Scottville Gets Ludingtonized: Rental Rehab and Rental Registering

[XLFD]

A couple of bits of news are coming up US 10 from Scottville-- or is it going the other way?  The first has to do with the fixing up of the apartments above Charlie's Bar courtesy of new Scottville/Ludington Community Development Director Heather Venzke, and the other has to do with the proposed new ordinance that would have landlords check out whether they were renting to sex offenders courtesy of new Scottville/Ludington Police Chief Mark Barnett.

 

Public Money Going Where Private Money Fears to Go:

In this article, courtesy of the Daily News,   RR above Charlie's Bar, we find out that the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) has generously given $50,000 to the owner of Charlie's Bar to help fix up two apartments, while the owner had to only pay $15,910. 

Not mentioned was that the local administrators got somewhere around $11,000 from the MSHDA as well for 'administrative fees', not to mention all the tireless hours on the public timeclock they invested in seeing that this money was doled out to this private interest for creating apartments in an area where there is a huge surplus of affordable housing.  But, I don't want to echo the first commentator to that article. 

Although I did not conduct the interview, Heather Venzke assures us:  "The program is one of MSHDA's best.  The biggest thing is creating critical mass in your downtown.  People who live downtown are more likely to eat downtown and shop downtown and make that critical mass in your downtown."  LDN p.1

Then why doesn't everyone move downtown and revitalize the area?  I looked at that in Rental Relapse and it isn't rocket science to determine that using state funds for this is not helping low-income renters find places to stay, or helping the local economy significantly except for the recipients of the public tax money and the local government.

Heather continued:  "The program also provides additional affordable housing in the community, which is needed."  and "We've never had an apartment on the market for more than six months.  There's definitely a need for (the program and the apartments it helps make available)."  LDN p.3

I am amazed at her ability to talk in parentheses like that, yet it surprises me that after her own acquisition of a Freddie Mac home at a big discount, she doesn't have any better advice about acquiring affordable housing for others.  As for the statement she has made about never having an apartment on the market for six months, I say put the records that show that information on the table.  It's fiction.

Thanks to Heather, a whole bunch of new facade, rental rehab, and obsolete properties rehab (OPRA) projects, money, and administrative fees are likely coming to downtown Scottville.  And the downtown will only get worse off.  We need entrepreneurs to save Scottville's downtown, not beggars.

 

Barnett's Failed Landlord-RSO Policy is Coming to Town

 

I have discussed Police Chief Barnett's policy to pass the buck when it comes to keeping track of registered sex offenders onto the hands of a landlord posse, and have routinely checked in to see "how's that working for us?", the last time in June of this year  Landlords on Patrol where you can go to the sublinks to find previous updates and the wording of the law.  Two of those three registered sex offenders (RSOs) depicted there are still living in the school safety zones (SSZs), along with three others.

As I said there:  "State law gives the duty of verifying whether RSOs live in a school safety zone to local law enforcement with jurisdiction, period.   Passing this duty to civilians is ridiculous, and against the public interest."

But Scottville is planning on passing Barnett's Law just like Ludington did back in 2007, and I hope the citizens of Scottville speak up about this.  I don't want to beat a dead horse on this issue, I want to instead show how great a job the current Scottville Police force is doing in this regard.

According to the current up-to-date RSO listings for the Scottville area, there is a RSO living at 113 E State Street and one living at 209 Thomas Street.  The following graphic shows that these fall within 1000 ft. of the Scottville Elementary School's property:

 

The black lines are 1000 ft. according to the scale and are drawn from the closest part of the RSO's property to the school property whose property line follows the red line, roughly.  As you can see they both make it within 1000 ft., and as you can see, both locations are far enough away from the school property that you wouldn't suspect it being a problem.  But it will soon become a big problem for their landlords, as these two young men have moved in since the state law took effect, and wouldn't be grandfathered in, like a couple Ludington RSOs are. 

Here's the landlord's penalty and here are the sanctions.  Just like Scottville, the civil penalties will be increasing fines from $150 to $250 to $500 from the first to third offenses after receiving notice, and $500 ever after.  It does not preclude other penalties including injunctive relief, quasijudicial enforcement, and other administrative sanctions. 

As I peruse the state law, the local police are responsible for monitoring this, so if you live in Scottville or Ludington and get a written note from the police telling you that you are in violation of that local ordinance, remind them that they are the ones in violation of a state law.  Then protect your head from the billyclub.

[Heaven Therzke]

reporting?  more like nagging if you"d ask me.  is X-LFD getting tired of dissing ludington and moved on to scottville.

[Willy]

Heaven

Yes, X is reporting on news of interest. Your the one doing the nagging.

[Marty Redman]

I think we have a plant here in more ways than one. 

[Marty Redman]

Getting the registry of sex offenders is no more difficult than checking this link (for Michigan)http://www.mipsor.state.mi.us/.  Just enter the code and then enter the zip code or city name to look in an area.  The little town of Scottville has 23 but most of them are living outside the city limits.  Good news for them, the units over Charlie's Bar look to be far enough away from the schools. 

Anyone knows whether or not Michigan law makes it so that you need to keep away from the school safty zones no matter what?  If thats the case, you can't go through the middle of Scottville or the highway bypass, and I think the whole northwest would be off limits.

[XLFD]

Something of interest to this topic came down today from an incident that happened in Grand Rapids.  A couple of years ago a homeless RSO froze to death outside when he was afraid to stay overnight at a shelter that was within a school safety zone.  A group of homeless, two homeless shelters/ministries filed suit to get declaratory relief for homeless RSOs to be able to use shelters within SSZs.  They were successful, primarily because the law did not define the word "reside" in any manner, and to use a shelter for temporary purposes did not fall within its common understanding.   Homeless RSOs able to live in SSZs

I have to agree, the law is poorly written and not concise in this matter.  A RSO could effectively live within SSZs informally or transiently if they so wanted, without any real fear of this law.  The only thing more useless than this law, is Chief Barnett's corollary which targets landlords for his own police departments' negligence of their duties.