Mayor Collin: Let's move
onto number two moratorium on commercial evictions.
Stroud: This was requested last Friday, Newsom's
executive order from March 16 - moratorium through March 31st. residential and commercial don’t have to be
treated same, residential seem more critical, to prevent homelessness, if
people lose home, they can't shelter at home, that could make worse spread of
the Covid-19 disease. Commercial
evictions not same immediate public health impact. Small business loans are
available- landlords can't find another tenant during this time. If you do move forward, let's bring back at
next council meeting or ask Mr. Kilger to issue emergency. [expecting more from Newsom which did come March 27]
Middlebrook: What
about when the eviction order goes away, what are some long term guarantees or
protections, for after May 30th?
Stroud: Good question. The governor only orders through May 31st and
only temporary relief, that rent still needs to be paid after emergency is
over. The residential we drafted goes
beyond May 31, we can do something similar with commercial. If we make time period too long, it puts
landlords in difficult position as well, they have their own bills and
payroll. We can put an extended time in
there.
Bass: I definitely want to support some type of
restriction on commercial evictions, but be cautious, this is completely
different area, the lease is so much different than a residential lease and I
don't want the city to be party to every unlawful detainer that comes through
the pipe. We need to protect our
businesses but we need to move carefully, I don't see the need for a rush, we
have time to do this carefully, follow guidance of other cities. Commercial
evictions is a way different thing, it's a contract not with landlord-tenant
rights like with residential people. I
don't see getting this by my landlord, but I do think we have to take action
for sure.
Laine: Is there a way to make it clear this is for rent
coming up in April and May, not for a business that's already behind on
rent. Other question, how does this
affect a landlord who already is in the process of an eviction that is costly
and takes quite a bit of time. Anyone who's in that process that has nothing to
do with Covid-19 is there a way of protecting them?
Stroud: Yes the
first question yes. We did for the
residential moratorium is only in effect from the date it was announced, which
was March nineteenth, through May 31st, so it would only cover rent payments
through that period of time that are documented to be due to coronavirus. For
commercial evictions, should council move forward, we would absolutely do the
same thing. Second question, how would this affect evictions already in
process, it does not affect those started before March 19th.
Laine: What if a tenant uses this opportunity to delay
payment of rent and the landlord declines their request?
Stroud: It would
depend on how the regulation is drafted, but there has to be a documented
request to landlord and reasons why, it could be playing out in court in
eviction proceedings.
Middlebrook: what happens to landlords paying mortgages
on commercial property.
Stroud: There has been mortgage relief granted at federal
level and it seems like it's fairly broad, protection from foreclosures.
Mayor Collin: Same with residential mortgages, there's
efforts on all fronts.
Tamara Wallace: Would this put us in the middle of
contracts and could we be opening ourselves up to litigation?
Stroud: Good question, personally as your city atty I'm
hoping the governor does a statewide action for that reason. [He did on March 27]. This is an unprecedented event and it's
happened so fast, many government including City of Lake Tahoe are taking
actions that a month ago if you had told me we would be doing this, I would
have thought you were all crazy. So it
is somewhat special times, but yes there is a risk of litigation getting
between contracts. [DISCUSSION on procedure if governor does not take action]
Bass: As we did with lodging guidance, we could give some
to commercial property owners, telling them how and why to not stay open. Doing that allows us to- essential businesses
will be able to pay their rent- we need to get messaging around but wait for
governor and not act as a city.
Laine: I disagree. This is a time where we have to take
bold leadership, not wait for other people to do it for us, this is our
community our businesses we're trying to protect. And the notion we might open ourselves to
liability that's true with every move and decision we make. Not a way I encourage people to think at this
time. I'm still willing to support this,
then fall in line with state at that time but this is not time to sit on our
hands.
Mayor Collin: My
one concern is most commercial property owners will do right thing, they're in
same boat their businesses being hurt, we'll see it on residential side as
well. I think we should grant some relief but limit our exposure and do it
right. This is not forgiveness, it's
temporary relief. Right?
Stroud: Yes
Mayor Collin: Make
sure language is that it's temporary relief.
Kilger: I agree in most circumstances but we have asked
for weekly check in meetings and by the time we draft this, it could take
several days. In this instance, if we're
going to reconvene next Wednesday we'll know what the state is going to do.
Mayor Collin: Good
point. We should work on this and bring
it back to next council meeting? [DISCUSSION on procedure]
Bass: My opinion
is if the governor doesn't do anything, we can act next week. [more discussion
on procedure]
Stroud: your
direction is to bring something back to next council meeting if governor
doesn't take action. [he did March 27]
Mayor Collin: Now onto next item, prohibition on short
term lodging on non essential travel.
Stroud: As you
know, Newsom's "stay at home order" issued March 19, as well as El
Dorado County, both limit non essential travel.
Issued last night clarification that staying less than 30 days in
lodging for recreation or tourism is not permitted. Short term lodging can continue for four
reasons: to help homeless individuals, for Covid-19 containment, housing workers
performing critical functions, and fourth to provide housing for SRO tenants
who find different housing. I would say
the city does not need to adopt its own orders because of these state order.
[Details of orders] I am available for
questions.
Laine: Are the
state and county orders similar?
Stroud: The state's order is bare bones and kind of broad
but harder to interpret but they're issuing further guidance. The County's is very detailed and helpful to
any enforcement efforts we'd want to take on short term lodging. [Procedural
Discussion ]
Stroud: Yes there is software that aids us in enforcement
of short term rental operating without permit.
We capture screen shots of ads for vacation rentals, so we could
identify ones advertising availability earlier, but a lot have kept their ads
up from before the virus and also are taking reservations for six months out
when hopefully this is over.
Police Ltn Shannon Laney:
Most of them are probably still up there. Advertising is not criminal. Ability to go out there it has to be
complaint based and a lot of rentals are by persons for their own houses.
Laine: I hope the
software is sophisticated enough that we can drill down- people who are
advertising for summer now is fine, but now through May 31st, we want to make
sure those calendars are not available, because we know for a fact that it
still is happening, not on a large scale, but we want to shut it down.
Mayor Collin: I
don't know how labor intensive it would be though, you'd have to go into each
property to see availability in calendar.
Kilger: I don't
know if any of our housing or development directors are on the call who can
tell us what information they have access to?
Doesn't sound like it, we will have to take a look at that.
Middlebrook: Is
there any need for us to pass our own ordinance just to get the point across to
people that you're not supposed to be renting.
That would be a question, then what are plans for enforcement, how do
you tell if it's the person who owns the home or a renter. I think we need to discourage people coming
up here to live in their second homes, we can't ban people from using homes
they own, but really strongly discourage it.
Kilger: We have
been notifying through concept of shelter in place, even Caltrans is taking the
position that people need to not travel. Depending on what resources we have we
will do whatever we can to spread that message.
Stroud: The ban on
non essential travel and now on non essential lodging has been in effect since
March 19th. Should we adopt our own ban,
I advise against that, because when there are overlapping jurisdictions, there
can be conflict and preemption or confusion.
We should comply with the rules already in place and the state's order. It could be difficult and intrusive and
resource intensive but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. So we should adopt a fining process to ramp
up enforcement and we'd have criminal enforcement available as well.
Mayor Collin: If
they're advertising- and there's no law against advertising- but if they are
actually booking, would that be breaking law.
Stroud: I would
say advertising and booking are not breaking the law, but they are evidence of
breaking law, breaking the law would be actually having persons staying in the
property for non essential purposes.
Mayor Collin:
Questions?
Wallace: I have a few questions. Can you clarify difference between criminal
violation and admin violation?
Laney: The
difference for us on enforcement side is first we have to verify the purpose of
the person being there. Make sure it's not the owner, make sure there's a
reason. Are they going to be here after March 20th which is when the travel
restriction kicked in, there's a number of questions to ask. So it's easier for us to have it.
Wallace: An owner
was on news last night talking about people who are here and can't get out
because they're from out of the country and those type of things, so we're not
going to be fining those people, because they can't leave, because they have
nowhere to go.
Stroud: I would suggest as always that our police
department and I think they do use their judgment and discretion so in this
case we'd want to be making sure that the eye is to the public health and we
would not want to exacerbate that by making somebody travel when they're not
supposed to travel so in a case like that, I don't see enforcement.
Wallace: And this
is also for hotel motel properties, I'm being told there are some that are
still advertising and open for business currently and they should not be either. And have we- I know that we- when we talked
about this originally we were going to send them a letter similar to the VHR
owners. Has that gone out?
Stroud: Yes an
email went out yesterday to all VHR permit holders and hotels and motels
requesting that they not make bookings through April 23rd and now county is
based on state order doesn't have an end date.
So we are treating them in the same manner.
Wallace: Mr.
Kilger, once we identify a property is out of compliance, what will be our
policy?
Kilger: I
understand proactive versus reactive enforcement is always an issue, under
these circumstances waiting to hear from council today. Up to now we've been doing warnings,
Lieutenant Laney can elaborate. We're finding out there are always some bad
players but we're getting quite a bit of cooperation, even though it shows
they're taking bookings, they are telling people they're not until after
termination of orders. So depending in
approach we take, a citation, a warning, follow up with a citation, it's
different if dealing with someone in the unit, we'd have to give them time to
leave, we've not gotten to that situation yet.
Laney: Yes we had one this weekend that we contacted and
they voluntarily left. Others weren’t
VHRs once we confirmed the address.
Hopefully we can give a warning first, enforcement is always important
for a community, if the council decides that- we're in uncharted territory
here.
Wallace: Community
alliance put out notice they're encouraging VHR companies to close their
properties. We all know there are some
bad actors, but there are responsible owners that are doing it. If there are bad actors, we have to enforce
to the fullest, in my opinion. We need
to deal with this. I believe that's all
of my questions, thank you.
Mayor Collin: Mr. Bass?
Bass: I pretty
much support everything that's been said up to this, as to the administrative
fine that we can approve, which I think we should do, is that to the renter or
the person who owns the VHR or both?
Stroud: I would suggest the ability to issue fines to
either owner or occupant depending on circumstance, in almost every case fining
the owner and then depending on the circumstances the occupant, that's how a
lot of our VHR enforcement authority already is handled.
Bass: Great. I was thinking it was a way to add an
administrative fine for violating the ordinance, if there was a way to fine the
occupant. That's something I think we
definitely should do, my direction is to be really heavy handed with the
enforcement, I believe the order is out, in case of a violation I think we need
to go at an unprecedented level of enforcement from where we've been in the
past, and I think we're hearing that far and loud from the community. It's not a joking matter at this point and we
should definitely stand up and protect our community in the best possible way.
Middlebrook: Ms.
Stroud, what is our ability, how much flexibility do we have and can we
increase that from a thousand? To say twenty five hundred or five thousand?
Stroud: No our fining authority for administrative fines
is set out in the government code and capped at one thousand dollars per
violation, if multiples by one owner would add up, but it's per violation. If
there were multiple violations, then criminal action might be used to people
compliant. [OVERLAPPING CONVERSATION]
Mayor Collin:
Property owners and rentals are a critical part of our community
economy, this is a critical act for us as a city and county as well, these
decisions do not come easily. It's important
the public knows we are doing everything we can to be informed then act in best
interest of community at large. The health impact is the biggest piece
first. We're in response mode now, have
to think about recovering and plan for that.
Another thing in documents from the state and county, for
state homeowner there is no date on the order.
I think we should give ourselves a date as a leeway, important for the
businesses as well, to get people back up here will be critical for all the
businesses in Tahoe. The governor's
order is both a health and safety order, serving- prioritizing those at highest
risk. We may need to partner with the
county on this since they are our public health department. Where we've seen this in California so far
it's counties or cities that don’t have health departments of their own.
With so many visitors now, do we have increased capacity
for some investigation or do checks on these homes, virtually or in person?
Laney: Yeah we have five full time still healthy and working,
we've reduced staff to reduce contact, but we drive by VHRs and view
occupancy. We are looking for them and
trying to identify them.
Mayor Collin: If
we can do things virtually see people aren’t advertising, we sent out notice to
hotel motels- I don't want to get into constitutional rights, with a stay at
home order and people who've been there since before order went into place, as
long as people are doing the right thing.
I would like to see us do is wait on it, it's had a lot of impact in
press, we're already seeing less visitors, people are taking it more seriously
probably in people's hometowns as well.
Glad to see our law enforcement just tackling it and paying attention to
what's going on and then addressing those issues directly. Any more comments or questions?
Laine: I have
concerns about not having a date because I think that's confusing, people can
book for May and then we're not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, have to cancel and refunds. It's much clearer to put a date in
there. May thirty first is the date that
everyone is using. We can lift
provision, but without a date it's going to be confusing.
Mayor Collin: When
you say everybody is using May thirty first, who are you referring to?
Laine: I'm
referring to that's a date commonly used for example for example the
residential evictions. Putting some date
on it so people can plan, to have it open ended is a problem.
Bass: I have some
concerns too because I don't know- I don't recommend it personally because how
are we going to clarify May thirty first is the day and it could in fact be
sooner than that. If we say May thirty
first, the reality is a lot of- it's a lot to put that on people, I think that
would be more hysteria with that.
Kilger: My sense is nobody knows when this is going to
end, it could be shorter it could be, in my feeling, much longer. I have just
in terms of ability of staff to manage it, it's better to have some date, I
would ask the city attorney opinion on that, could we stop it at an earlier
date?
Stroud: The
county's clarification of the state order is in effect until the state is
lifted and the state order does not have an end date, it basically is
indefinite. The city could do one more
strict than the state order but not less strict than the state order. So the difficulty is time. The advertising is
not necessarily a violation, booking is not a violation, it's the travel. That's not helpful to our lodging property
owners but I don't have a good answer for what date we would use.
Middlebrook: Could
it be everyone will want to travel after being holed up in their homes for
weeks. If they want to book for June,
knowing maybe it's going to have to get canceled, I understand your point- it's
going to be critical for our recovery.
Laine: Yes, that's a fair way of restating it. Could we change this order should things get
better and reverse side and also extend it if we have to, the answer is we
could do either. Helpful to have something for people to move toward.
Mayor Collin: I
think May 31st the way it's run its course around the country, we should be
coming out of it by then. To not allow
bookings until then could hurt business community even if it's a week. Let the operators and owners know that if we
extend the date, those people are not going to be allowed to stay here. Give
them the ability to say if they want to book and refund, that's their business
decision. We're going to need to jump
start our economy as soon as possible.
Bass: I think
that's why you keep it indefinite, as much as we're committed to get them open
as soon as possible so best to not put a date and follow the example of the
state, then when it's time we'll be ready to go.
Stroud: The message to properties yesterday asked they
not accept travel through April 23rd, a request not a mandate. We could change messaging when the date gets
closer instead of an order with a hard date.
Mayor Collin:
April 23rd is better for a hard date. [SEVERAL VOICE AGREEMENT]
Stroud: I'm
hearing from council is there isn’t a desire at this time to do our own
regulation above and beyond the state and county. There is interest in setting up a procedure
for enforcement and fines, to be decided at next week's meeting.
Laine: How does April 23rd date factor into that.
Stroud: I would suggest that date for communication but
not as an order, based on what happens with the virus and with the state and
county. The county's is a directive, the
state's is an order. [Discussion on procedure]
Kilger: If the occupant does not leave, we have the
authority to also cite the occupant.
Middlebrook: Can
we arrest them and force them out if they don’t leave?
Laney: We can't force our way into a residence and go
after them but what I would suggest is that we fine them and it goes against
their permit renewal. And then if the
visitor doesn't leave we can do administrative citations to them so if they
stay, it's a thousand dollars day one a thousand dollars day two and so on and
so forth, like we do for some VHR violations, would be my recommendation. [discussion on procedure]
Stroud: Yes each day would be a separate violation and
incur a separate fine.
Jason Collin: So we want to increase enforcement and
encourage officers to go forward with administrative fines.
Sroud: We would
need to establish a code amendment. [DISCUSSION ON PROCEDURE ]
Blaine: I move
that we direct the director of emergency services to adopt an administrative
citation for up to a thousand dollars for violation of the state order.
Jason Collin: We have
motion and two seconds. Vote:
Carried Unanimously.
Jason Collin: Okay now back to public comments,
Blankenship: We've
already closed public comments, any additional I'll put into public record. [Discussion
on procedure]
Kilger: In future we'll plan on Wednesday at one for meeting
except for next week (?)
Bass: Again this
is an unprecedented time for everyone in the world, the city has done a great
job adapting to what's changing around us, we've all got to adapt as we move forward
and I believe that's what we're doing, hats off to all the staff, we're doing
all we can. I hope that next week we can
continue to see solutions. I'll see you guys
next Wednesday.
Laine:
I commend city leadership staff council and mayor for continued diligence, love
that we're meeting every week so we can respond quickly as things change. I hear from a lot of the community that they appreciate
it. I want clarity on public notice [discussion
on procedure and thank you's]
*
Meeting again next Wednesday, hour to be decided.
*
Video of City Council meeting https://slt.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=6&clip_id=1086
*
NOTE: The clips I transcribe for this project contain information that I don't think is available in print anywhere else. Please show your appreciation by clicking some cash into my PayPal account through button at top of left hand column.)
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Posted by Kay Ebeling
Producer, City of Angels Blog
the city of angels is everywhere
