St. Louis County Council voted down a bill (4-3) that would have required landlords in unincorporated St. Louis County to evict tenants who have misdemeanors resulting from “public nuisances” or they would lose their licenses under a new licensing system the bill would create.
Substitute Bill No. 1 (previously known as Bill 204) would have revised chapter 825 in the “Residential Rental Property and Licensing Code.” The bill excluded apartment complexes and was fairly vague in its written language.
It was proposed by Mike O’Mara (D-Florissant), St. Louis County Council vice chairman, who specifically mentioned Glasgow Village in his North County district as the target of the proposed codes.
Councilman Kevin O’Leary (D-Oakville), Councilwoman Hazel Erby (D-University City), Councilwoman Colleen Wasinger (R-Town and Country) and Councilman Mark Harder (R-Ballwin) voted against the new version of O’Mara’s bill on Tuesday night.
Voting with O’Mara were council chair Pat Dolan (D-Richmond Heights) and Sam Page (D-Creve Coeur).
For the past two council meetings, more than 50 people have spoken against the bill before the council.
Joe Ord, who owns 46 properties in unincorporated St. Louis County, testified on Tuesday night, “I haven’t always had the best tenants, I like getting those tenants out. This bill doesn’t do that.”
Ord’s main concern with the bill was equality in enforcement.
“I manage over 250 units. I manage in North County, I manage in West County, I manage in St. Charles,” Ord said.
“I have units that cross the spectrum, and I’m telling you that crimes happen in all those neighborhoods. Is this bill going to get evenly enforced? If it doesn’t, then it’s really going to seem like you’re being racist. It’s going to be a Ferguson issue if this does not get evenly enforced.”
Ord also said he believed that if passed bill would bring an “extreme legal challenge” to St. Louis County from tenants, landlords and civil rights groups.
“You can’t apply one set of rules to one set of people and another set of rules to another set of people and call this America,” Ord told the council. “You just can’t.”
Zach Schmook, deputy director and managing attorney for St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council, said the bill could greatly affect oppressed individuals.
“It gives the county and enforcement agency a lot of discretion about where they’re going to enforce this kind of stuff,” Schmook told The American. “You know, it’s not going to be in Afton, it’s going to be in Spanish Lake. We think there are a lot of disparate impacts: racial, disability, domestic violence. Across the gamut, we think this is a bad way to approach this target.”
Molly Metzger, assistant professor at Washington University’s Brown School of Social Work, said she was mostly concerned about the issue of domestic violence in relation to the bill. Metzger and one of her students wrote a policy brief on the overlapping of nuisance ordinances and domestic violence and the risk of eviction. Under the bill’s first draft, domestic violence was not excluded from being a public nuisance.
Metzger says she was “thrilled” that the bill was voted down.
“I’m incredibly relieved,” Metzger told The American. “It really gave me some hope to see all the people who came out and spoke against it. People have to live somewhere. If they’ve done their time, they’ve done their time and I think people in St. Louis County are starting to realize that.”
St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch testified in support of O’Mara’s bill, as St. Louis Public Radio reported.
“I think overall it is a good ordinance,” McCulloch testified, “and a good step toward maintaining and improving the housing stock that we have parts of the county that are growing older.”
This story is published as part of a partnership between The Huffington Post and The St. Louis American.
