City Councilman Bob Freyberg’s My View of Sept 11, contained
some statements that require a response. Nearly a year ago the City
imposed an unannounced moratorium on rental permits in the City of North
Mankato. Rather than organize a task force of citizens, landlords, tenants and city
staff to explore the perceived problems, the City hired Bolton and Menk to
research the only four cities in the entire State of Minnesota that currently
have rental caps. No research was done
to see how the great majority of Minnesota cities without rental caps operate,
or how they deal with problem rentals. This approach assured that rental caps
would be the only solution North Mankato would consider. The preparation of
North Mankato’s new rental cap policy took place without any public input
meetings.
North Mankato’s proposal was not released to the public
until early August, leaving only a short time for discussions before the city rental
moratorium expired. Only then were two public input meetings scheduled for August
17, and August 24, on the same day of the week, and the same hour, precluding anyone
with a time conflict from making either meeting. Invitation letters, dated
August 8, were sent only to city rental license holders. No direct invitations
were sent to tenants or citizens with rental complaints, or to general property
owners, and public advertisement of the meetings was minimal.
I attended both
invitational meetings. At the first meeting, citizens had questions and they
wanted a general discussion, but administrator John Harrenstein announced,
“There will be no questions at this time”
After a five minute interchange on how to proceed, the frustrated participants
were divided quickly into four groups for “staff presentations,” and they were only allowed to reassemble as a
group an hour later after the participant numbers had dwindled to less than
half. For the second session, a week later, the city hired consultants to
handle the meeting. The first few minutes were spent assuring the participants
that this time all voices would be heard. Mr. Harrenstein and the mayor were present,
but did not participate in the discussion. The vast majority of participants at
both sessions were not in favor of a 10% cap, but did want to see more rigorous
enforcement of rental rules by both property owners and tenants.
On September 6, the Council held a public hearing and vote
on the issue. To make their decision, Council persons, including Mr. Freyberg,
had to rely on information from the public input meetings brought back to them
by Harrenstein and the Mayor, the result of having not been in attendance at
the public meetings themselves. Over 40 people attended the September 6th
public hearing to express their near unanimous opinion in favor of stricter
rules and against a 10% cap. These were the very citizens who should have been
part of the initial work in developing a policy many months before, but the
council’s method of formulating policy disallowed such participation. Citizens
present were allowed a three minute statement each. Then the Council, without much discussion,
voted four to one to adopt the new 10% rule. A tape of that meeting is
available on the City website.
In his My View article, Mr. Freyberg writes that the
city does have a format for developing policy, but sadly, it precludes citizen
participation until the very end when change is nearly impossible. It is a
format that has been used in the past to effectively eliminate direct citizen
participation in policy making, and it was used again in developing a city-wide
rental policy. Transparency and inclusiveness in process is as important as
transparency in actions taken. When citizens did attempt at two public meetings
to participate, they were accused by Administrator Harrenstein, in print, of
“trying to hijack the meeting.” When citizens attended the public hearing to
ask for a more reasonable result they were charged In Freyberg’s My View
with “the use of biased proclamations”.
The rental rules in North Mankato are definitely in need of
change, all agree to that, but what really needs changing is the way in which North Mankato City
Government involves citizens in the decision making process. Many of us, as
concerned citizens, believe that non-compliant landlords and tenants should be
made to answer for their actions, but that the city should not paint all
tenants and landlords with the same broad brush. The involvement of concerned
citizens in the process of government is helpful to the process. No one has all
the answers , but by working together we can come to better solutions to
challenging issues.
