Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to call to order this work session of the Richfield City Council. It is February 17th at 5:45 and our order of business is to discuss a draft emergency pre-eviction notice ordinance. And I'll turn it over to city manager Rodriguez. >> Thank you, Mayor. Actually, I'm gonna turn it over to community development director Melissa Palman. Thank you. Um I'm just going to quickly go through some of the highlights of this ordinance um since we only have 15 minutes here. But as you all know, uh Operation Metro Surge has created significant disruptions in the ability of many people to go to work um and conduct business and therefore earn income. Sorry, I'm having trouble with this mic. Um earn income, pay for necessities like shelter and food. So, the council asked staff to draft an emergency ordinance that would extend the required pre- eviction notice period from 14 days in order to to extend it beyond 14 days in order to allow additional time for tenants to access financial assistance. Uh many thanks to the city attorney's office for helping us to get this pulled together so quickly. The attached emergency ordinance um for discussion tonight extends the pre-eviction notice period for non-payment of rent or other financial obligation from 14 days to 30 days. Except for the timing, the notice requirements exactly match uh the requirements in state statute. This ordinance maintains landlords ability to evict tenants for non-financial reasons and it maintains our current non-local enforcement policy. The ordinance will provide a tool for tenants to challenge evictions that are not preceded by the 30-day notice. The emergency ordinance is proposed to sunset at the close of the legislative session, which as you all know is miday. Yeah, turn >> to the right. screen. How do I turn? >> Uh given the extraordinary circumstances, staff is supportive of this ordinance. Although typically um for a a regular or ordinance, we would ask for more time to engage and and vet the um the outcomes or the the um impacts of an ordinance like this. As you know, this isn't going to eliminate the uh requirement for tenants to pay rent. Rather, it's just going to delay that. Um, and that can impact in addition it to impacting the amount that they owe. That amount can grow. It also impacts uh landlords ability to then pay their bills, pay their staff, and um the time period for which this will be in effect includes the time um when property taxes will be due. So, um, I'm going to turn it over to Julie. We have done a preliminary survey of landlords and we wanted to share just some of that, uh, early information with you. >> Thank you, mayor, members of the council. So, I did send out a survey late last week to our landlords. Um, includes both our apartment owners and our single family and duplex owners. Um, I will say we got about 53 responses, which seems like a lot, but it was a lot of single family and duplex owners who responded. Um, maybe five apartment buildings responded. So, we're going to actually do a little bit more work by calling especially some of our larger landlords. So, I don't want to share numbers because I don't think it's very meaningful until we get some of those larger complexes to respond. I will tell I did also um so the things that I asked them was do they have tenants who haven't been able to pay rent due to the metro surge how many asked for an estimate of the amount owed I asked whether or not they have eviction plans for those tenants who haven't paid and whether they have referred tenants to VEP or other resources I also told them about the potential emergency ordinance that would be discussed tonight and offered them an opportunity to provide feedback uh I got a a variety of responses. Um, and I will just tell you again a very general summary of that information. A few responses um, speak in support of the city helping struggling families and are willing to be flexible. Another small group doesn't anticipate that they would really have an impact from an ordinance like this. Many of them do point out that it will affect an owner's ability to cover mortgage and other bills and maintain their property. they point out that the cost is simply being shifted to them and many of them are small business owners. Um there was some more details that they provided in that um including one that I thought was helpful was um a landlord who has this experience in Minneapolis which does have a 30-day uh notice period and just pointed out that that increase in debt that then can build up um has caused some problems with their tenants and that that it makes them too far behind to be able to catch up. So I thought it was an important thing to point out. Um and one person's suggestion was that the best uh uh solution is trying to find one that works for both sides. So in other words, providing financial assistance to assist tenants. So again, that's just sort of the preliminary and we'll do some more follow-up this week. I don't know that it'll be back in time for a council staff report, but um perhaps it can still be shared somehow before the meeting next week if that's when you decide to go forward with this. Thanks, Julie. So, um, to summarize, I, you know, staff is supportive of this. We've drafted the ordinance. It's here for your consideration. Um, like Julie was just saying. Ultimately, I think that the the real need here is for financial resources, which the H pledged to VEP, and I know the state is also looking at. As an update on our resources provided to VEP, we checked in last Thursday and 12 about 12,000 of the 50,000 had been um had been allocated to families to help. Um there were several applications in the pipeline though. So we will be monitoring uh that situation to see if the the need greatly increases or if it kind of stays here. That is actually lower than we had anticipated. Um, so I will with that I'll turn it over to you um for any questions you might have. >> All right, other people that have comments or questions. >> I also want to thank uh this is Walter Burke. I also want to thank uh city attorney for generating this so quickly and I do like um that the affirmative defense part portion got in there. U to my knowledge, uh the cities that do have the 30-day pre-notice, they don't include that language. I think we're the only one that includes that. And so it makes it clear that this is not something that the city needs to enforce. This is a right that the city is bestowing to citizens. And that's an important thing to keep in mind. Um, I hope that's uh assuming that this this passes and the mayor signs it that um the city can make an effort to contact Henipin Adult Representation Services because they are the ones most likely to represent people who are poor and going to eviction cases in Henipin County. So, Henipin Adult Representation Services, assuming this passes, should immediately be informed of this so that they can use this defense if people end up in eviction court. And to be quite honest, the housing court in Henipin County should be made aware of it so that all the referees and judges in Henipin County are aware that if a case is coming from Richfield that people have this defense. Um seems like landlords in Richfield have already been informed and so continuing that to inform them would be really useful also. So I thank you for those efforts already. Um I think everyone knows my hope that this becomes a permanent part of Richfield orism, but that's a later discussion and I get that. Um, but I agree this is not something that can be by itself be useful. It has to be combined with providing financial support. It's great that we're already doing that and it's great that it hasn't been overwhelmed already. So, and hopefully that path will continue. So, again, thank you for what you've done. >> Other comments or questions? >> Um, Sean Hayford, I am supportive of moving forward as is. I definitely hear some of those landlord concerns, but I think those apply more strongly to something like a multimonth eviction moratorum given that this is only extending the allegation by two weeks. Um, it seems like the snowball of debt is pretty minimal. Um, I definitely want to have more discussion if this were to become a permanent thing, but this seems reasonable for the circumstances. >> Other comments or questions? Council member Christensen, did you have anything? >> No, nothing. Um, I want to add my thanks to the staff and the attorneys for putting this together because I do think it's reasonable. And I also think it's um, we should do a shout out to the members of the community that have been donating to the Richfield Community Safety Network. I believe they gave out like $36,000 in um, aid to people. So that's part of the reason why VEP didn't get overwhelmed because that would have eaten up the rest of the VEP. So, thank you to the community for their generosity. Is there any other discussion or >> I think the Richfield safe safety network is also raising money for March as well. So, there hopes I hope to have additional resources for other people as they keep reaching out. But thank you again to staff. >> Do you need any more information from us? >> We do not. We will uh we'll bring this back on the 24th. I do have one question. Uh would you agree that this could be on consent then? It feels like it is. >> Yes, it feels like everybody is on board with that. Okay, great. Thank you. >> All right, cool. Thank you. Well, with that we will call this meeting adjourned and there is another work session that will begin at 6 pm that's joint with the um HR and the city council. Thank you.