Brownsville council details proposed rental ordinance
BROWNSVILLE — At its regular monthly meeting, borough council gave details about a rental ordinance it advertised earlier this month that would impose an annual $60 charge per rental unit on landlords.
In response to concern from landlords about the ordinance, which was advertised on Oct. 3, borough Solicitor Krisha DiMascio noted previous promises by council that it would hold a public hearing to collect input about the proposal.
DiMascio recommended that council hold the public hearing at 6:30 p.m. before its next regularly scheduled meeting, which is slated for Tuesday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m.
The ordinance would also mandate an occupancy inspection every two years, even if landlords have had the same tenants for a longer time period, DiMascio said.
“It’s a very standard ordinance,” DiMascio said Tuesday. “The price changes from community to community, obviously.”
Council President Jack Lawver included revenues coming from the ordinance, which is available for review at the borough office at 200 Second St., as part of his 2018 budget proposal in August.
Lawver designed that proposed budget to keep the borough’s police department, increase funding for street improvements and avoid a tax hike.
Several landlords weighed in against the proposed ordinance at Tuesday night’s meeting, adding that they had yet to review the ordinance.
“I would just like to say, I know there’s three landlords that are here that have put a lot of money into this town,” landlord Ike Polacek said. “It seems to me we ought to be rewarded for bringing people into this town and creating opportunities instead of being taxed for it.”
“It’s very hard to get good tenants,” landlord Andy Pasquini said. ” … I have tenants that work at Exxon. There’s no real bunch of good jobs around here that you can charge higher rents.”
DiMascio argued that the proposed ordinance would help some landlords charge more for rent because other landlords that charge lower amounts for rent but don’t upkeep their rental properties will have to bring their properties up to a higher standard.
“Hopefully this makes it a better market for a better quality of people,” DiMascio said. “People that want to be part of the community, people that want to live in Brownsville, people that want a good place to rent. We hope that’s what the endgame is so the costs can go down or we can phase the program out.”
DiMascio added that the borough would have to readvertise the ordinance before the Nov. 14 meeting since ordinances must be advertised not more than 30 or less than seven calendar days before passage.
Council and attendees alluded to two recent budget proposals made by council members earlier this month. Lawver said after the meeting that one proposal would keep borough police Chief Stan Jablonsky as a full-time officer but eliminate the department’s other full-time officer and three part-time officers, and that the other proposal would eliminate the police department entirely.
Lawver said those budget proposals were made by Councilmen Ron Bakewell, Brenda Bush, Bob Kovach and Jim Lawver, who voted on Aug. 15 to advertise an ordinance to disband the Brownsville Police Department effective Jan. 1, 2018, a move that would make state police in Belle Vernon solely responsible for covering the borough from that point on.
But council has not yet held a vote on disbandment and has not yet advertised any such ordinance, with Jim Lawver saying at a meeting last month that council was still “looking into monies” to try to maintain borough police.
Brownsville Neighborhood Watch President Lisa Synuria criticized some council members proposing to raise taxes while also cutting police coverage.
“If you’re going to raise my taxes, you best be giving us 24/7 local police protection,” Synuria said. “Not just 40 hours a week like you plan on the one budget.”
In a 4-3 vote, council members and Mayor Lester Ward voted to eliminate WiarCom GPS tracking on borough police vehicles. Councilman Ross Swords made the motion to do so, saying that the borough’s contract with WiarCom had expired and that eliminating the GPS tracking would save the borough $49.90 per month.
Ward cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of eliminating the GPS tracking, breaking a 3-3 vote that came about after Councilman Jim Lawver left the meeting to go to work.
In April 2016, council approved its members having access to WiarCom GPS tracking on borough police vehicles available on their cellphones as well as on the hard drive of a borough computer.
Swords said GPS wiring had caused some police vehicle damage, but Kovach said the GPS tracking unit in question had been repaired and was working properly for approximately two months. In response to Kovach saying that the GPS tracking service is working on council members’ cellphones, Swords said that keeping track of police vehicles via cellphone was for people that “have nothing to do.”
Bakewell then made a motion, seconded by Bush, that council look into GPS tracking units available at a cheaper price.
“I think it’s important that we have the GPS,” Bakewell said.
But council voted 4-3 against doing so, with Ward again casting the tie-breaking vote to a smattering of attendee applause.
“Don’t you people realize it’s for your own good?” Bakewell asked.
“We will bring it back up,” Bush said, who voted against eliminating GPS tracking and for checking into other GPS options along with Bakewell and Kovach.
Jim Lawver said in 2016 that the GPS system had been put in place because of complaints of borough police cars being “all over hell’s creation” and “flying down the road,” with the GPS system tracking those vehicles’ location and speed.
Earlier in the meeting, Bakewell said that the borough was slated to bring in $68,000 in revenues from now until the end of the year, with expected expenses totaling $175,624.
“We don’t have a great deal of money that we’re dealing with,” Bakewell said.