FULTON – The Fulton Common Council met last night, Tuesday, July 6, and approved a resolution that would shorten the time frame of a rental permit in the city from five years to three years.
Mayor Deana Michaels began the meeting with a proclamation dedicating the 90th season of the Fulton Kiwanis baseball program to the late Mayor Ronald Woodward, a longtime supporter during his life as a Fultonian.
Opening day of the program is today, July 7.
A public hearing on amending city code Chapter 152-J “Housing Maintenance-Rental Permits” was then opened to the public. The proposed change to the city code is to decrease the length of the permit from five years to three years, while keeping the fee of $50 per unit the same.
The first public hearing regarding this same chapter was held in August 2020. There was also one held in June, but the meeting did not have enough councilors present to make a quorum and they were required to redo the hearing.
One resident in attendance, Frank Castiglia Jr., spoke. He said he is neither for or against this amendment, but provided the same caution as he did during the public hearing in June and said this decrease in length will add even more of a burden on the codes department.
Code Enforcement Bureau Chief Malcolm Wettering then spoke to discuss why he advocated for this change in the city code. Wettering said they have established a new procedure of waiving inspections that is allowing them to do more and catch up on and maintain the approximate 800 rental permits in the city.
“There will be a little bit of a revenue increase by shortening the timespan on [the rental permits,]” Wettering said. “We’re certainly citing all the violations and following up with them, and we’re having a good response of people being responsible a lot of the time, so we are bringing a lot of people into compliance. There’s a lot of people working with us and coming into compliance, of course we have the repeat offenders that just aren’t interested in doing the right thing, quite frankly.”
Mayor Michaels added that for the properties not in compliance to code requirements and do not have a valid rental permit, the city is charging $200 a month until they have a valid permit.
“If they don’t apply for a rental permit they will be charged, and of course at the end of the day it will go on their taxes at the end of the year,” Wettering said. “We have a number of [property owners] that are falling into that criteria.”
Wettering also discussed how the codes department has done 23 clean ups this year throughout the city. Working with the public works department, they clean up the properties of those who have been cited and the timeframe has run out.
He said these clean ups have ranged from hundreds of dollars to thousands, one costing $6,000. The cost plus an administration fee is then charged to the property owner.
“I think the more important part is that it is very eye opening for some of these property owners,” Michaels said.
Wettering also noted that some of the 23 properties that have been cleaned up are owner occupied, not rentals.
Following the public hearing, the Common Council voted on the resolution. First Ward Councilor Tom Kenyon and Third Ward Councilor Don Patrick Jr. were not in attendance.
The remaining four councilors unanimously supported the resolution and it passed.
All other items in the agenda passed as well:
- Approve the minutes for the June 8 and June 18 council meetings.
- Notice of disclosure: Michael Scott – for one time sale of lumber to repair wooden bridge to Well M2A.
- Sale of property 718 Fremont St. in the amount of $1,000 to James Barnes.
- Sale of property 104 N. 7th St. in the amount of $10,000 to Paul W. Clarke Jr.
- Sale of property 407-409 Beech Street in the amount of $20,000 to Rodney and Alexander Kouthoofd.
- Sale of property 470 W. 4th St. in the amount of $12,500 to Morteza Al Sharif.
- Sale of property 262 N. 6th St. in the amount of $3,000 to Rafael Rodriguez Alvarez.
- Sale of property 266 N. 6th S. in the amount of $2,500 to Rafael Rodriguez Alvarez.
Agenda items and their documents can be found here.
The next regularly scheduled meeting will be Tuesday, August 3, at 7 p.m. in the Municipal Building.
Another article on the public comment session and comments from the council can be found here.
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