Morris Rental Housing Commission

Meeting Minutes

March 27^h, 2008

Morris City Council Chambers

4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Present: Melanie Fohl, Greg Thorson, Alex Murphy, Dan Johnson, Nora Jost, John Amundson, Bill Storck, Melissa Sherod, Hilda Parks, Carol Wilcox

Call to order

The meeting was called to order at 4:02 p.m.

Approval of the Agenda

Moved Rental Housing Commission By-laws to the April 24^th, 2008 meeting agenda,

Added Rental Housing Evaluation System to the agenda,

Added Meeting frequency to the agenda.

Approval of the minutes

Approved as submitted.

Morris Rental Housing Commission Website

Alex Murphy presented a draft of the website via projector and briefly discussed the content. The commission suggested making linked resources more accessible by splitting them between landlord and tenant resources as well as providing more detailed information about what the links are. They also suggested adding several resources: background check links for landlords, rental housing availability resources for tenants, and several others.

The commission briefly discussed publicity for resources and suggested working with local media sources and getting linked from the University of Minnesota, Morris website.

Rental Housing Evaluation System

Responding to concerns about negative reviews Greg Thorson noted that although there are people who say bad things in evaluations, it doesn’t mean that the whole system should be thrown out.

Melissa Sherod asked how the ratings would be set up. Greg Thorson said that the idea is to have satisfaction reports for the tenants to rate responsiveness, friendliness, and other conditions in their rental housing experience.

John Amundson discussed the option of creating a tenant rating system as well as a landlord rating system. Problems with liability were alluded to. Nora Jost suggested going ahead with rental housing evaluation and figuring out what was feasible for tenant rating at a later date.

A registration system for tenant raters was discussed with the purpose of providing accountability and preventing fraudulent practices such as rating multiple times. Melissa Sherod noted possible problems with giving landlords the ability to gain information about tenants through this kind of system.

There was discussion of the ebay model vs. standard rating. The ebay model allows evaluation of both the buyer and the provider whereas standard only allows evaluation of the service provider.

John Amundson expressed a desire for access to resources for tenant screening to make tenant rating unnecessary. John noted that when you can rent to good tenants, if you do your job right, then they’ll rate you well.

A voluntary trial rating system was discussed with the intent to allow landlords to opt-in to their involvement and provide a survey with intent to vacate forms. Melanie Fohl supported a trial system to see how well it would work. Melissa Sherod noted the possible concern about saying anything bad while in the process of vacating if a landlord could see it due to possible problems with the return of a security deposit as a result. Melissa clarified that she thought letting the survey come through the landlord or be published before the return of a security deposit could harm the candidness of the surveys. Dan Johnson said that the results could be released after tenants get the security deposit. Melanie suggested providing a prepaid postcard for rating that the tenant mails in to be held for 60 days before being posted.

Information session for high school and college

It was discussed that there may be grant money left to be spent that could be used for an information session. The commission requested that the staff contact Peg Rinkenberger and check to see when the commission needs to spend grant money by with either Tom Mahoney or David Fluegel.

Adjournments

Adjourned at 5:02 p.m.