Also: DA Hogan praises City Council for chief, police hires
By Kyle Carrozza, Staff Writer, The Times
District Attorney Tom Hogan thanks city council for their support of the police department.
COATESVILLE – Amid vocal opposition from landlords of the Coatesville Housing Association, City Council passed an ordinance on Monday night that will charge landlords $50 for inspections, $25 per unit for rental licenses, and a $50 to clear complaints should tenants find their units in violation of city code.
While some landlords were fine with the inspection and license fees, they opposed the $50 fee to clear complaints, saying that tenants could use unfounded complaints to punish landlords for unrelated disagreements.
“The tenant can call every day. There’s no language in there that says the tenant needs to call the landlord first and explain the problem. If the landlord and tenant have a disagreement, all the tenant has to do is call up, and every time they call it’s $50,” said landlord Joseph Leofsky.
Council President Joseph Hamrick said that while that may be the case, inspections to ensure complaints are taken care of still cost the city money.
“We don’t know what issues you have with your tenant,” he said. “When our department is called in on that, we have to charge a fee. If it’s a bogus call, we still have to inspect.”
Council Vice President David Collins agreed.
“You have to cover the operating costs for doing business,” he said.
City Codes Director Damalier Molina said that he has not seen many unfounded calls for inspection.
“If landlords are on top of their properties, you won’t have a lot of these issues,” he said.
Council Member Ed Simpson opposed the ordinance, saying it needed to be vetted further.
“I think we need to discuss some of the issues that the landlords have brought up,” he said.
Simpson also said that the city could possibly raise taxes rather than charging for each inspection on an individual basis. He said that the city is a service provider, and they do not charge citizens for each individual police response, for example.
Council Member Marie Hess said that part of the reason she voted in favor of the ordinance was because the city has not collected anything for the fees in question this year. She said that in order for the city to start collecting those fees, which were projected in the budget, the motion had to be passed.
District Attorney Tom Hogan also gave a presentation Monday night thanking City Council for their hiring of additional police officers and Police Chief Jack Laufer.
After 2012, which Hogan called one of the worst years in Coatesville, the DA’s office implored council to hire a strong police chief and additional officers. Hogan said that Coatesville has since gone a year and a half without a murder.
“You gave us Jack Laufer, a chief who is strong, a man of great personal integrity, a man of outstanding experience, and a man of very good judgment,” he said.
Hogan said that council also put “good, aggressive” officers out there. He closed his presentation with a request.
“If you talk to the members of the school board and tell them when I suggest something it’s not necessarily a bad idea, that would be appreciated,” he joked.
Laufer responded by thanking Hogan’s office for doing their part in reducing crime, calling cooperation between the police department and DA’s office a partnership. He also said that Hogan helped to mentor him when he first took over as police chief in Coatesville.
In order to help those crime fighting efforts, council also voted in favor of the appointment of part time officers Ryan Corcorran and Jared Davis to full time status.
What each landlord needs to do is make the tenants immediately sign an addendum to the lease stating they need to provide the landlord with written notice prior to calling codes. If the tenant refuses to provide the notice the tenant is responsible for the $50 fee. If the tenant doesn’t pay the $50 fee in 5 days they are in breach of this addendum thus breach of the lease.
This City Council and City Manager and crew are definitely not a service “business”. If they treated it like a business then they would not lose money every year. We need more “Pro Business” leaders to fill this council and city management.