The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
READY TO BE HEARD
Council decides to schedule public hearing on increased inspection fees
ONEIDA, N.Y. » In a change of heart, the Oneida Common Council has decided to conduct a public hearing on the matter of increased inspection fees, which were passed earlier this year in June.
Months after the common council approved the 500% increase in fees, local landlords spoke out during the public comment period at a meeting on August 17.
Frustrations with the lack of notice and seeming lack of consideration for the landlords were a few of the concerns brought up to the legislators.
As described in a story published by the Dispatch on September 15, Mayor Helen Acker and the council stood firm on their decision to raise the fees. Shortly thereafter at a council meeting on September 21, they changed their minds.
Ward 5 Councilor Brandee Dubois first addressed her concerns with the resolution and how it stood, given the feedback from the community and direct phone calls she was receiving herself.
“I just feel like maybe we can reevaluate it. I’m not pleased with it.” Dubois said. “I’m just not.”
Ward 2 Councilor Steve Laureti was in agreement. “COVID was maybe not a good time” to raise the fees, he said.
The council met during an executive session at the last council meeting on Sept. 7 which is when they agreed to keep the fees as is, Acker said. Laureti couldn’t be at the meeting, he said, and after all the calls Dubois was getting, the two figured it was worth re-addressing.
Ward 3 Councilor Jim Coulthart was not so willing to give the fees a second look. “I say that we had already decided this,” Coulthart said. “So now we’re going to reopen it?”
“I say revisit it and put it out there. People can come, they can speak their opinions, we can hear it, and we can make a decision then. And nobody can say that they didn’t know about it.”
— Ward 5 Councilor Brandee Dubois
Enforcing compliance was a key reason for raising the fees in the first place, Coulthart stated. It wasn’t a “money maker.” Ward 6 Councilor Tom Simchik commented that the fees as they were —$150 for the first inspection (up from $30) and the same price for every additional reinspection (after the included first free reinspection)— punished everyone, not just the violators who don’t bring their properties up to code.
Dubois and Laureti discussed the idea of a tiered fee system to slap higher charges on violators while leaving those who do the right thing, unscathed.
Laureti also noted that the council should take the time to consider all that was brought up at the August 17 meeting when the landlords came to share their opinions, which were largely angry, about the fees.
A big complaint was the lack of transparency on the matter, Dubois said. Though a public hearing was not legally required for the resolution, it seemed apparent that the landlords would have appreciated being heard.
“I say revisit it and put it out there. People can come, they can speak their opinions, we can hear it, and we can make a decision then. And nobody can say that they didn’t know about it,” Dubois suggested.
“I applaud transparency, which is something we don’t always see,” Coulthart admitted. But ignorance is not an excuse, he said; the fee increase was made known to the public on the council’s agenda back in June.
After a straw vote, all councilors except Coulthart voted to formally hear the public out. The public hearing will take place Tuesday, Oct. 5, after the common council meeting which begins at 6:30 p.m. in the council chambers.
“We work for the people,” Laureti stated to the council. So let them be heard.