City tries to get houses in order

SOUTH PORTLAND — When artist Louise Philbrick first moved into her Ferry Village home, on Free Street in South Portland, she valued the diversity of the neighborhood.

That was seven years ago.

Today, she says, Free Street is not just diverse, it’s downright dangerous.  Philbrick on Monday presented public records to the City Council, showing 95 police dispatch calls to buildings at 29, 33, and 39 Free St., for issues including drug sales and manufacture, terrorizing, criminal threatening and domestic violence. More than once, Philbrick said, she’s been confronted by neighbors and presumed squatters for daring to care about the frequent presence of police cars outside her doorstep.

“I don’t go anywhere in my house now without Mace and my cell phone,” she told city councilors during their workshop session. “A neighbor and I just bought air horns as a quick way to notify the other of danger. This is no way to live. I live next to these properties and I’m afraid.”

In an effort to combat the growing number of places like the apartment houses Philbrick fears, South Portland is considering a so-called “disorderly house” ordinance.

City Manager James Gailey says he and his staff have been working on the local legislation for “three or four months.” 

As drafted, the ordinance would trigger a mandatory meeting between city officials and building owners should police be forced to visit a site three times within a 30-day period, if that building has five units or less. The meeting trigger is four police calls in a month for buildings with between six and 10 units and five calls for larger complexes.

The meeting, which must take place within five days of notice by the city, must result within one week in a written contract in which the property owner agrees to “take effective measures to resolve the disorderly house.”

Although the ordinance does not specify what constitutes resolution, or “effective measures,” it does carry a penalty of $500 to $1,000 for “each day of violation.” In addition, the city may condemn and post a building against occupancy, 

Although all councilors agreed something should be done, not all were on board with Gailey’s proposal.

“Are we treating them [building owners] improperly, like it’s all their fault?” asked Councilor Alan Livingston.

Councilor Tom Coward called it “trying to kill a gnat with a sledgehammer. I have some civil liberties and constitutional issues with this.”

Police will deal with any actual criminal behavior, he said, leaving what’s left to be addressed in the disorderly house ordinance “things that people don’t like but that don’t rise to the level of a crime.”

Coward pointed out that many calls for police can turn out to be baseless.

“I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea that we could take action against a landowner because somebody thinks that somebody else might be doing something on his property,” said Coward.

Meanwhile, Councilor Tom Blake, who was voted away from the council table due to a perceived conflict of interest – he owns and manages several properties in the city – rose from the audience to make several objections, along lines similar to Livingston and Coward.

Blake appeared a bit peeved when Mayor Rosemarie De Angelis held him to two-minutes speaking time, in his newfound place as a rank-and-file citizen. Still, Blake was able to make a plea that the city conduct a landlord summit, of sorts, to solicit input on the ordinance proposal.

“This is a four-party issue – police, neighborhoods, landlords and the tenants,” he said. “Have all four parties participated in the creation of this ordinance? The two most important people in this process, the tenants creating the problem and the landlords – I’m not sure they have.”

Blake also faulted Gailey for placing the proposed change in Chapter 5 of the city code, relating to buildings. It properly belongs in Chapter 16, which deals with nuisances.

City attorney Sally Daggett said the update did not go in Chapter 16 because “that has not been looked at since 1966.” Adding to that chapter, she said, would force lengthy and expensive process of scrubbing the entire chapter.

Blake then argued that South Portland’s police department does not have the resources required to fulfill its obligations on the proposal.

“We’re putting a rather time-consuming ordinance in their lap,” he said. “Data collection, information, inventory, follow-up – it’s not easy. We enacted a graffiti ordinance to deal with that problem. A year later, we still have graffiti out there.”

However, Councilor Patti Smith was not swayed.

“I’m not hearing any squealing from the parties involved in the data gathering,” she said, observing that officials on hand from both the fire and police departments spoke in favor of the proposal.

“The landlord is the one who has the authority and the responsibility to make something happen,” said Police Chief Edward Googins.

In that vein, Smith argued for stiffer penalties, perhaps double the fines listed in the ordinance’s first draft.

“This kind of behavior is what we don’t want in our city,” she said. “We can run them out of town with a heavier fine, I think.”

“I think the penalty needs to be severe enough to hurt,” agreed De Angelis, suggesting that landlords would brush off the penalties as drafted.

Blake, however, said it would be irresponsible of South Portland to try and export its problems, either by posting buildings against occupancy or hoping absent landlords would look to other places for investment opportunities.

“I think it’s the behavior we need to modify, not relocating it to a different place,” he said.

One section of the draft ordinance all seven councilors agreed on forcing identification of individual owners in cases where a property is owned by an LLC.

“We don’t know at some of these addresses who the heck we’re dealing with,” said Googins, suggesting that the ordinance will have no teeth if the city can’t figure out who to force to the table.

Because the meeting was a workshop session, no action was taken. De Angelis said that, given the amount of feedback given to Gailey by councilors, the proposal may or may not come back to them for first reading at their next meeting, Sept. 19.