City Council

CITY OF MCKEESPORT REGULAR MEETING WEDNESDAY 7:19 P.M. MARCH 1, 2017 This Meeting of Council was called to order on the above-stated date at the above-stated time after the Pledge of Allegiance and a Moment of Silence by President of Council Richard Dellapenna. Prayer was led by Gladys Hunt-Mason of Anglican Diocese. The following Members of Council were present: RC-1 PRESENT: RICHARD DELLAPENNA, JIM BARRY, LUETHEL NESBIT, KEITH SOLES, FAWN WALKER-MONTGOMERY, TIMOTHY BROWN, JAMIE BREWSTER-FILOTEI. Also present were Mayor Michael Cherepko, City Administrator Matthew Gergely, City Solicitor J. Jason Elash and members of the Administration. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: MOTION: Mrs. Nesbit moved, seconded by Mr. Soles, “to approve the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of February 1, 2017.” RC-2 YEAS: DELLAPENNA, BARRY, NESBIT, SOLES, WALKER- MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI (7) NAYS: NONE (0) COMMUNICATIONS: Received both the Fire and Police Department Reports for the month of February 2017. MAYOR’S REPORT: Thank you, Mr. President. It’s going to be a long Agenda, I know we have several people signed up to speak, I am going to be very brief this evening. Just a couple of announcements to be quite honest with you, I know we talked a lot earlier about things. I just want to remind everyone the Aldi’s Grand Opening a week from today, I believe at 9:00 a.m., that’s March 8th at 9:00 a.m. to welcome a new [1] retail store into town at the old guess at one point in time it was Ame’s and Zayre’s. So, we are very excited to see them opening up. A few months down the road we will be having Reilly’s right down the street, O’Reilly’s, I’m sorry, where the old Chic’s Grille was. They will be buying, they bought that other building as well and are tearing that down and building a brand-new building there for their new business. Vegely will be moving his operations soon, his business into town, on the Walnut corridor, down at the old Capco building that he purchased last year. He is looking to bring all of his operations over there. We have another gentleman buying property on Walnut as well. He’s going to bring a construction business, some other things that I’ve been working with Mr. Dellapenna on. He’s pretty much put his deposit down and is looking to get that property very soon as well. Just so everyone is aware, you are going to see the Family Dollar in Christy Park, it will be switching over to a Dollar Express. That deals with Family Dollar. Dollar Street bought out Family Dollar. They had to turn a certain number of stores over in order to settle with the FEC to make sure those regulations were met when they bought them. No reason to look into it any further than what it is. It’s just one of the stores is switching over and I warn you only because you know people see things and right away they think something is going wrong. For example, last month I believe the Developer put the Family Dollar property on Versailles Avenue up for sale and right away everyone thought the business was doing bad. To be quite honest with you it’s not the case. Just once he developed the property he is looking to sell the property and move on but the store itself is doing very well and exceeded expectations by a very large number the first and second quarter. I believe they were up there so things are going well there. The only other thing I have is, well actually two things, I just want to remind everyone, about the fish fries and get out there and support your local churches. I believe to my knowledge we have three here in town, St. Sava, Corpus Christi and St. Stephen’s. St. Stephen’s is only on Good Friday and St. Sava’s and Corpus Christi will be every Friday I believe, except Good Friday. So, get out there and you know this is a nice little fundraiser for these churches. The only other thing I have this evening is obviously, last week, last month, I’m sorry, I asked for an appointment to replace someone on the Zoning Board with [2] the death we had. We also had a death with the Planning Commission. Ms. Popovich who was also on the Civil Service Commission we did replace her prior to that. This month I’m asking for a nice young man, it’s nice to see someone a little younger willing to get involved and take initiative in the community. He was part of the Downtown Business Authority for a few years as well. I’ve known him for a very long time, pretty much all of my life, and I think he is here with us tonight, but I’m going to ask Council for Shawn Potts, you probably have seen him. He was in here speaking with us about things with the Downtown Business Authority, so I am just going to ask you for this appointment and that will conclude my report Mr. President. MOTION: Mr. Barry moved, seconded by Mrs. Brewster-Filotei “to appoint Shawn Potts to the Planning Commission board of the City of McKeesport.” RC-3 YEAS: DELLAPENNA, BARRY, NESBIT, SOLES, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI (7) NAYS: NONE (0) Mayor Cherepko said that concludes my report and President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor. CITIZENS IN THE AUDIENCE: President Dellapenna called to move onto Citizens in the Audience and said we have a lot of people signed up to speak so please be considerate. You have three minutes to speak. Come forward, state your name, address and what you are speaking in regards to. Mr. Regis Mellinger. Regis Mellinger, 1612 Packer Street. McKeesport, it’s time to get pumped about a good thing that is coming to our City and all of our roads to success. Infrastructure is imperative to success and binding cities in today’s modern era. Here we are talking about being the best we can be and with our hills, vistas and river trails are bounding. We can be one step above all other cities. One map defines our terrain and reimages the bikability of McKeesport. We have terrain for Trail Peters. Please check that out. We have riverside trails for anybody who just wants to take a nice, chill walk. Similar to sky resort maps, color-coding our streets based on terrain or traffic promotes safety. Also, an opportunity to quantify the percentages of safe terrain vs. dangerous terrain, even if you look at [3] the 10th Ward District, it’s supposedly all terrain so we can advertise that to people who like it. Also, most importantly, an advertising opportunity. Bike trails in the City attract the kid of people we really need in McKeesport. If those visitors were just driving across, it gives you plenty of Instagram for media competition. All the stuff they need. It creates competition. You got all sort of races, a Tour de Fort. Why not the same things we can do? McKeesport, be the best bike City you can be and remember always wear a helmet. Mr. Stark, please come forward, said President Dellapenna, state your name and address. Jonathan Stark, 672 Market Street. Good evening Members of Council, Mayor and Administrators. I wanted to speak quickly on the new Landlord registration. I only learned about this earlier tonight so my comments are completely off the cuff but I do want to share some concerns. I do understand why you feel you need this type of Ordinance but it concerns me because homeowners are not going to be subjected to this same type of regular searches at their house. I think everybody would not want this at their house every two years for inspection and I don’t see why a tenant wouldn’t have that same right or expectation. People that know me they know I’ve been here with hundreds of properties, commercial and residential. Most of the properties that I purchase are owned by homeowners, not owned by landlords. They are typically in horrible condition and have been that way for a long time. This type of an Ordinance would do nothing to I guess combat those types of properties because you are not actually going into those properties to see them. It would only be (train – inaudible) but all of the properties I see are in very poor shape. One of my biggest concerns is that what I am reading is not Constitutional. There is a case from Portsmouth, OH where they had, the City, basically the exact same Ordinance that we are talking about right now, inspection and fees and a Federal Court ruled that it was a violation of their Fourth Amendment Right because it’s a warrantless search. So, like I said, there is case law for this being Unconstitutional already. I do know again that we have a problem, there’s no question, there’s a lot of bad landlords in McKeesport. There’s no dispute of that at all. I’m not saying additional regulations, I feel there are tools that exist already to combat these problems. I’m certain that you guys already know a lot of the bad landlords in McKeesport. I feel that enforcement could be stepped up substantially to get those guys. Cite them. Bring them in [4] front of the Magistrate. A lot of these people don’t pay taxes. You know, let’s start doing that tax sales. There’s plenty of guys just like me that are willing to go out, fix up those properties, and get them back on the tax rolls. But I have concerns with creating additional regulations where we already have a lot. The last thing is of course any time you have any new fees, as Brandon said earlier, everybody thinks that landlords, we are multi-millionaires, we don’t work and we just collect checks all day. It’s not. Margins are slim. It’s hard to make money doing what we do. Especially if you have a nice property and naturally anytime you have any type of a new fee, of course that is going to be passed onto the tenants. So, you know, somebody will have to pay if there is a new fee that’s imposed. Thank you very much. President Dellapenna called Mr. Kucich. Brandon Kucich, 1633 Soles. I just appreciate if next time you guys do something like this we could all sit down and talk and let’s get all the landlords together. Like he said. I mean, ride by my shop, I could give you all of the landlords that don’t do nothing and it’s a shame that it feels like the good people get penalized. How are you going to find all these people that don’t live in the City and go after them? You are going to go after me because you know me but then those that don’t live around here, how are you going to find them. So how’s that fair to us? And another thing too, it’s not right either. How would you like if I went to your place? I mean it’s not fair. How you guys say about we had that tragedy. Any other fires, what about that other house that people died in. What are you going to do there? Mayor Cherepko said, if I may, you are right, the landlords have already been identified. You are right, a lot of them are absentee. If there’s someone renting the place, then we will be able to get in touch with the landlord. As far as the Constitutional side of things, this is all being pushed by the District Attorney. Anyone that doesn’t want to let us in, we will get an Administrative Warrant to get in. It’s just a way of really saving lives. There’s no question, Brandon, I know Jon personally, I know you personally, and I’ll tell you both, you are two very good landlords. I mean there’s no question in my mind and on the other hand I think it’s a good thing to know that when we come in for these inspections, these aren’t going to be your house inspections, you know like when you purchase a property [5] they are going to come in and they are going to go over every little thing. It’s going to be about fire codes, it’s going to be more safety on that end, but I will tell you the big driving force behind this is when we met with Steve Zappala about two years ago now maybe longer. But the enforcement I can tell you right now this administration is going to do anything we can because the ones that we are really targeting are the ones that come in, think they are going to come, buy a house for $5,000, put $3,000 into it, some of the conditions these people are living in are so unbelievable. I mean people can’t even imagine. I think there’s dilapidated, I think there’s vacant houses, dilapidated vacant houses that are in better condition than some of these people that are paying $700 a month. You are right, this gives us more to crack down on them and it also lets them know that McKeesport is not going to be a dumping ground. They are not just going to come in and put a couple dollars in and make their money and walk away. But I will admit and I will agree with you, the hard part is going to be enforcement with them. I don’t deny that challenge. Mr. Kucich said one last thing, my biggest thing is, if you have the Fire Company come in, ok, and you say oh, there’s no smoke detector and we’ve had Section 8 they came in inspected and then made us put one in again, ok. The tenant, in a matter of 7 days takes it back down. Who’s going to take the blame for that if something happens? And after the Fire Company just came in. Mayor Cherepko said I couldn’t agree with you more. Mrs. Nesbit said if I may interject, something like that, take a picture. If you get cited, you’ve taken a picture, you’ve had the tenant sign off. You have that as proof that it was put there, we see it there, we can take that into account. In my business that’s what we do. We document everything we do. We get the clients to sign off on it because they do the same thing to us. We give the high efficiency lightbulbs and 10 minutes after we are out there sometimes they disappear but we put them there because we are going to be checked by the State as to whether they were there or not and we have the proof. So, if you do that I am quite sure the Fire Department can see. Mr. Kucich said ok so then McKeesport Housing Corporation are they going to get this too? Are they? Not the Housing Corporation, the Housing Authority. So, are you telling me they are not going to have to pay the fee and I have to pay the fee? [6] Mayor Cherepko said yes, they will have to pay the fee. Mr. Kucich asked, are they going to have to have the test done too? Mrs. Nesbit said it’s already…Mayor Cherepko said they already get inspections. Mr. Kucich said I know but I could say I do the same thing. How do they get to say that? Mr. Dellapenna said, if you have Section 8 Brandon you don’t have to have the inspection from the Fire Department. Mayor Cherepko said no the Fire Department is not going to do it. Solicitor Elash said if your property is Section 8 you won’t be subject to the inspections either. Mr. Kucich said I know but you want me, so you are telling me to go get Section 8 in all my rentals? Mayor Cherepko said that is not what we are saying. Mr. Kucich but that’s how. Mayor Cherepko said Section 8 gets inspected every year. They are getting it more often and they will pay the same fee. I think what he is saying is that they don’t have to pay a fee. Mayor Cherepko said they are, I’m telling you they are, and they did have to prior to this. You just passed an Ordinance, or if you pass this Ordinance tonight, did you exclude Section 8 on this? I didn’t see it in there. Solicitor Elash said we excluded the Housing Authority on the inspections, not on the right to pay. Mayor Cherepko said because they are doing it, they are still going to pay the fee. Solicitor Elash said correct. Mr. Kucich said so they are going to pay both fees. Mr. Soles said no, just the registration. [7] Mr. Kucich said that’s what I am trying to say. How do they get away with it and I could say I am doing my same inspection as they do? I get the same, one of my workers is certified to do it, why can’t I do that? Because they are going to do the same, they are the same party as Section 8, the Housing Corporation employs them so it’s the same thing as me employing my own worker to inspect my property. That’s the same thing. Solicitor Elash said the Housing Authority is a government entity. Mr. Kucich said I’m talking about Section 8, it’s the same people paying each other. It’s their employee inspecting their own places. Solicitor Elash said I’m sorry. If it’s a private Section 8 landlord that owns the house, there are not excluded from anything under the Ordinance right now. The Housing Authority itself, the public housing complexes are excluded from the inspection. Mayor Cherepko said that’s what I was trying to say, the homes that they own are. Mr. Kucich said how’s that fair? It’s the same thing. Solicitor Elash said those facilities are inspected continually. Mayor Cherepko said we are talking about literally. Mrs. Nesbit said they also are inspected by HUD every year. HUD comes and inspects them every year and writes them up if they don’t follow program. That’s my understanding. Mr. Kucich said HUD never comes to my places, my Section 8. Mrs. Nesbit said I am talking about, I thought you were talking about the apartments, per se. Mr. Kucich said that’s what I am saying, Section 8. Mrs. Nesbit said Section 8, I thought Jason explained about Section 8. Mr. Kucich said that’s what I mean, it’s so weird. Nobody really knows all of it and now I just, I find out about this and it’s like we don’t know everything about it. [8] Mayor Cherepko said I could tell you my full intentions are if a landlord has a Section 8 and even if they are being, it’s being inspected by the Housing Authority for Section 8 they will pay the inspection fee to the City of McKeesport. That’s the way I look at this. If it’s not the case, it will be that because I agree with you I am not going to penalize you guys that don’t have Section 8 because then it would fall into what you said. Then why wouldn’t you just go get all Section 8. Mr. Kucich said that’s what I thought you guys said in the beginning of your meeting? Mayor Cherepko said no. At the beginning, we had a gentleman from McKeesport Housing Corporation up here that had nothing to do with this. No, I could tell you and I will tell you that the conversation you and I had, I’ll tell you the only reason why we, because I had a conversation with you, on the inspections… Mr. Kucich said I know but it’s so tough. You are going to see when you are going to get some people they are going to be so mad that you are coming into their places. Mayor Cherepko said that’s not what I get Brandon. I get people that say please come to my place you have got to see what I am living in. Those are the calls I get. Mr. Kucich said ok, ok, why can’t they go after them? Do you have anybody call us? Have you had anybody ever call on my properties? Mayor Cherepko said no, no, this Ordinance, because prior to this Ordinance, we didn’t have right to go in their house. Now if the landlord doesn’t want us in we are going to get in with an Administrative Warrant. Mr. Kucich said I don’t care if you go in. It’s just not fair when someone tries their hardest to do the best they can in this City you get penalized. Just like the garbage. I paid $30,000 now I’m going to have to pay another fee. That’s not fair. You go anywhere in these other cities and you do not have to do that. You don’t have to do that. You can get a different garbage can so what does that go for? And now I have to pay another fee. Mayor Cherepko said it’s $4 a month. [9] Mr. Kucich said I know, that’s what you think but it still adds up. Mayor Cherepko said $4.16 per month and we just raised taxes for the first time in 25 years. So, for 25 years as landlords you never dealt with tax increases; you are still paying lower than. Mr. Kucich said that’s fine. That’s fair because everybody pays it. That’s fair. I mean that’s very fair that everybody pays the tax. Not to just penalize one person. Mayor Cherepko said we are not, and just so you understand ok as many complaints I get I probably make anywhere from 20-30 phone calls I return each and every day. And 90% of them are neighborhood concerns with landlords. So, if you were sitting in our seat you would just sit back and say let’s do nothing. Let’s not regulate them. Let’s continue to let the landlords do whatever they want. Mr. Kucich said no I would go after the people that keep getting, that are bad, go after them first. Mayor Cherepko said well without this law we don’t have any teeth to go after them. Mr. Kucich said if your gutters are falling off your house, your shingles are falling off your house, you go after them. Mayor Cherepko said yes. But the conditions in the house that people are living in absolutely deplorable conditions we have no right to go in their house right now. Solicitor Elash said the vast majority of this is for missing smoke alarms, space heaters heating a house, a furnace not working and they are using space heaters, it’s an attempt to save people’s lives. That’s all it is. It’s not seeking to generate revenue and it shouldn’t generate any revenue. The cost associated with enforcing the Ordinance is higher. Mayor Cherepko said the registration fee will generate something but the important thing is not the revenue, it’s getting everyone to know who they are. Mr. Kucich said that’s all I have. [10] President Dellapenna called Mr. Alan Wakefield. Jonathan Wakefield, 2313 James Street, McKeesport, PA. Mr. Mayor and Council I am going to reiterate a little bit about what Brandon said. I have been investing in McKeesport for about 27 years now. I invited Mr. Cherepko to my property. I have a property in the 1500 block of Evans Avenue and the tenant had moved out after 11 years and I was faced with the situation of what to do because the neighborhood was so dilapidated. The entire neighborhood around me is falling down. The property was built in 1896 and I was faced with do I fix it up or do I join the ranks of the other homeowners in the area and just board it up and let it go. Well letting it go was not what I do. I started working on it and as I started fixing it up one thing led to another and I ended up putting about $25,000 into it. At that point I called the Mayor up and asked him if he would come up and see the property and tell him a little bit about the issues that I am having with trying to find good tenants. We fought the landlord license 10 years ago, and it’s been stricken now. Solicitor Elash said if I could address that. There was no striking of any law. The City did not have the personnel to enforce the statute and we entered into a Consent Order of Court, which I have a copy, which said that we would give you notice if we obtained the necessary staff to enforce the Ordinance. We would give you 60 days’ notice. Mr. Wakefield said with that being said we did fight it and it took us two years and we did have it dismissed and we did have a consent. Mayor Cherepko said it was dismissed in 2014. Mr. Wakefield said well we did fight it otherwise the Ordinance would have been in place and we would have been subject to it. So, we were the only ones that stood up and actually did defend it with our own time and our own money and with that being said I asked the Mayor to come and see the property. What I was facing was we ended up making a beautiful home and restored it back to its glory. But one of the problems we are running into is everybody, as I was advertising it, people would come up and see the property and they loved the property, it looked beautiful but they were coming up and saying they were looking at the neighborhood and I have a few not just being particular with that property. I have the same issue on the 2800 block of Grover and also the 1800 block of Helton [11] Street. But what they were saying is this neighborhood looks so bad. We love the home but we cannot live in this neighborhood. I love McKeesport. I would not have spent $25,000 on the property if I did not like it. And I appreciate what you are trying to do, I really do, but I think you are going after it the wrong way. And so, I am having a problem. I am doing everything I can to fix up my homes, and it’s not just the other landlords, it’s a lot of the homeowners. A lot of homeowners are on fixed income. They are living off social security and I don’t expect, they have to make a decision whether they have to paint their house or they can put food on the table, and I understand that, and I don’t blame them but a lot of it is homeowners as well and I just don’t think that it’s fair to be attacking the landlords. Maybe one person might only have one property worth $25,000 or we might have 10 properties that we flip and we might get $250, but we are an asset to you and I ask that you reach out to us and ask us for our ideas. One of the problems with McKeesport is the number of vacant properties. If we don’t attack the issue of the vacant properties and start increasing the values of our properties, homeowners aren’t interested in buying them. Only the landlords are interested. When you get values down to $20,000, landlords are going to jump in and grab them. If you can get the values up to $50,000 we want to sell and we will move to another lower neighborhood. When we are that low, I’m a real estate agent, I have been licensed for 18 years, selling real estate, I’ve been in other communities, there are other communities that have this mandatory license and it hasn’t done anything. East Pittsburgh has it. It’s the same as McKeesport. There are other communities that have this and all this act is going to do is just going to be another burden on us, the good landlords, it’s not going to change anything with the bad landlords. Trust me, I’ve seen it, it doesn’t change anything in the other communities. When we got the Occupancy Permit Ordinance 20-25 years ago, it was under the same guise, to clean up the City, and that’s how we are going to do it, we are going to have these Occupancy Permits. It has not done anything. You already have Ordinances in effect. This is just a layer on top of another Ordinance. We have Ordinances in effect that will reach the concerns that you have about furnaces, and smoke detectors, and GFI outlets, and broken sidewalks, we have these Ordinances already in effect. What you need to do is enforce them. Now I have talked to the Code Enforcement Officer. I’ve had problems with gutters. I picked up gutters from the neighbors next door and the result that I get from the Code Enforcement Officer is look I am not going [12] to write a letter to them anymore. That’s what I have been told, he said take it right to the Magistrate. The reason we have Code Enforcement Officers is so we don’t have to take our neighbors to court, so we don’t have to fight with our neighbors. I don’t want to take my neighbor to court. I think I should be able to talk to a Code Enforcement Officer that is already paid who is on the budget and they should be able to write a letter and enforce the law. I have been hung up on by the Code Enforcement Officer. We have these laws already here. You have two Code Enforcement Officers. You have the Occupancy Permit. You already have everything in place to take care of the issues. There is nothing that can’t be done with our current laws that we have right now. This is nothing but another law, another regulation that is going to be a burden to us and is not going to make one ounce of a difference. Mayor Cherepko said if I may just comment. The Ordinances that we have now do not get us into homes. So, when people are living in deplorable unsafe conditions no our current Ordinances don’t work. Two, if you have an issue with our, with any of our Ordinance Officers call me. I will assure you without question that if there is someone that needs to be cited, they will be cited, letters sent whatever. There is absolutely, we are fair across the board I don’t care who you are. And the third thing is yes, the Occupancy Permit Ordinance did not work because when you get an Occupancy Permit you never have to get another one. So, if I purchase a house March 1, 2017, and own it for 30 years and have people in and out of there, I never have to file for another Occupancy Permit. That’s why it didn’t work. That’s where this is going to fix exactly what you said as far as getting into homes and making sure they are up to standards. The bottom line for a landlord like yourself you really shouldn’t have a problem. I mean when you run into fire alarm situations. We provide those. Where’s my Fire Chief at? I forget how many hundreds, what did we do last year? The Fire Chief stated over 500. Mayor Cherepko said over 500. So, I mean, I understand your concern, I do and without question, but at the same time what are we to do. Continue to sit back? I mean because our Ordinances, the Ordinance Officers are not going to fix the problems. [13] Mr. Wakefield said, if I may, you need to get into a property why? Because you are saying that somebody called you and there’s an issue? Mayor Cherepko said we are getting in there because there are people in deplorable living conditions and some don’t know any better. Mr. Wakefield said do we not have a Health Department for this situation? Mayor Cherepko said I think our Health Department is reactive but we are going to be proactive. Mr. Wakefield said we have a Health Department and they would take offense to that comment they are, that they are not proactive. Mayor Cherepko said well when does the Health Department go and inspect somebody’s house, being proactive? Mr. Wakefield said when does the City of McKeesport come in and inspect health, it’s not your responsibility to inspect health, it’s the Health Department’s responsibility to inspect health. If there’s an issue, it is the Health Department’s responsibility. They should call the Health Department. Mayor Cherepko said that’s called reactive sir. Proactive means we are not going to wait for a complaint. We are going to go out and we are going to make sure they are safe. Mr. Wakefield said you have the Occupancy Permit right now that can take care of that. Mayor Cherepko said not if the same landlord owns it for 30 years, 40 years. Mr. Wakefield said are you sure that the Occupancy Permit does not have to be redone every time they had a tenant move in? Mayor Cherepko said no, that’s underneath the Landlord Tenant. Thank you that’s what it is. The regular Occupancy when you purchase a home is only when you purchase a property. We never do another one. We do have to go in every time a tenant leave and, I have to be honest with you, that’s part of this Ordinance as well. I’m not as concerned with that. See that’s somewhere where we backed off of landlords if you want to know the truth. This Ordinance says that every time someone moves out of your place you need to come to us and get [14] an inspection. I’ll be honest with you, as far as enforcement goes, if I get somebody in there every two years to inspect your place I am going to be ok with that as Mayor. That’s what I am telling you so we actually backed off that but you are right you just pointed out something that we talked about. There’s people that have six different tenants in one year. It would be six inspections. We are not looking to do that. Mr. Wakefield said why do some municipalities have where if you get a new tenant you have to get a new Occupancy Permit? This will not solve, Occupancy Permits, where someone is in a house for 50 years in the City as a homeowner they are not subject to an Occupancy Permit for 50 years. Mayor Cherepko said that is correct. Mr. Wakefield said one last question for the Council. Has anybody read the Ordinance all the way through? Mr. Dellapenna said yes. Mr. Wakefield asked if I can have a show of hands of who read the Ordinance all the way through? (inaudible…several people talking at once) Mr. Soles said I am a landlord. Mr. Wakefield said ok, very good, and how many pages is it? Mr. Dellapenna said three? Mayor Cherepko said that was just the amendment. Mr. Wakefield asked the total Ordinance is how many pages, does anybody know? Solicitor Elash said it depends on where you are reading it. It’s only like 3 pages, but the actual Ordinance itself is more like 12 pages. Mr. Wakefield asked did you read the 12 pages or did you read the 3-page amendment. Solicitor Elash said it’s not amended its just smaller print and front and back. [15] Mr. Wakefield said what I asked before all the Council votes on it will everybody read the Ordinance all the way through? Mayor Cherepko said they have read it. This Ordinance has been in effect technically since 2003. Mr. Wakefield said so by a show of hands everybody has read it? Mrs. Walker-Montgomery said can I just, I’ve read it, I just want to say to you that I understand your point all of you and we do appreciate our vote landlords but you just pointed out something that I just want to keep saying. You said that people come and they see these properties and they don’t want to live there. Well people live there now. Right? I need you to understand that. People live there now and they are living in horrible conditions and I can’t sit up here and do nothing about that. Because people, because … Mr. Wakefield said I understand. Mrs. Walker-Montgomery said I don’t know if you really do. People live there now. Like people actually live in these neighborhoods and we have to advocate for them. You know what I mean? It’s has to be a vote because really people live there now, you know what I mean? Mr. Wakefield said don’t misunderstand. My house is beautiful they wanted to live there they couldn’t stand all the vacant homes around there. Mrs. Walker-Montgomery said people live there now sir. Mr. Wakefield said they do. But you guys are not going to attack those. You are only going to attack the landlords. Mrs. Walker-Montgomery said this is going to give us the right to attack them. Mr. Wakefield said this will not address the vacant houses. Mayor Cherepko said well the vacant houses we are doing demo, we are liening properties. If you live up in Jeannette or North Huntingdon, we are going after liening on your homes up there. Mr. Wakefield said but again, the vacant homes, this has nothing to do with the vacant homes. Where the properties are a mess and I am talking about the ones with broken windows and broken doors. [16] Mrs. Walker-Montgomery said people litter. Mr. Wakefield said and the littering as well. Mayor Cherepko said for the first time in the history of our City we are doing demolition in-house, ourself, we are tackling on that because this is the other thing people forget about. People think it’s so easy to just tear down a home. Well a home cost between $7,000-10,000 every house you tear down. Clearly everyone is very aware of our financial situation around here and you know we are just trying, we are struggling to survive at this point. But even with that we are still getting homes down. We are getting ready to go out to contract, at the next Council meeting this Council is going to see, what 25 homes I believe Mr. Tedesco’s back there. That’s a contract. That’s in addition to the homes we do I think we will probably take down 40 or 50 this year. That’s 75 houses. You are right, it is a problem, but if we don’t get these landlords under control, a lot of these landlords, not you, they are contributing to this problem. They are the ones, they are going to run their income, they are going to rent it out as long as they can and then they just walk away. Well if we get a hold of them now we can prevent that happening. Mr. Wakefield said ten years ago, when this Ordinance was submitted, Brewster came down to one of the, he called all the landlords together and we had a meeting down at the Section 8 office. The reason for this Ordinance was completely different from what I have heard tonight. Back then the main reason was not because of smoke detectors and the concern about people calling about homes. It was about police calls and I have the paperwork in here. President Dellapenna said I was at that meeting as well. Mr. Wakefield said he said the number of phone calls that we get on subsidized rentals, and this is the reason for it, because we get a complete break-down of every single call, from Crawford Village to Harrison Village, and it was completely different from the reason tonight which makes me feel a little bit speculative. Mayor Cherepko said let me tell you this, the reason why it is not about the police calls is because we already utilize this Ordinance for police calls. My Chief sends out letters constantly to landlords. We are already doing that. That’s why we are on top of this. We are enforcing that from the old one. So, when we have a [17] violation the Chief sends a letter to the landlord and I will say probably 90-95% we get, I mean they remedy the situation for us. So, we are not talking about that now because that won’t be, that’s something that we already do, I mean we just got three or four houses emptied out over the last couple months of people that were major problems. We got them. They were moved. Solicitor Elash said as a historical note, this Ordinance was actually adopted the first time under Mayor Kucich, not Mayor Brewster. Mayor Brewster was on Council at the time but he was not Mayor. (INAUDIBLE ARGUMENTS…..) Brandon Kucich said why would you say that about my dad who is not here? Alan Wakefield, 2013 Ohio Avenue. Mayor Cherepko, Honorable Members of City Council and Solicitor Elash, somone eluded to the fact that this is a Constitutional issue. It has been judged unconstitutional and every one of you sitting here, including Solicitor Elash, has raised their hand and you are calling on God to witness your oath and I am presuming and hoping that every one of you possess the lawful standing to actually do that. Hopefully if you meet God you have the right to raise your hand to him. Nobody ever explained that to you about the oath but nevertheless you mentioned that the Attorney General or somebody figured out some way to get around the Constitution. President Dellapenna said the District Attorney. Mr. Wakefield said is that what your job is? Mayor Cherepko said it’s not wrong to call it Constitutional because it’s not unconstitutional. Mr. Wakefield said well the Supreme Court had ruled that it was unconstitutional. Solicitor Elash said I would just like to note that Council and the Mayor made a representation that this Ordinance is 100% Constitutional. Mr. Wakefield said you told us that before, Jason you told us that exact same thing before. You told us about some off the wall, some case up in central Pennsylvania. It had nothing to do with the landlord license issue and you took a long time before we could get you even to give us that. [18] Solicitor Elash said the only case that was brought up about unconstitutionality deals with warrantless searches and seizure for random inspections and, (Mr. Wakefield continued to argue over Solicitor Elash and it was inaudible.) Mayor Cherepko said let him talk, he has a minute and a half left. Mr. Wakefield said first of all I would ask respectively that all of you read the Ordinance in its entirety. Then I appreciate, I didn’t have time to make, I just found out about this at 4 o’clock tonight and so here is what we call the second Amended Complaint which Jason received ten years ago or more. This case started in 2002 and for whatever reason you delayed implementing the Ordinance until 2005. My son and I challenged it. We fought that thing for two and a half years in the Common Pleas Court of Pennsylvania. It took until March of 2008, nine years ago before we received that Consent Decree. A lot of work, protecting your rights and everybody else’s rights. Now, I will say this, we asked and I will demand it now I want the name of every single landlord in McKeesport. I got some nonsense, oh it’s protecting privacy. We are trying to protect their rights and you are trying to protect their privacy while you are robbing them, not fair. Give us their names so we can make a copy and I hope everyone of you will make a copy if you would please, Mayor Cherepko, make a copy and give to everyone, that was the case, the second copy, read those, see what you are doing. You need to know what you are doing. There is a Constitution and every one of you has raised your hand and promised God to protect and obey not the Constitution but our rights protected under those Constitutions, State and Federal. So Mayor Cherepko said, well sir your three minutes is up but I just want to comment that your son just stood up here and said they do this in other communities. Mr. Wakefield said he said no, that’s not what he said. Somebody said. Mayor Cherepko said if they even go in and inspect. Mr. Wakefield said oh I understand they did that ten years ago in other communities. That’s what he was telling you. [19] Mr. Wakefield said Mayor Cherepko, I don’t mean to argue, but they did that ten years ago, and I would ask that you read our reasons. I wonder, why are we as taxpayers, when you have a Constitution, two Constitutions, that require me paying his salary to tell you what that law says. Can anybody explain that to me? Why are we paying for a Solicitor to explain what the Constitution says? President Dellapenna said sir your time is up. Mr. Wakefield said well I would like you to think about that please. Thank you all, appreciate it. Thank you said President Dellapenna. NEW BUSINESS: President Dellapenna asked Secretary James for New Business. RESOLUTION NO. 2017-008– BILL #59 – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, APPROVING A REVERSE SUBDIVISION REQUEST FROM THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY TO CONSTRUCT A PORTABLE WATER TANK. THE LOTS TO BE COMBINED ARE: 382-G-201, 382-G-202, 382-G-203, 382-G-209, AND 382-G-211. THE PROPERTY EXISTS IN AN R-4 ZONING DISTRICT. MOTION: Mr. Soles moved, seconded by Mr. Brown “to approve Bill #59.” RC-4 YEAS: DELLAPENNA, BARRY, NESBIT, SOLES, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI (7) NAYS: NONE (0) RESOLUTION NO. 2017-009– BILL #60 – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, APPROVING A CONDITIONAL USE REQUEST FROM PUREPENN, LLC, TO CONSTRUCT A MEDICAL CANNABIS CULTIVATION AND PROCESSING FACILITY ON LOT & BLOCK #307-E- 194. THE PROPERTY EXISTS IN AN I-U ZONING DISTRICT. MOTION: Mrs. Brewster-Filotei moved, seconded by Mr. Brown “to approve Bill #60.” [20] RC-5 YEAS: DELLAPENNA, BARRY, NESBIT, SOLES, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI (7) NAYS: NONE (0) ORDINANCE NO. 17-003 – BILL #61– AN ORDINANCEA OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AMENDING ORDINANCE #03-08 ENTITLED THE REGULATED RENTAL UNIT ORDINANCE, AS AMENDED BY ORDINANCE #10-20 AS AMENDED, TO REDUCE THE NUMBER OF INSPECTIONS REQUIRED AND TO ADJUST THE FEES REQUIRED FOR SAME. MOTION: Mrs. Walker-Montgomery moved, seconded by Mrs. Brewster-Filotei “to approve Bill #61.” Mr. Barry asked in light of what we heard today, do you think it makes any sense to table this to a later time? I mean hear both sides of the story? I’m all for the safety of the residents and I appreciate the calls that you get but my personal belief on regulation is that it inhibits investment into the City and that’s just my concern. I mean we are going to take a vote here in a minute I’m just. Mrs. Brewster-Filotei said I think a bigger concern is like you said the safety wide, I do feel for these people and I value them. I also, you know what it’s like when these kids come to you. When a student comes to school and you say what’s your problem and they say well our landlord won’t fix our heat and my mom had the oven open all night. At this point in time we really can’t as a City protect them. This gives us more rights to do that. Mayor Cherepko said Jamie I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean go visit these homes and see how many of these kids don’t have water. Mrs. Brewster-Filotei said I mean I am a mandated reporter by the State as it is so at this point at least as a City it only makes sense. Mayor Cherepko said Mr. Wakefield said one thing correct, the only thing he said correct is you are right I took an oath of office to defend the City of McKeesport, to represent the citizens and all of the residents that voted me into this position and I will tell you what if you go out and you take a survey of your residents out there. You tell me your resident doesn’t want to live in good conditions when they are paying $600, $700 or $800 a month. Double what a mortgage would be [21] because they can’t afford a mortgage they are out there paying this crazy rent so I’m going to tell you what and listen and that’s not for the landlords that are good and I will say that again because there are good landlords here but we have to, we have an obligation, in my mind we have an obligation. I know it’s, Jim, Mr. Barry, I know you’ve been in these houses. I know many of us have but let me tell you something, it makes me so sad that I’m going to tell you what it breaks my heart to see what some of the living conditions these people have and that’s before you find out they are paying $600 or $700 a month. It’s borderline criminal in my mind with some of these situations. Then to sit here I can’t tell you how many times I go home and I say man I wish I had more money, I wish I could do whatever, whether it was kids living, or whatever the case may be. It’s just, I think to put this off, for what reason, I think at this point we talked about it long enough. You either want to vote or you are going to side with the landlords. At this point I was elected by the people of the City and that’s where my heart is. Mr. Brown said Mayor I’m kind of with Jimbo right now on this as well. Simple fact is I do, I need to look into it more myself. I mean like the guys asked if I can read the whole thing on it. I think if we do table it maybe I can look a little further, do some research on it and I will be all for it but I am kind of with Jimbo I need to get more info on it. Mayor Cherepko said I’m ok with tabling it but I just don’t get, I mean what more info? That’s the part I don’t get. Mrs. Walker-Montgomery said it’s been tables for like two years. Mr. Brown said well this is my first year. Mrs. Walker-Montgomery said when I first got on Council six years ago, I brought this up and it was told me well you were sitting here Mike that this was in Court or we couldn’t do anything about it until we got some manpower. This has been tabled for like six years now. Mayor Cherepko said I believe in tabling something if there is something you are going to discover. I believe in tabling something if you need more information. The only thing that I have heard, I mean yes, if I am a landlord I don’t want this. I mean let’s call it like it is. What landlord wants this? It’s really, it’s holding them [22] accountable. It’s making sure that their places are up to par and then there’s a fee on top of it. Mrs. Walker-Montgomery said but people live there now. I just want everybody to understand. I need everybody to really get that. People are living this way presently. Like presently, like right now, like right now people live in these houses. People have broken windows. They have things hanging down. The conditions are unsafe. People are living like this now. Like, you all probably don’t even live in McKeesport. People are living like this right now. So, you can go home to where you get to go home to and we have to live here. So, people live like this now and we have to do something about this now. I mean like I brought this up six years ago. I’ve been here since 2010. We got to move. We’ve been on the move for. I mean people are living like this now. Mayor Cherepko said listen, I hear a bunch of people out of order. I’m going to tell you what ok I have a packet, I’ll tell you what we have taken on, contrary to what people think, I have a packet that I could tell you of letters being sent, citations being sent, the date the letters were sent, did they remedy the situation, if it went to court, what’s the result of it. It’s this thick. So, contrary to people thinking no one is doing their job I am going to tell you what could we all do better, absolutely. I’m not going to sit here and pretend we are perfect, we are far from it, but what I’m telling you is to sit here and say nothing is being done it’s ridiculous, it’s ludicrous. I mean I’ll respect the Council and whatever, it’s your decision, if you guys want to table it you table it, I made it very clear where I think we need to be on here and I want all the residents to know where I stand because they are the people that elect me and until I have residents call me, other than a landlord, call me and tell me they don’t want to see this thing enforced, I can assure you that for every one of those calls I’ll find you ten that want it enforced. President Dellapenna asked if there was any other discussion. MOTION: Mr. Brown moved, seconded by Mr. Barry “to table Bill #61.” President Dellapenna asked for discussion. Mayor Cherepko said just so everyone is clear, this is a Motion to just table it. President Dellapenna said right. [23] Mayor Cherepko said so if you don’t want to table it you vote that way. President Dellapenna said right. RC-6 YEAS: BARRY, BROWN (2) NAYS: DELLAPENNA, NESBIT, SOLES, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BREWSTER-FILOTEI (5) President Dellapenna asked for roll call on the approval of Bill #61. RC-7 YEAS: DELLAPENNA, NESBIT, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BREWSTER- FILOTEI (4) NAYS: BARRY, SOLES, BROWN (3) RESOLUTION NO. 2017-010 – BILL #62 – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AUTHORIZING THE PROPER CITY OFFICERS TO ENTER INTO A CONTRACT WITH SABLE KENNEL FOR ANIMAL CONTROL IN THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT FOR THE PERIOD BEGINNING MARCH 1, 2017, AND ENDING FEBRUARY 28, 2019. MOTION: Mr. Soles moved, seconded by Mr. Brown “to approve Bill #62.” RC-8 YEAS: DELLAPENNA, BARRY, NESBIT, SOLES, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI (7) NAYS: NONE (0) President Dellapenna asked for a Motion to Amend the Agenda to add Bills 63, 64 and 65. MOTION: Mrs. Nesbit moved, seconded by Mrs. Brewster-Filotei “to amend the Agenda to add Bill #63, #64 and #65.” RC-9 YEAS: DELLAPENNA, BARRY, NESBIT, SOLES, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI (7) NAYS: NONE (0) RESOLUTION NO. 2017-011 – BILL #63 – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AUTHORIZING THE PROPER CITY OFFICIALS TO ENTER INTO AN AGREEMENT WITH ACE PYRO, LLC [24] FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING THE FIREWORDS DISPLAYS AT RENZIEHAUSEN PARK FOR JULY 4TH (INDEPENDENCE DAY), AUGUST 17TH (INTERNATIONAL VILLAGE), SEPTEMBER 4TH (LABOR DAY) AND SEPTEMBER 10TH (PATRIOT’S DAY). MOTION: Mrs. Nesbit moved, seconded by Mr. Soles “to approve Bill #63.” President Dellapenna asked for discussion and Mr. Brown asked who was the provider last year? Mayor Cherepko said the provider last year was Starfire. If you remember the fireworks, it does totally different. You think with bids you don’t get prices. You say ok we are going to do a $10,000 show. Mr. Brown said oh, what do you get? Mayor Cherepko said it’s very different. Starfire almost cut their program in half. Mr. Brown said oh, ok, because they were good that’s why I was asking. Mayor Cherepko said for the same price. You see is it accurate to say probably 47% and I don’t want to assume anything or say anything negative about anybody but I can tell you I wasn’t happy with that so when we had another one that really was in the same ballpark, I mean there might have been a couple more, couple less, I mean literally you are just talking a couple. At that point give this company a shot. I mean literally the one show went from one 1,300 some bombs or whatever you want to call them to I think it was 700….742. So, it went from 1,300 something to 742 and I don’t assume why. I mean the last couple years I will tell you they were the only bidder. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it but. President Dellapenna asked for any other questions and there were none. RC-10 YEAS: DELLAPENNA, BARRY, NESBIT, SOLES, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI (7) NAYS: NONE (0) RESOLUTION NO. 2017-012 – BILL #64 – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, APPROVING THE FISCAL YEAR 2016 HOME CONSORTIUM GRANT AMOUNT OF $168,284 AND AUTHORIZING THE CITY’S PARTICIAPTION IN THE ALLEGHENY COUNTY HOME [25] CONSORTIUM PROGRAM, AND APPROVING THE EXECUTION OF A CO- OPERATION AGREEMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2016 IN THE ABOVE AMOUNT. MOTION: Mrs. Brewster-Filotei moved, seconded by Mrs. Nesbit “to approve Bill #64.” RC-11 YEAS: DELLAPENNA, BARRY, NESBIT, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI (6) NAYS: WALKER-MONTGOMERY (1) ABSTAIN: SOLES (1) RESOLUTION NO. 2017-013 – BILL #65 – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AUTHORIZING THE PROPER CITY OFFICERS TO ENTER INTO A CONTRACT WITH LEVEL GREEN PLUMBING & HEATING, LLC FOR 2017 MAIN PAVILION HVAC PROJECT. Solicitor Elash said let me just stop you, Mr. Soles did you give a reason for your abstention? Mr. Soles said no I did not I currently sit on the Board of McKeesport Housing Corporation. Solicitor Elash said thank you. President Dellapenna asked for a Motion to approve Bill #65. MOTION: Mr. Soles moved, seconded by Mr. Barry “to approve Bill #65.” President Dellapenna asked for any discussion and Mr. Barry said once we execute this Contract let’s get this before Summer comes. RC-12 YEAS: DELLAPENNA, BARRY, NESBIT, SOLES, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI (7) NAYS: NONE (0) [26] ADJOURNMENT: President of Council Dellapenna said this concludes the Council meeting of Wednesday, March 1, 2017. Thank you all for attending. The meeting then adjourned at 8:21 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Annette James City Clerk and Clerk of Council APPROVED: Richard Dellapenna President of Council das [27]