesota, scrap inspections are declared illegal. So now what's happening is predatory law firms are going Minnesota saying, hey, your your right to privacy was violated. That's like rape. Why don't you sue the city? So now all these people are suing. So we're doing that in L.A. We're going to start running some TV ads to inform renters that their rights to privacy have been violated and they're entitled maybe some money from the city. Imagine if a few thousand renters start suing your city for step inspections. We're going to turn the tide. And who doesn't like free money? I mean, people have principles where they can bend them a little bit for free money. So what I'm saying is get rid of Skip. I mean, sure, if a landlord there's good and bad landlords, there's good or bad renters for landlords are scum. Lord could go after it, but don't go in every apartment. Enforce your way in. Tenants don't like that. Tenants don't like them anyway. And if anybody wants to write to me it's fair housing coalition dot com Bill Hui BLM Joey White EarthLink dot net This is government out of control this step and reap thing and in L.A. the whole reap thing you have a person who's not even a lawyer sit in a courtroom, put on a judge's robe and adjudicates to take your rent money away. This is a denial of due process. We're going to Supreme Court with this. In the end, the city of L.A. is going to have to pay a lot of money to a lot of landlords and a lot of renters . I don't know if you want to bring that kind of liability down in Long Beach. So what is thin ice here? So walk softly. Thank you very much. You. Good evening. My name is David Kinsler and I am a property owner in both the fourth and second district. And I am one of those people that take the. Being a property owner rather seriously. And as far as I know, since 1992, I have not been. No one has ever called code enforcement on any problems in my buildings, since for the last six years, I've been a member of a community group in the fourth District that has gone out on every fourth Saturday to pick up trash from, you know, couches and things from the alley. I've painted out graffiti. I've cleaned up weeds and trash from other properties around me. So I'm telling you all this to let you know that whatever decisions you make on this matter are going to affect people like me who are conscientious. And I represent the majority of property owners in the city of Long Beach and everywhere else. So I agree. You should be going after the number of people that are consistently violating code, that are constantly getting, you know, things like that. But you might consider for people like myself and the majority of other people in my position that maybe if there's an inspection and there's no violations and there's no people calling, maybe we get an inspection every three or five years. It'll save the city money. I can take the money that you would have put in inspecting my building into maintaining it the way you'd like to have property maintained in the city of Long Beach. And if any of you ever have any, you know, questions about. Anything related to, you know, owning and managing rental property. Again, my name is David Ensler. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. This has been enlightening. My name is Linda montgomery. I am a property owner. I'm a landlady. And I'm also a realtor in Long Beach for Main Street real estate. We're going to have a problem with investors is one of the things that has not come up here. If we have to let them know that any property that they purchased is going to be inspected annually. I agreed with him saying that if a person is inspected and there's no problem with the property, why would you do it every year other than to collect fees? And again, with the fees being from 4 to 10 units, I think that's that's kind of excessive and bottom the bottom line on it is, is that if you have had complaints, everyone thinks that, you know, if their tenants complain that we can just snap our fingers and evict them and good luck with that. You can't just snap your fingers and evict anybody. It takes months. It takes a lot of money. You you lose money on rent, you lose a minimum of 3 to 6 months rent. And you've got to, you know, go to small claims court. It's a nightmare to evict them. And of course, if someone has a clogged up sink or has a problem with their property, if you're a good landlord, of course you're going to fix that because it's your property, it's your business. And a good landlord should not be penalized for for the bad ones. And I see that's what's happening here. And you're starting to police the properties. And the next thing we're going to be looking at is rent control. And nothing's going to hurt the city more than rent control. I'll tell you right now, it's the only reason we're getting investors to buy now in Long Beach. Because we are the last. Haven. And let's learn from other cities that made big mistakes. And let's let's stop this ball that's rolling down a hill that's going to cause us a lot of grief for. A lot of really good people. That's it. Thank you. Hi, Nashville. I came off stealing the domains here. I'm also United States that, um. I had a situation where slumlord. I'm still going through it. And in retaliation, she didn't ask me to move. Initially, I thought she had rescinded it, but then I found out when I went pay my rent this month on time like I always do. Never been. Never been short that she told me she had already rented my apartment to someone else. And I'm trying to figure out how she doing now. What I'm still living in there. But the situation came about retaliation because I asked her to fix the sink and she sent somebody to fix it. But two days later it was clogged up again. So I paid for it. And then it was the gas leak. The gas company came out and shut the gas out. She got pissed off at me about that and she said some rinky dink guy to come out there and fix it. And I still haven't use my stove. Now, this has been going on a year and my lease has been up and she waited for the lease to be up. She finally fixed it tub, which basically he had painted it with wild paint and it was peeling up and leaking. And that's a lead poisoning issue possibly. She ran a motel with that and once she glazed it, she did it the day before in inspection because I call for special inspection. That's why they came out and it didn't pass. So then it went to abatement and then, of course, housing authority is gonna pay for that. And it's a game. But it's our retaliation. Just because I actually have something fixed that should have been fixed, I should be able to cook. I should be able to come out in my house and have. PS As a student, I couldn't even think my grades was affected. They still affected. My PTSD is affected. And now I got to decided to fight this lady on this eviction, which I know is crap. Or try to move, which I got to pay for because I've already used a security. My last place I was in seven years. No complaint. No problems. This one is she's a bully. Any time you fix something, it's a threat. I got cussed out when I went in and I pay my rent the month before that. Literally cussed out and slandered. Crack it. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. I don't even fornicate. For real? Yeah, I'm serious. So I don't understand why you driving test drives and trying to lie to me now just because. I'm a college student and I know how to do my research and take pictures and document evidence. She met. So I just want peaceful, peaceful. And I know everybody out there ain't a slumlord. But I'm dealing with one. And as of May 31st, I will be homeless if I don't find a place because she refused to rescind it and she won't extend it. And like I said, I don't know how you go round from now when somebody's already living in their blessed city came out and found out that the building is unlevel. Ma'am, your time is up. So she needs. She got some other issues, too. Thank you for. Listening. Thank you. Sorry. My name is Celia McGill. I embraced it in the Long Beach for 29 years. I am here to speak on behalf of a number of the residents who do it to their workstations are enabled to be here in voice their experience. Long time ago I was limited, living under the same circumstance, some large conditions where the basic needs of a healthy home are not accessible for a number of residents of Long Beach. The residents could do it or will fear the local landlord. Retaliation have indicate they are building copper mine maintenance. It smell like a rats during an infestation they vermin and there is no response to these issues. We had to pull out the rental housing inspection program as a step forward since Broadway this week. We need more inspectors in. We need to haul this stuff. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Hi. I'm Francis. Emily Dyson Harris and I was driving district by law. I want to commend you for having a proactive rental housing inspection program and listening to everyone talk. There's some very concerning issues and concerns that everybody has. I'm sitting here trying to figure out how amicably everyone can be satisfied. The owners, the city and the residents. And it was mentioned that only one third of the inspections had been done. In order to move forward, more money's required. Well, maybe you'll have to have some kind of special call meeting to have an emergency thing, to try to figure out a way to get somebody to move forward on the inspections. You know, there's two sides to every story. And then the matter regarding concern of retaliation, that is a legitimate concern to the matter, concern of having a rent increases. That concern the matter. I'm wondering, you know, whether or not about having rent control. You know, some people want and some people don't. So I just want to say that I'm willing trusting you. You might have to have some type of special commission or task force where you have landlords, renters and people from the city, you know, all together to come up with a solution that's gonna resolve this matter in the fashion that we can move forward. Because every human being has a right to shelter, food and water and should be able to have contentment in their spirit. Thank you. Thank you, Francis. Good evening, Karen. Or Eastside. And I live at seven Pacific at the Park Pacific Towers, which is a subsidized, affordable housing unit owned by the Wylie family. And I'm very fortunate with my housing. I was very lucky to get in. It took me a year to get in to my affordable housing, and our building is really well maintained. I know other buildings within the city are not and there is a lack of information on the part of people that live in the affordable housing buildings. They're all under the impression if they complain about anything about their units, that they can be evicted. We tried to work with them and tell them, no, that's not going to happen. But I've also lived in a variety of housing throughout the city. One place I rented, I discovered, had no hot water, and the person that was in the building in that unit before me had not had hot water for seven years and never complained because her rent was low. She boiled water to wash her dishes every night and she boiled water to bathe her seven, her daughter, which I don't know how she could live in that way. Retaliation is a real problem. If you complain about issues. I've had buildings where I have complained and it was not pleasant afterwards. We do have. Major housing issues are starting to have major housing issues in our community as rents escalated and they have been escalating over the past several years. People have discovered what a bargain it is to live in to buy property in Long Beach. And we're starting to see incidents. I have friends that are being evicted from their property because new owners have come in and they've decided they're going to redo the property. So there's no compensation for them, even though they may be entitled to moving assistance. They're just given the eviction notices. And this is happening more and more in our community. It's really scary to me about what's going on, particularly in the lower income neighborhoods where the property is reduced and people don't understand what their rights are about housing. So I think an inspection program is really a great thing to have and maybe might need some adjustments. It's it's new and see and I live next across the street from one of those problem landlords. My gosh, if you can do anything about him. Yeah, the neighborhood would love you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Alejandro Costa. I live in your district. And I'm a property owner. About two years ago, I called code enforcement because one of my tenants was having the ceiling falling down from the water in the bathroom upstairs. It actually took about a year before everything could be resolved, and they ended up finally arresting the man upstairs. It was very interesting. Seven police cars in riot gear because they didn't know what kind of a nut that was after he was supposed to go to court, didn't show up in court, got a bench warrant and all that stuff. They got a locksmith at 100 and some dollars an hour to sit and wait. Then they were going to bust down the door. And I when they were starting to bust down the door, the guy opened it, said, Oh, hello. He ended up going to jail for one night and finally ended up buying out of the building. But the problem was not with the court wood coming out and. Having the inspection. It was being backing it up. Has an owner. There was nothing I could do. I gave my tenant. $100 off a month. I built some sort of mechanism to divert the water. Very interesting. Tubing. Taking the. Water that stripping off the ceiling. Into the toilet very had to be. Replaced every month. So just the fact that you're doing. Inspections and if you increase. Your rent, the. Inspection fees, we will just pass it. On to our tenants who will be very unhappy. So do you think they really want to be inspected? I have one of my buildings, never had any legitimate inspections. It just seems as though people when they get to the point that they can't pay the rent, they find. Odd things to call code. Enforcement about. I guess that might surprise you, but it does happen. Thank you very much. Thank you. Josh Butler housing language. It's had a few questions about the report and I don't expect them answered at this moment. But we did have a question with regards to the list of unresponsive and non-compliant landlords. There had been initially a request that that list be published and put online, I think in an effort to shame those slumlords who are providing inhabitable conditions. There were non-working plumbing facilities, rats, feces, problems that I know these good landlords are not are not putting upon their tenants. But we do have landlords that are and there is a list. And so we have heard that there are legal issues with publishing that list. Our question certainly would be, what is that opinion based upon and how are other cities able to publish their lists? The city of Chicago, New York City, they're able to publish their list of bad landlords when people come to their communities and they know who to avoid, what landlords to stay away from, and if there are bad landlords, folks that move here should know. We've anecdotally talked to a lot of tenants who are moving down to Long Beach because as people have said, it is affordable and they're ending up in terrible situations and they're ready to go. And these are folks that are the first time here. This is their impression of our city, and they think it's lousy. So we think that that's something that we'd like to see happen, is a list of our landlords that should be published, they should be shamed, and people should avoid wanting to be on that list rather than taking the time to incentivize the good landlords. Let's use our resources to go after the ones that are really bad, that are causing the problems. If they're good, then there's not a problem. We also have questions about the data that's being collected currently on the inspections and if we're actually what data is being collected so that we can measure the success of this program going forward. Are inspectors actually getting in to talk to tenants and what constitutes a completed inspection? When we say that we have completed one third of the of the inspections as that buildings, are we actually getting into the properties and to the units on the properties? And if we're not, then I think we have to reexamine why we're not. And I think that we all know that there's been a lot of trust that's broken down between tenants and landlords. We have tenants that are afraid to call their landlord for repairs. They're afraid to call the city for repairs because they're going to be they're going to be retaliated against. Those people here tonight that have said they've been retaliated against, you've heard people that have come forward for months who've been retaliated against for making simple, simple requests for simple repairs. And they end up out on the street. They end up and they don't go to court. They don't they can't take that risk. It's high risk, low reward for them. They go to court. The high risk is that they lose and they end up on a ten year blacklist. And if they win, they could stay in the slum, slum conditions. So they tend to walk away from those situations and try and move on with their lives. And so I think that we owe it to our residents to figure out a program that's actually going to hold our slumlords accountable, that is going to require our landlord to do some basic needs if they want to have a Goldstar program and needs to be included in more than just our code enforcement department, you need to include the health department and it's include the police department. If we're going to give out a gold star, it needs to be a true gold star. Otherwise it's just a Bronze Star. Thanks. Thank you, Josh. So just to let you know, I know that a couple of us have similar questions and so we will have those addressed during our discussion behind the dais. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is Julio Ura. I'm a resident here in Long Beach in the Wrigley District, and I am a real estate broker and also a property manager. I manage properties throughout the county of Los Angeles, so I actually have experience in communities that are both rent control and not rent control and it is very frustrating. The whole situation here is very frustrating because even when we were talking about enacting this inspection program. I thought that it wouldn't go that route, and when it did, I felt blindsided. We do have properties that have issues. However, we already have large. That if they were followed through, they would take out the players that are harming these properties. Right now we are in a situation where we're listening to a report about being unable to. Do all the inspections when we already knew how many units were going to be inspected. We already knew how many people were going to be doing the inspections. It should not have been a surprise that there's no way that you could have done all the inspections in one year. And now you're talking about redoing these things every single year. How is that possible? And now you're talking about increasing. The fees so that you can hire more people to do it. It just keeps perpetuating on itself. We live just a few miles away from Los Angeles and looking at communities that already have rent control laws and there are disaster. They're a disaster because the program does not work. The units are being taken off of the market. There's less housing. There is increased homelessness. People do not want to invest in Los Angeles. I've got plenty of clients that want to sell their properties and bring them to Long Beach. And now we're talking to them about the possibility of bringing those same programs here. It just doesn't work. The intention is good. We want to take care of properties. We want to take care of tenants. But I believe it is short sighted. And I believe as you move forward, please speak with people that already have experience working in these programs to see what works and what doesn't. Because right now it seems like we're just kind of paddling along and saying, Let's try this, let's try that. It's not a good way to go. Thanks. Katie. I counsel. My name is. I'm going to read this because I get a little nervous. So. My name is Johnny Weir and I'm a property owner and now a resident of Long Beach. I've been managing and purchasing properties in Long Beach since 1998. I've sat in. This room and listened to many council meetings I've never shared until now. Because I feel that there is a need for me to share. I am. Very against rape or whatever. You want to call it proactive rental, PR, HIV, whatever you want to call it. It's not a good plan. I have a friend in Long in L.A.. Melissa Cohen lost both of her properties to this. Rape. And she was not a slumlord. And she was not a greedy landlord, which I've heard people who work at the city refer to us as, which I don't think that that's a very positive way to refer to property owners. This ordinance can also be used and abused to defraud good property. Owners of their buildings. I urge you to do a little more research before you adopt more legs to this dangerous ordinance. If you'd like to speak with Melissa and a couple other people that have lost their buildings, I can arrange a meeting for you. I've heard a lot of tenants here and many other meetings talk about bad landlords. I'd like to talk a little bit about. Bad tenants because I've had my share of many of them. I'd like to talk about tenants who have have come to my properties and I've given them beautiful units. They've just destroyed. My beautiful units, brought bedbugs. They've hoarded and I've had to get them out of my properties. These are difficult things to deal with, and I deal with them all the time. It's hard being a good landlord and I do appreciate good tenants. Just a couple more things and I'm done. Tenants are my customers and I really work hard to give them a good service and product. It's not always appreciated by bad tenants there. There may be a few bad landlords who do not take care of their properties in Long Beach. But I know a lot of wonderful property owners. In Long Beach and this ordinance is not fair to them or me. This is not the answer to make Long Beach a better city. I've experienced abuse of power. With code enforcement several times, and I'm not a slumlord. And this opens up a door that can really harm property owners. I don't think code enforcement needs more power. I think they need less power. Please think about the damage. Your actions may cause. In strengthening a bad ordinance, and the lawsuits are going to follow that. Which is what's happening in L.A.. So thank you for your time. I know I'm a little passionate, but I. Also printed out. I don't know if you've already got the 13 pages of this ordinance, and I made a copy for everybody in this audience. If you'd like a copy after, I can. Give you one so you can read it. One thing in it that's a little creepy. Is that. We can be imprisoned or put in jail or $1,000 fine, which. Yeah. And we done. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm done. I'm passionate. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Hi. My name is David. We see. I don't know if this is the right forum. How many? They've done a third of the inspections. What have they found? So we don't do question. We don't. Do questions. Okay. So we have where do we find that information to? We can have a staff member talk to you after. Thank you. They never mention that in the council meetings. What they find they do. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Harris Lawless, and I'm a small property owner. I like to share with with you tonight a little personal story which is related to, you know, what is going on with the new ordinance that you try to go through with. I believe it was about ten years ago. I was also an owner of a couple small fast food places. And the council woman, Oropeza, decided that she wanted to switch the grading system from the health department to the restaurants from what was then and now to ABC. So anyway, there were some meetings in the council on the last do that I win and I talk there was leaning towards changing the system and going to ABC. So I said, Why people want to change the ABC? The argument was that couple older people, older people, when they walk by a restaurant, they cannot see the list of, you know, the grading list that the city of Long Beach had the health department. So I said, well, it took you almost three or four years to set up this law. And I think me as a business owner and original owner, it's a pretty nice system that you had because you had seven categories food preparedness, maintenance, blah, blah, blah, and everything else. So I said, How much is going to cost you to make the switch? I mean, she says $200,000. I said, the city is going to pay $200,000 to change something that, you know, they studied for years. And it works very well because all of a sudden, you know, somebody from the council decided that, you know, so. I guess after after the meeting, the vote was 5 to 4 in favor to leave the system the way it was. So now coming to what you're trying to do, this is a very, very touchy subject. I owned the property since 1978. I had a property on called a unit and the tenants that were there. After five years, they left and they called the city inspector. So I met him over there. The prop. The apartment was destroyed. So a young person came in. He says, What's going on? Look at this. Look at this. Look at this. I said, Just a minute. Let me take you to a unit just. In a few seconds. So do you want to summarize? Yes, that is for rent. So I work with him on a unit for rent and he says, this is beautiful, you know. I said, Well, that's how this unit was when I rented to these people. So anyway, I think. Getting into this inspection situation here, you should study it a little bit deeper. Okay. Thank you very much. If there isn't any further public comment, I'll take it behind the dice. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes. First, I have a few questions, and then I do have, um. Some some suggestions and thoughts. So first, I want to thank everybody for their comments. I certainly appreciate the dialog and the comments that we've been talking about. Many of this is certainly it's very a hot topic, but it's definitely something I'm very passionate about because I've worked in the city for seven years. I've seen pretty much everything when it comes to housing, both great landlords, bad landlords and everything in between. So I'll have a few questions first for city staff. What was the criteria by which their housing was selected? So we did a request for proposals and we got a couple of respondents and they were actually the one that met the needs the best. We believe that they had a qualified staff to deal with the translation issues and that they have had similar experiences doing something like this in Orange County. Okay. And what are the the what's the time frame for them to work with both the Apartment Association and housing Long Beach? So we have been negotiating with them what the scope of work would be and where we would do the outreach. And so we're actually in that conversation right now. Okay. So we'll be updated at some point. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And then I noticed in looking at the memo, there were only since there's nine worst landlords, only four were included in the memo. So where are the other five? I'm not familiar with that property address. Just it says landlord one, two, three, four. But just shows property address cases violations. But there's only four landlords. So I don't feel like we have the full list. I do not know if you have a full copy of the memo. Oh, okay. That could be it, too. Because we have. We have a memo that was provided to the city council that does have all nine landlords. Listed options and. Mm hmm. Okay, perfect. We can get you a copy of that. It does not have the landlord name, but it does have landlord. One, two, three, four, five through nine. Perfect. Well, thank you. And then we have over 7500 units to be inspected. That's just including the four plex is in above. We only have nine full time inspectors. And so that would mean that if you were to attribute for each person to be about over 800 units, that each inspector would have to, uh, you know, they'd be delegated about 800 units each. So realistically, what would the time frame be to cover all of these inspections? I mean, we're only in, you know, 30%, a third. We we are also dealing with a situation where we're also getting reactive calls in as well. So we are figuring those into, um, we have to deal with those cases as well. If they are reactive code enforcement complaints, meaning that an individual has called to lodge a code enforcement complaint if it is for a four plex or more. We actually forward that over to the inspectors as well. So the inspectors are not only having to do the inspections on the 7500 buildings, but they're also also responsible for any of those reactive calls that come in over the course of the year. We have looked at some averages on what would be appropriate for an inspector caseload, and we think that ranges somewhere between 250 and 300 per year. But given the complexity of of cases, it could be lower or higher. We don't quite have that that sweet spot yet with the program. Okay. So it seems like it'd be maybe 3 to 4 years until we got through everything with the current staffing model that we have. Yes, at our current staffing model, it would take me probably three years. Okay. And what kind of technology are we using? I know and I don't know if it was the last budget or a budget before we had, uh, I think we allocated funding for iPads of some sort. So how are those being utilized? Because you know what a lot of the comments have been talking about was data collection. Yes. Importance of how are we collecting all that data? We are actually doing better data collection because we've updated our forms that have more specificity on the type of information we're collecting when we go into a unit. So we start assessing things like the the number of windows in a unit, the type of flooring materials that may be on it, whether it's carpeting or linoleum or tile . So we're getting into more of that specificity that we previously did not have. We do have iPads in the field. We are looking to do some internal enhancements with them and link them with our building inspectors on the other side so that we're using the same technology. So I do expect that in the next year that we will actually be upgrading our technology for the code enforcement inspectors in the field. Okay. Does that mean like new software or. Probably more connectivity with our Hanson system, which currently we don't have the ability to do in the field. So that's a key priority for us. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I have a few, uh, suggestions, recommendations I'd like to make, but I just want to, I'd really like to just reframe the discussion because, you know, I know that we're, we've made this some people have made this about landlord against tenant, tenant against landlord. And really, I think the spirit of it from what I gathered was to ensure that there were inspections, to fully understand the lay of the land relative to people's quality of life. And essentially, of course, like we've talked about, become more proactive versus reactive. Especially serious issues and concerns, and especially with those those landlords that are not taking care of their properties, that are unresponsive to landlords, that are doing a good job in many cases, that are going above and beyond to ensure that their tenants are living in not just good conditions, but great conditions. I commend them. I think it's great. We have many of them in the audience as well. And, you know, I've talked to some of them that have said I wouldn't rent a place out in a place that I wouldn't mind living in myself. And I truly believe that. And I think if that's the landlord vision for that area, then great. That's exactly what we want here for the city of Long Beach. And I would say, you know, most landlords are taking care of their properties. They're doing everything they can to ensure that police isn't coming to their door every 5 seconds. Code enforcement isn't knocking on their door, but it's those landlords, that small percentage that are worsening our neighborhoods, the ones that are cheapening our neighborhoods, they're creating blight. They're adding additional city resources that, you know, definitely don't need to be expended on these on these properties. And so I believe that it's time to do a little bit more in that sense. I've suggested some things in the past, but I'd like to do more. There's three things I'd like us to work on in looking at this. First, the worst landlord list I believe needs to be implemented. We currently have. So this is a I wanted to share visual with my council colleagues. I wasn't happy with the response we received as to why we couldn't implement this list. There's other cities that are doing this. And clearly, as you can see here, we have nine of the worst that have been identified in the city of Long Beach. And we could come up with options similar to New York City. These, as you can see here, great visual, but you can see the actual landlord name if there's a property management and the various code violations. These are. Massive code violations that are happening. Uh. I think we can I think I can click here. If we go to the next one, you can see 100 worst landlords in New York City. It has a list. Again, their names, the buildings, units, violations similar to what we have on paper. But I think it needs to be publicized via a website. And however else we need to publicize it. Last slide. Uh. This is. So when you click on the name, you get this information. You can see the violation. You can see the details. The buildings. So I think that with these slumlords slumlords, I'll just call them that. Just like tenants have to be screened. They have to go through a whole process in getting an apartment. I think we should also know and screen certain landlords that are not taking care of their properties too. We should be given that opportunity. So. I would suggest that we can come back with some information that would create options similar to New York City, to Chicago, that would look at this worst list. We have nine. If there's more. Great. We can add them to the list as well. And also, I would say some of these landlords have commercial property that are the worst in the whole city. And I know I've talked to you, Amy, about a particular person that has the worst in the whole city. And he's gotten away with a lot. And a lot of these landlords have gotten away with a lot. So I'm hoping that in addition to this list, that we have their commercial property information as well, because I think that's important. To include here. Secondly, it's just an an over kind of view but I think with it's tied into this as well but in. I don't know if it's in here. But there's a link that you click on in New York City. And essentially what it does is it gives you a threshold of after so many serious conditions, whether it's you don't have water, you have live wire hanging over your shower, something deeply affecting quality of life. They should automatically be put into nuisance abatement or there should be some sort of threshold because I feel like we don't have any standard or threshold whatsoever. So I don't know how that how we do that, but that's my recommendation to the city staff to look at that and see what type of options we have and in that sense. And then thirdly, I do believe in the Gold Star program myself. I've been looking at a few different programs for incentives for good landlords. I spoke with the Apartment Association today. We talked about Utah. There's a good it's called good landlord ordinance. And so there's options that we can look at. It will lessen the load if you're doing well, and it may take quite a few of those inspections out or lessen some some fees. But I think it's a good way to look at what else we can do for those landlords that are going above and beyond. That information. I'd love to get back as well to counsel. And then overall, I would just say working as a field deputy in the first District, I want to know where these properties are on a continual basis. And I think I would assume that many of my council colleagues would agree that during council briefings it'd be good to get this information as well to know when, how or why, who these people are. I mean, hopefully we can get to this point where we have a slumlord list, but to have information at each council briefing that gives us a good working knowledge of who these people are. And that is it. I want to thank again everybody for their information. I want to thank everybody for their comments. I'm trying to be as comprehensive as possible here because this is very, very important. And I know I've talked to a lot of you on this issue, not just today, but ongoing for many, many years. And I want to be very clear. The focus is on those who do not take care of their properties. The focus is is that people are getting retaliated against. I mean, I disagree with some of the comments that it's hard to evict. People are getting evicted. I've seen it. I have the information. They're contacting my office. And you just put the eviction notice up and you don't even have to go to court. People will move out because they think they have no other option. So I want to leave it at that. I do hope we come back with this information. And I want to thank staff for the information. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales. Councilwoman Price. Thank you. So I want to thank Councilwoman Gonzalez for. One, introducing us to some models that other cities are using that we could use here. I fully support us exploring that option and also for framing the issue in the way that she has. I have a couple of questions and was hoping staff could answer these for us because I think I've received a lot of misinformation today, and I think there's a lot of misinformation out there. But can you explain a little bit more in detail the outreach component of this and when that's going to kick off specifically? So we are we're instructed by a council to craft an outreach strategy that would go into more disadvantaged neighborhoods or areas. That language has language difficulties and reach out to those tenants in particular to inform them of code enforcement programs in general. And so the idea was to be able to provide resources and information to those tenants who may be either afraid to approach the city and call in complaints or don't know how. And so that was what the outreach strategy, the intention of the outreach strategy is. We did do an RFP, as I said, and we have selected a vendor that we're intending to work with, and then we'll be working with them to focus our outreach on on specific areas. In addition to that, code enforcement staff goes regularly to community meetings. Just next week we're going to the Hamilton community meeting. We have regular meetings with AOC staff, for example, in district to West to all sorts of organizations. Call us and ask for updates on code enforcement issues. We go to those meetings and we receive complaints from the members of the neighborhood associations. That's not part of the formalized community outreach program, but that is something that we do on a regular basis. As I said earlier, we've also attended resource fairs, both by the request of housing advocates as well as at the request of apartment association in order to continue that outreach. Can you tell me a little bit about the annual inspection component? What is that? What's the scope of that? So there's an annual fee and the ordinance calls for periodic inspections. Our goal is to do that annually in order to get rid of a backlog of inspections that we've been carrying since the program transferred over to development services in 2013. We are required to and what we do is we schedule inspections with the property owner so that they know the property owner or the management company, so that they know in advance when we will be on site. We we usually give them three weeks notice that allows them the opportunity to notify the tenants that we will be on site. We are required to inspect the common areas where required to inspect a minimum of 10% of the units. If we find units that have more than one violation, we have the right to inspect all of the units within the building and look for violations throughout the entire building. Part of the data collection is that we are now treating each unit as an individual case instead of lumping it into the same building so that it is allowing us to separate out the data with a finer grain of detail on the inspections and on the potential violations. Okay. I have to say, I agree with Councilwoman Gonzalez's comments regarding incentive programs. I think those are worthwhile and something that we should be looking into. I personally have an issue with the annual inspections and that component, especially when we haven't even given the outreach and opportunity to to work to see if there's any data that we can collect after the outreach. I think that it would be prudent to allow I mean, it's kind of an unusual outreach partnership that we've created. So I think it's it's it's going to be interesting to see what these organizations come up with working together. And I actually think that's that's an exciting opportunity for us. So that that's the only kind of component. I'd love to see the outreach get into effect, see how that's working before we start imposing additional restrictions on people who really aren't the subject of this. This regulation shouldn't be the subject of this regulation, the good actors. So those are my only comments. Thank you. Councilwoman Price, I actually like to go back to Councilwoman Gonzales, the maker of the original motion, and ask if the three items that you had outlined, are you looking for those to be part of the amendment to your motion? Yes. I'd like them to come back to the city council within. I would say, uh, 90 days if we can do that, to ensure that we're taking care of the options for the slumlords list or the worst landlord list. Looking at strengthening our our thresholds, which also ties into the landlord list. So similar to what New York City is doing, creating a threshold which I think would all be one in the same. And then thirdly, looking at options for a gold star list. And that is it. Thank you. Council member Yarrawonga. Thank you, Mary. One of the most important things about any program that we're going to be implementing is obviously the communication and getting the information out. From the way I understanding this is going is we want to initiate that communication and that information to get it out in various languages. So having said that, it appears to me that we are not fully informed in terms of what the impact that program is going to have between once the information is being implemented. So I would I would support that this motion for now, not only because we do need more information, we need to know what's out there, what's happening, what's occurring. And having this kind of consultant doing the outreach and get and gathering the data is very important for us at this point. It's also obviously important to know that I think there's from what I heard today, Nancy, seeing people in the audience that there's there's generally some support for this in response to having to go out and get that information. Let's let's let's get a lay of the land, so to speak, and then take it from there in terms of how what direction the city wants to take, whether we implement a go step program or not. The data will tell us and the information will tell us whether we should implement the A We're Slumlord List or a policy that staff will let us know about that. In terms of what would be the legal ramifications of having such a list being printed and what are the potential liabilities that we would be under if we were to do this? And basically, it's it's a situation that lends itself to needing meeting the additional 80 days or needing the more time so that we can look at this more carefully and make a better analysis as to how we want to go. I realize that there are some programs out there. People mentioned L.A. not wanting to take up their program here. Does it work? Well, you know, Long Beach, we always consider ourselves very special. That I look at it the other way around. I, I see L.A. has been part of Greater Long Beach. But, you know, having said that, you know, we we have to be creative and we have to be innovative in many ways for our own special circumstances. We are a coastal city and we're one of the largest coastal cities in California. So we need to look at what the implementation we're going to have when it comes to rental properties and having a monitoring system that would ensure that people who come to live and work and play in Long Beach are getting the best experience they possibly can. And that means controlling our landlords and rephrase it, not controlling the landlords, ensuring that our landlords are responsible and being, uh. You know. I hope, but I opened up a can of worms right there. Okay. Let me let. Me just say that we I would like to see a program implemented that works for everybody. And I'll leave it at that. You know? Fine. Thank you. To Mango. Yes. Lena, I want to thank you for recognizing the good landlords, because good landlords that are burdened with less fees can afford to provide better units, more affordable rent. All of the things I know that you and I have had a couple of conversations, a couple of conversations about the things that would be valuable in a Gold Star program. And we've talked through that. While some individuals might find it valuable to sit in a meeting that learns about public safety because of where their unit is, another unit on the other side of town might benefit from an incentive program that provides incentives if you reduce the water usage of your unit. So for an example, we've talked a lot about conserving water in California in the drought. And when you are a owner of a property and you live in a property, you of course want your water bill to be lower. But when it is your tenant's property and your tenant pays the water bill, there's not as many incentives really to go out and change out all the faucets and all the toilets and the drought tolerant plants. So there could even be I know we talked about where Josh go, a Bronze Star, but really a gold star in terms of other things that are in the possibilities of setting everyone apart. So I just want to be sure on a couple of things. One, I to stand that bad landlords need to go. They make a bad name for all of us. They make it more difficult for us to get valid and good rent. And we need to make sure that bad landlords are out. And so we need to focus all of our attention on them. And with the number of inspectors that we have, we need to be focusing on the bad landlords. And therefore, I'm really confused about the word annual. So here's my my comment section of the ordinance passed by this body in June of last year states that it will be periodic inspections. There is an annual fee, but periodic inspections and what I'm hearing was proposed tonight was annual, but we do not have the staffing. So we're currently at approximately a three year cycle unless we change staffing. However, what I hear from Councilwoman Gonzalez is that we are not looking to go to an annual inspection program yet. We need to talk about the data. We need to talk about the facts. We might never want to go in that direction. We might want to focus on what Councilman Gonzalez eloquently said back in June of last year, which is a more ramped up fee and fine based penalty program for landlords that are bad, bad landlords. And to free up the resources, our incentive program, which I think we discussed extensively at the last meeting, is not included here. So when this comes back in 90 days, I would like to see some incentive programs proposed and I would like us to I know you said we're on an annual basis to get through the backlog . I think that we just need to stop using the word annual. We are not on an annual basis. We are not going to an annual basis. The ordinance instructs periodic and that is the policy made by this Council and nothing else at this time. So before we move forward on any regularly scheduled inspections of any time, whether it be every three years, five years, ten years, whatever it may be, I'd like to see the incentive program back before this body implemented and then data evaluating if it's been effective. Because I know that a lot of the individuals who came up here today that want to get rid of bad landlords also said, what does the data show? How many units have we inspected already in this year and how many were bad and were the bad? The bad actors because of reports in the community, some of which I've been out looking at property and I've made a few myself. Or are they because of random inspections? And so once we know that data, we can be in a better position. So just to be confirmed. I did not hear that we are doing annual inspections. Is that. City attorney, would you be able to verify where we are on this motion? You're correct in that the ordinance calls for periodic inspections. Wonderful. Whatever that I mean, that could be annually. It could be every three years. It's whatever the staff they currently said, staff doesn't isn't able to do it annually. The inspection fee is collected annually. Well, what I heard from this body today is that we are not looking to move in that direction. If I'm incorrect, I would love for someone to come in and say otherwise. But otherwise. I think the policy direction from this council is to continue to get through the backlog, see where we are, and to have a aggressive and supportive incentive program and an even more aggressive bad landlord program. And the reason I say that is because a staff report calls for annual inspections and they did not hear that from this body. And this body makes policy. If I could turn this back to the staff, Mr. City Manager, and get a clarification on what staff is proposing, and then we can have a follow up with what the council direction is. I'm going to turn that over to Amy. Staff is proposing, receive and file of this report that was requested to come before the city council. And that's my understanding as well. But those three had it. No, no. So I just asked the question. Sorry, I didn't mean to do a tennis back and forth. I just wanted to know from staff what they're proposing, which is accurate. And that's in our in the staff report. They're just asking they're asking for a receiving file of their report. The motion that was made by Councilwoman Gonzalez is to adopt the report, in addition to adding the three items that she mentioned to come back to the council with information in three months. Within 90 days. Correct. Within three months. And I think I failed to include in their. If we are going to enhance just some information as to how we're going to enhance our data collection. So what that will look like in terms of Hanson or additional software that will be using to ensure that we are getting the effective information on units. Also, just inconsistencies. I know that some code enforcements have gone, code enforcement officers have gone out, no violations found. Another code enforcement officer goes out, 11 violations found. So there's from what I understand, there can be inconsistencies there. It will help, I think both landlord tenant, just to have that streamlined, better technology, more information and better data collection. So I would include that as well. If I might just go back to the staff again. And so misspoke in the report as staff outlines what the recommendations are. Can you go over what staff's recommendations are as it relates to the subject of annual inspections? So based on past discussions with the city council, it was our understanding that the idea was to move towards annual inspections. In order to do that. We are not able to do that with our current staffing levels. We do not make recommendations in this staff report for enhanced fees. We do recognize that enhanced fees would be necessary in order to add the additional staff that would be necessary to do the additional annual inspections. As the city attorney did point out. The ordinance calls for periodic inspections that could be every three months, every six months, every 12 months or every three years, depending on on the will of the city council. In addition, we do have a reactive code enforcement program that we often visit the same units and do have information and will have information and data on the number of violations that we we record on both a proactive and a reactive basis. Our recommendation was to provide an update on the the initiative of the proactive rental housing inspection program, including where we were with hiring the community outreach component and then having a discussion, if you so wish, about adding duplexes and triplexes to to the inspection program. We have not previously recommended that in the past. I know that has been a point of discussion with the City Council. So we did again raise that issue in our receive and file report for your consideration. So, Mr. Barak, I appreciate that. And just bear with me on page two of five. In the second paragraph where it starts, staff recommends an expanded PR h IP that conducts annual inspections of all 7500 residential. We're often not sure what I said that to us. To some of us sounds as though it's a recommendation. And then when you go into the next paragraph, in addition to considering higher fees to increase the number of annual inspections completed, the Council directed staff to consider expanding the program to cover duplexes and triplexes. And I do recall that conversation, but hear how it's written. It sounds as though it's a recommendation. And so I think it would be very important for us to clarify that. Clarify that in terms of our recommendation or. Yes. Yes. The first part the first paragraph I outlined. So we were asked last year to provide a statistical report showing the numbers of triplexes and duplexes. We were then further asked in it via a two from four whether or not we recommended moving towards triplexes or duplexes. So that is our recommendation. That is for your consideration if you wish to pursue that conversation at a later date. We are not attempting to set policy with this staff report. We're attempting to be responsive to counsel's previous requests for information. Okay. So, Mr. City Attorney, in this staff report, when the council receives and files the staff report, it's not taking action on the recommendations that staff is making. We are taking it into consideration. That's correct. In order to change this ordinance, you would have to put something else on the agenda to amend the ordinance to either change it from periodic inspections to annual or tri annual or whatever it is that the council would desire. Okay. I appreciate that. Councilmember Mungo misspoke to reference the paragraph that Vice Mayor Lowenthal said. Would it be fair to state that maybe it was intended to say staff recommends an expanded wrap that conducts periodic inspections of all 7500 residential rental properties, as aligns with Section D of the ordinance passed by this body. I'm not really sure where this confusion is. We were asked to report back. We are. We're asked to consider what it took to do annual inspections. And that's what this report contains. So you are you are recommending annual inspections. We were asked to consider what it would take to do an annual inspection. If we were to if you were to tell us to do an annual inspection, we're recommending to you what it would take for us to do that. So as long as we do not approve additional inspection staff, we will not be moving towards an annual inspection program. As long as you do not make an amendment to the ordinance requiring annual inspections, annual inspections will occur on a periodic basis based on existing resources. Perfect. Thank you. And. So just to answer your question, Ms.. Burdick, the confusion comes from the sentence structure of those three lines, because the way it reads, I understand what you would like, where you are stating that the staff recommendations, you are basically responding to our question what it would take. And your statement is that it would take additional staff, but the sentence structure says something else. And so that's where the confusion comes from. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Councilmember Richardson. Thank you, vice mayor and and thank you so much to staff for for presenting this tonight. And and I attempted to the tone was really productive in my opinion hearing, you know, both sides housing advocates and apartment owners sort of saying the same thing. And what I heard was, you know, we should be more intentional about cracking down on bad landlords. We should protect tenants and we should encourage good, good landlords. And I think that makes sense. And that's sound public policy. I have a I have a question about process. My understanding was that initially there was interest in, you know, expanded stuff like reap the program with then this prep was recommended. Initially they came to council through the housing element and this pilot program. We were we asked questions and asked for recommendations because this was placed in front of us to consider. Now, I'm unclear on we have a proceeding filed tonight, but I'm unclear on whether we have a pilot program or not. So that my first question is moving forward, is there a program? If there is, when does it begin? And and what are the next steps for the city council? Yes, sir. There is a program we have been implementing it since last June when the City Council adopted the ordinance into the municipal code. It requires us to schedule inspections on a proactive basis with owners of properties that have four or more units. That is a completely separate function from someone calling in a complaint. So we are proactively going out and scheduling inspections of property units, which is a base requirement in the Health and Safety Code of the state of California. But this council did expand that program to add a little bit more teeth to it, and that occurred last year. So we do have a prep program. We do do proactive inspections of units in addition to our reactive inspection program, which is complaint driven. Okay. So in our proactive inspection, how often are the inspections? On our current schedule, it would be once every three years approximately. Okay. And the recommendation that was outlined in this and I understand the confused confusion about it's not the staff recommendation, but it's a recommendation from staff. This is this says that if we were go to one year, this is what it would require in terms of from a budgetary and staff standpoint. It is not proposed fee at this point because we've not had those fee discussions. If you are interested in going to an annual inspection, we would be requiring additional staff. I'm comfortable with the recommendation. I think sound public policy means let it do a little bit and work on it. I'm happy with coming back with some of these recommendations, looking at a Gold Star program. But ultimately, I want to have some finality to this on whether we have periodic inspections. To me, a proactive program means everyone gets inspected at some point, but it does not make sense to me if, you know, unless there's some trigger, like a transfer of ownership or something like that, it doesn't make sense to go to two annual on every single unit from a workload standpoint. Frankly, it doesn't make sense. So I want to make sure that we are clear in our process. So in the next three months we will receive a report on these recommendations will be when will we be in a position to have some finality on what what we're doing in terms of our program? Would that be an appropriate time or or do actions need to be taken within our budget? Let me jump in right now. Vice Chairman, Council members I think the direction that we have from the council and Councilwoman Gonzales provides that finality will come back within 90 days, answer those questions and the Council will have the opportunity to then give us direction on where they might want to go. Anything that would require any type of fee adjustment would be later on in the budget process. But at this stage, I think we can just lay out exactly where we are with rate and then talk about opportunities for the council to give us more direction. If they want to go a one year or a three year or two year in implementing and we'll have information on the Goldstar program as the councilwoman asked. And I think we have an out. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Councilman Gonzales. Yeah. I was just going to clarify as posted is that, you know, the hope is that in these three months, we're finally getting to a place where we can come back and see what it is that we can do with incentives, but more importantly, with this worst list. And in the meantime, I mean, we're still giving them three months, this worst landlord list. It's still being very generous. So I'm hoping that in these three months, we're really cracking down on these individuals for everything that they've gotten away with, in essence. And so I just hope that we're committed to that. I know we will be. But in the three months that come back, I look forward to seeing, you know, options for that, more data collection options. And then, of course, like I mentioned, the opportunities for gold incentives. So thank you again. I wanted to also follow up on the data collection piece. We had Mr. Butler come to the mike and ask about specificity, Mr. City Attorney, about what data is kept. Are we going to look more deeply into publishing the list that the Councilman Gonzalez mentioned, or there are some legal barriers to it, considering that we've heard that other and we've seen with the slide that other cities are doing it. You may remember vice mayor remembers the council. Yes. We'll certainly work with staffing and put a report back together. Our concern is where in the process do you release those names? And the further you are in the process, the better we feel. Our office feels about the ability, legal ability to. Release the names. You just can't do it. If there's simply an allegation, you'd probably want to wait for the inspection to be completed, the violations to be reported at some point. There is is the possibility if council wishes to release those names. We're just concerned about the due process. And I think I can say with confidence that this entire body would support due process and ensure that this doesn't become just a shaming site for allegations made. But really sometimes the last resort for individuals who struggle with the worst case scenario. Landlord. And so I do think that that's that's where this council is going. Understood. We will work to get something back to you. Okay. Thank you. So there's been a motion and a second in the motion is with councilwoman. Councilwoman Gonzalez has three items for request for information to be back to this council in 30 days. Our understanding is also that based on Councilmember Richardson's request is though we are not taking action on defining what periodic inspections are, but at at some point in the very near future, that does have to be addressed. With that councilmembers, please cast your vote. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. Okay.