Agenda - Council - 02/11/2025 - Laserfiche WebLink

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She noted that there are also other avenues that they can advocate for tenants' rights as well as property owners' rights by having an open dialogue to allow tenants to talk to their landlords about concerns. She added that they can come up with other ways to protect the tenants without lessening what they are doing with this policy. Mayor Heineman noted the spirit of this policy to ensure there is a safe environment and that tenants and landlords are not taking advantage of each other. He said he would like to still allow the tenants to have security and privacy while the City is ensuring their living conditions are safe. Councilmember Specht said he is not concerned with this being a trust issue with Staff. He stated he is struggling with finding the balance with this policy where they are ensuring that tenants and landlords have a safe environment while not infringing upon anyone's right. He suggested scaling down the inspection checklist. Mayor Heineman shared that even when the Police Department is issued a warrant to search someone's residence, there are limitations to what they are able to search through. He noted that the inspectors are only entering these units to inspect certain things and anything that is outside of these set items would be off limits. Councilmember Buscher asked how many complaints they have received from tenants in the City about this being an overly restrictive policy. Community Development Director Hanson said they have only received one complaint. City Administrator Hagen shared that last year they had an apartment tenant who completely disagreed with letting the inspector in and they were able to address this situation right away with the concerned resident and they worked out an agreement that they would just inspect the unit after the tenant moved out. He explained that when they brought on a new Code Enforcement Officer a few years ago the code enforcement process began to move forward. He shared that during this time they were receiving calls from renters who were concerned with the state of their units. He said they have gotten support from the residents on this policy so far. The consensus of the Council was to direct Staff to scale back the inspection requirements and continue this discussion at the next Work Session. 3. TOPICS FOR FUTURE DISCUSSION 3.01: Review Future Topics/ Calendar Noted. 4. MAYOR / COUNCIL / STAFF INPUT Councilmember Peters shared that he had residents contact him about the new State flag. Councilmember Stewart shared that she was also contacted by a resident in regard to the State flag. City Council Work Session / January 28, 2025 Page 8 of 9