The third and final reading of a controversial ordinance is back on the agenda for Monday’s Carroll City Council meeting—the Rental Housing Code. Once the third reading is completed and accepted, the council will be asked to vote on adopting the ordinance. This is a precursor to two other agenda items, the rental code fee schedule and a wage resolution for a compliance officer who will be hired by the city to spend about a third of their full-time position on rental code inspections and enforcement. City Manager, Mike Pogge-Weaver, says staff members went back and reviewed COVID-19 safety procedures after several landlords brought up concerns about inspections during the pandemic.
As an example, if there are more than 30 new cases in Carroll County, which equates to 15 per 10,000, they will suspend inspections in occupied rental housing. If there were more than 30 cases per 10,000, they will suspend all inspections, occupied or unoccupied. There are exceptions to this.
Based on current COVID-19 cases in Carroll County, Pogge-Weaver says if the program were already in place, they would not be doing any inspections at this time. In fact, he says, they would not have been doing any inspections since the rates went up to or over that capping point on Aug. 17. Another item to come before the council at their 5:15 p.m. meeting on Monday, Nov. 23 is a proposal for the purchase and development on South Main Street, at the site of the former Carroll City Apartments. One proposal was received.
At the close of the meeting, council members and staff will enter into a closed session for strategy with legal counsel per Iowa Code 21.5(1)c). This is “to discuss strategy with counsel in matters that are presently in litigation or where litigation is imminent where its disclosure would be likely to prejudice or disadvantage the position of the governmental body in that litigation.” Residents can watch the meeting live on their local access cable channel or can join by phone or other digital means and details on how to do that are included with the agenda and packet of materials for the meeting. Those items can be found by following the link included below.
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Link to join meeting, agenda and packet of materials: https://www.cityofcarroll.com/Uploads/agendas-minutes2019-2020/CouncilAgendaPacket11232020pack.pdf
