JULY 7, 2004

ATTENDANCE: Richard Booth, Chairman; Wendell Simms; Patricia Genuario; Martin Bernard, Vice-Chairman.

STAFF: Lawrence Patterson, Field Representative.

CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order at 7:55pm.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Page 1 Mr. Patterson’s name is spelled wrong in line 5 under paragraph 3 in approval of minutes.

Page 2 Field Representative should have an apostrophe s after it.

In paragraph three from the top the word commissioners should be lower case c both times it is mentioned.

In paragraph four the first sentence should read: Mr. Patterson said that he has also been picking up copies of the Connecticut Apartment Guide for the office.

In paragraph five the following sentence should be added to the end: Mr. Patterson also distributed the 2003-2004 activity report.

Page 3 Under case #1512 the word ‘been’ should be deleted; after ‘served’ all tenants should be added and after ‘with’ the word ‘a’ should be inserted. Also ‘Notice to Quit’ should be capitalized.

Page 4 All of the words ‘commissioners’ should be in lowercase.

** MR. BERNARD MOVED TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF MAY 5TH AS CORRECTED.

** MR. SIMMS SECONDED THE MOTION.

** THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

Mr. Booth said that John Nathanson has not been reappointed to the commission. They moved Mr. Blair into his position from an alternate commissioner.

Mr. Booth said that he was asked to sit on the Mayor’s Human Relations & Fair Rent Commission Task Force. Mr. Booth said that he feels that Fair Rent is not the number one priority of the group, as they appear to be more concerned with Human Relations. More than 70% of the combined work of the two commissions is Fair Rent related. The Task Force would prefer to have a lawyer as director if its possible, however it may not go through. The Task Force has re-written the Director’s job description. If it goes through the way it is written now it will satisfy the needs of this commission. The new title of this position will be ‘Director of Human Relations and Fair Rent’ allowing the title to show that there are two commissions being brought together. Mr. Booth also mentioned several newspaper articles that had been in the paper relating to Fair Rent.

FIELD REPRESENTATIVE’S REPORT

Mr. Patterson also noted some of the articles in the paper, as well. He said that they were able to wrap everything up with the budget at the end of the fiscal year. There is no status on the director search at this moment in time. After the job description is done with the Task Force, it will then go on to Personnel. A lot of the members on the Task Force are concerned with Human Relations, however Fair Rent is being short changed. This may be due to the fact that there is only one person on the Task Force with a background in Fair Rent. Mr. Patterson said that he had been requested by the Law department to provide prior years statistical reports on the department’s activity levels, from when Sonja Devitt was last there as Director. Additionally, he was asked to provide statistical reports for the current year as well. When the reports were brought before the Task Force there was some question as to whether or not the statistics were valid. The numbers showed a 90-10 split, with 90% of the work being Fair Rent, and less than 10% of the work being Human Relations. Mr. Patterson went all the way back to 1992 to look at the statistics, and Fair Rent has always been at least 89% of each years new workload.

One newspaper article that Mr. Patterson touched upon stated that many people living in Colonial Village have had their base rent increased. However the article doesn’t state whether these same people may have also had their household income, cost-of-living adjustments, or apartment size changed, as well.

Mr. Patterson brought up the fact that City Hall has been closed more on weekends now that concert season is over. Also he said that the building’s cleaning crew is now responsible for locking all public office doors at 5:30pm each night. This will hopefully cut down on after-hours public traffic into the office when Mr. Patterson is attempting to leave at the end of the day.

Mr. Patterson apologized for not having the second quarter activity reports for this meeting. This was due to the many other pressing things that had been started as of late. Mr. Patterson will have them for next month’s meeting.

Mr. Patterson said that the phone log and intake form formats may need to be revised.

Mr. Patterson noted that he attended a housing seminar on June 11 that was put on by the Connecticut Association of Housing Code Enforcement Officials, of which Mr. Patterson is a member.

Mr. Patterson noted that Irene Alarcon will be out of the office for a few days this month due to inhouse computer training.

Mr. Patterson also mentioned that several commissioner’s terms had expired as of July 1st, including Mr. Bernard, Mr. Nathanson, Mr. Goomrigian, and Mr. Roberts.

COMMISSIONER’S POTPOURRI

There was no commissioner’s potpourri tonight.

OLD BUSINESS

There was no old business tonight

NEW BUSINESS

There was no new business tonight.

REVIEW AND DISCUSSION OF EACH OPEN CASE

MOTION AND VOTE ON OPEN CASES AS NECESSARY

Case 1513-03- Mr. Patterson recommended closing this case.

** MR. BERNARD MOVED TO CLOSE THIS CASE.

** MS. GENUARIO SECONDED THE MOTION.

** THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

Case 1514-03-Mr. Patterson said that there was no action needed to be made on this case.

PRESENTATION OF NEW CASES

DECISION TO HEAR OR RECOMMENDATIONS TO STAFF

MOTION AND VOTE ON EACH NEW CASE PRESENTED

Case 1515-04-

Mr. Patterson said that there is a complaint with the landlord. There was another complaint placed in 2002 with the same landlord. Mr. Patterson recommended to hear this case.

** MR. SIMMS MOVED TO HEAR THIS CASE.

** MR. BERNARD SECONDED THE MOTION.

** THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

Case 1516-04-

Mr. Patterson recommended to hear this case.

** MS. GENUARIO MOVED TO HEAR THIS CASE.

** MR. SIMMS SECONDED THE MOTION.

** THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

Case 1517-04-

Ms. Genuario asked if this case necessitated the commission’s vote because there were only a few problems. Mr. Patterson said ‘yes’, because proper procedure requires a commission vote should the case need to go to a hearing.

** MR. BERNARD MOVED TO HEAR THIS CASE.

** MR. SIMMS SECONDED THE MOTION.

** THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

Mr. Patterson added that the office recently sent a fruit basket to Sonja Devitt from the two commissions, at the recent loss of her father.

** MS. GENUARIO MOVED TO ADJOURN.

** MR. BERNARD SECONDED.

** THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00pm.

Respectfully submitted,

J. Marci Rosenberg

Telesco Secretarial Services