We announced last month that our revised HUD lease had been approved by the City and state and it is available for immediate use by our members. Please note that this lease is different from our standard lease. To differentiate the two the HUD lease has an H suffix while our regular lease has an R suffix. The prices for these new leases which are printed on regular 8 ½ x 11 paper in full size print is higher than our older lease which is in small print on legal paper.
We will cease to use the older lease format when we sell them out. As mentioned at our last meeting we will also be reviewing the lease language and possibly it will be further revised later this year.
Our speaker for March will be Mary Jane Bonser from Allegany County Community Services to update us on the many programs they have, including funding for lead abatement work. For April we will have the City of Cumberland Housing Inspectors Dave Cox and or Shawn Llewellyn attending. May is still being worked on, but we will try to bring in some new faces. Look for updates on this schedule in the next newsletter.
In a couple of weeks the Allegany County Health Dept, ALOC and the Coalition to end Childhood Lead poisoning will hold a lead seminar at the Allegany College Theater. The session, designed for landlords, tenants, homeowners, real estate agents, banks, contractors and any others interested in the lead paint problem are welcome to attend.
The session begins around 5:30 PM at the theater with refreshments and sandwiches followed at 6 PM with some basic Lead 101 instruction. Later in the evening we will split the attendees up so that those concerned with the commercial end can get specifics and tenants and homeowners can get information that is of importance to them.
As we continue to examine this report and talk with others in the MPON some interesting items rise to the surface. During our testimony at the February 11th hearing it was mentioned that of the 183 lead poisoned children in Baltimore approximately 54 were from private homes not covered by the Lead Poisoning Program. Of the remaining cases roughly 90 % were from rental units that were not registered with the MDE and or participating in the Lead Program!!
This is an absolutely amazing set of numbers and points out that the MDE and the State of Maryland need to spend more time going after violators, leaving those of us in compliance alone!
Every 2 years we see some new faces at City Hall and this time around it is no different. Incumbent Council member Terry Rephan and Ed Hedrick are in the running but we have two other people that made it through the primary with some interesting numbers. While Rephan finished in first place and is probably well placed for the general election, Ed Hedrick will have some electioneering to do over the summer. Keep in mind that in his first election to City Council he worked the streets and succeeded. We believe that he has a good chance to pull it off again this fall.
We plan to ask the four successful candidates to attend one of our meetings to explain their candidacy in depth including their thoughts about the rental housing industry and the dearth of regulations we have been saddled with over the years.
We encourage our membership to support the candidates of their choice and help them with their campaign whether it is with contributions, yard signs, phone banks or whatever.
One thing we need to keep in mind is that we do not want to see any fee increases or additional regulations or inspections.
Various members of the MPON gathered in Annapolis on February 11th to testify at the Environmental Matters Committee hearing regarding increasing the MDE registration fees from the current $ 10.00 to $ 50.00 per unit per year. ALOC's President, Jeff Hutter attended and spoke at the hearing along with representatives from Hagerstown, Baltimore, Frederick and Salisbury. Lobbyist Bob Enten, who represents the Baltimore POA, led the effort and the testimony was quite colorful at times as this particular bill was sponsored by Maggie McIntosh, who chairs the Environmental Matters Committee.
The reason for the increased rate is associated with a budget cut for the MDE that would directly affect their enforcement efforts. We argued the point that those of us in compliance should not be punished with higher rates and that the MDE could make up any deficiency by increasing the fines levied against property owners not in compliance. It was interesting to note that the parties in support of the increase chose not to speak and submitted written testimony which resulted in a very short hearing.
As the hearing reached its end we were all surprised to have a representative from the MDE make some brief statements that the Governor was proposing, as part of his budget bill, an increase in the registration fee from $ 10.00 to $ 15.00. The end result was that the bill was voted down by the committee and it is probably dead for this year. Other bills are working their way through the system including a throwback from last year that would require landlords to certify that they are in compliance with the Lead Program before filing a court action to recover unpaid rent. We fought this last year successfully arguing that the courts were not adequately equipped to determine if a landlord was in compliance. We instead countered with a plan to simply add a statement to the court form that the property owner would certify that he was registered with the MDE. We assume that another hearing will be scheduled for this bill in March.
There are some other bills in the works and we will keep you informed as things unfold.