Landlords speak out against proposed rental changes

SIKESTON — A contingent of landlords spoke out against a proposed update to the rental property minimum housing quality standards at Monday’s Sikeston City Council meeting.

Gary Cook, of Cook Rentals, spoke to the Council and asked them to include a workshop explaining the changes better to landlords and include a formal complaint system.

“We would just like to sit down and put a fair compromise together,” Cook said.

Landlord Ronda Smith said while there has been some good dialogue, not everyone in the community who rents homes knows of the changes.

“I feel like the issue at hand is a lack of good communication between the city and landlords,” Smith said. “We have a big transition going on here. The sooner we get some good communication the better off we’ll be.”

As part of the changes, inspections would be done every five years instead of every two and Sikeston Mayor Steven Burch asked why that would be worse for the landlords. Most of the landlords in attendance agreed it wasn’t the time between inspections but the type of inspections that would be done.

Cook said previously there were street view inspections and now code enforcement officers would be coming into the rentals.

“It’s an invasion of privacy coming in our units,” Cook said.

There were also questions about landlords being held to different standards than private property owners.

“I promise you they are going after private property too,” Burch said.

“All I’m asking is that before we jump the gun we get a little more feedback,” Cook said. “We want the same thing here.”

Burch agreed that there needed to be more explanation to the landlords about the new policies and the changes to the rental standards were tabled by Council. A training session was set up for 5 p.m. Sept. 19 at City Council Chambers in City Hall.

In other action Monday, Council:

• Renewed an occupancy lease with the New Madrid County Ambulance Service.

• Renewed a contract with the Sikeston Fire Protection District.

• Voted to not replace a stop sign with a yield sign at Linn and Selma. “Right now we are not having a lot of accidents there,” Sikeston Department of Public Safety Director Mike Williams said. “I don’t see we are fixing anything with (the yield sign).”

Council voted 5-1 against the yield sign with Onethia Williams the only dissenting vote.

• Failed to give a motion on putting a four-way stop sign at N. Ranney and Lake Street, killing the bill.

• Approved the replat of 305 and 307 N. Ingram Road.

• Voted to reject bids on the building project on Stalcup and Council will look into the issue further.

• Listened to a citizen’s argument to change the 1,000-foot limit for medical marijuana dispensaries from schools, day cares and churches.

• Listened to a citizen enquire about the use of UTV’s on city streets.