Saint Paul Fair Housing Lawsuits/ President Obama put squeeze on DFL leaders.
It's enough to recall the old joke that liberals love the poor in theory—it's the actual poor they have a problem with.
LINK TO STORY HERE
LINK TO STORY HERE
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posted by Bob at Monday, February 13, 2012
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43 Comments:
ok so, did the pres promised the city of st.paul?? Chuck you should tell dave that life is not so good. I work regular job not hand it to me. like you. dont you work for district council?? taxe dollars fund it ?
You got to love this one....
This is a conservative newspaper beating the shit out of the city for not taking on the "slumlords" and moving ahead with the case.
Its the position of this paper that the landlords are scum and for the City to back off and not clobber them at the supreme court when it was a slam dunk is a bad thing.
Amazing that you put the link here.
And, Les I don't know why you are obsessed with where I work. I have four jobs. One of those jobs I work part-time for a District Council. That District Council does get some of its funding from the City of Saint Paul, some from grants, and some from the local business association.
One of my other jobs is as a real estate broker and one of my jobs is as contract lobbyist for an energy company.
So, tell me where you work Les and I will tell you how much you depend on the government for your way of life. You getting into SSI or Medicare Les?
There was a great story in the paper about how much support there is for the GOP from guys like you were are totally dependent on the government tit, getting SSI or disability insurance and medicaid and scream to the world how we should cut off those "other people" from assistance.
Its sad that people would feel that sad about their own lives and that desperate to deny themselves the reality of their own life that they would feel such a strong need to kick the person with less.
It like we have been seeing for years, the southern states get a hell of a lot more money from the Fed's than they pay in and vote GOP like crazy claiming they are taxed to much, when they aren't even taxed enough to pay for the services they get.
JMONTOMEPPOF (Just My Opinion Not Those Of My Employers Past Present Or Future) I sign off that way Les to remind you that these are my thoughts not anyone else.
Chuck Repke
Bullshit Chuck! We all know you are nothing but a city spin machine. Whenever they want to spew DFL BS spin they wind you up like a toy monkey and roll you out the courthouse door.
everyone seems to believe that the city was a slam dunk to win. that is the b.s.
How picking a side blinds you. I ask this question," why did the city appeal to the city if they knew they were or wanted to win?" Are you telling me that they were winging it and didn't know the consequence of a victory? I believe they could give a damn about disparate impact but received tons of pressure from the Obama administration and dropped it. Now they come out instead of telling the truth and say they didn't want to turn over 40 years of law protecting civil rights. Isn't that exactly what the landlords are arguing? They should have went to trial years ago to prove they were innocent instead of dragging this out. It makes me think they aren't. Just my two cents.
I can't believe they used the word slumlord. Can't they get in trouble for that?
Mike
As for linking the Wall Street Journal. I attempt to post all sides of a story here, you guys know that.
Go to the link. Read the "comments". I posted some facts there, as I suspected nobody is interested in facts.
:) Funny thing about those right wingers, they don't give two hoots about the lawsuits, all they can talk about is how the left abandoned the poor, or how the left uses the poor. (attack politics)
My biggest fear now is the Obama administration may attempt to influence the court on behalf of the city. I keep reminding myself there will be a jury of peers to ultimately decide the outcome of this case, if they aren't hog tied by Judge Davis. We will see if Judge Davis is a institutional racist or an honorable man who stands up to political pressure from institutional racist.
You said Chuck the right or left would have nothing to do with the fair housing lawsuits, all this is SO laughably funny none of us have stopped laughing since the news broke.
Advice from Lillehaug? Ya all should have taken my advice years ago and came up with a crime strategy, and stop violating citizens rights through back door means.
The way this story is playing out I could have wrote it myself.lol
I just have to say this to Chuck, Eric and our city leaders.
"I TOLD YOU SO"!
Remember Frank Villeum? When he left before Choi he warned the city that what they were doing is leaving them exposed for a lawsuit. That was 8 years ago.
Didn't SMRLS warn the city their actions were having a disparate impact on people of color. That was 8-10 years ago.
The city was warned of their actions but kept going. NOW who's going to pay? Us. Our tax dollars.
Susie
Not to worry Susie. The good thing about the tax dollars is that there ALWAYS another bunch of them to get. Taxpayers are the gift that keeps giving no matter what!
These are all pridictions Repke had in a prevus discussion. Look at now how he is acting. Can you notice the rhetoric.
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First, 8:30 PM did you even read the link? The link discusses how BAD it would be for minorities if the City of Saint Paul LOST. The fear in the housing advocates is that if Saint Paul loses then all abilities to protect tenants in bad housing situations would be lost. The ability to inspect unsafe properties would end since cities would not be able to site housing that had minority residents in the units for violations for fear that the landlord would either rehab and raise the rent or not rehab and the unit go off of the market for being unsafe.
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If the court says yes that can go forward then it means you can't inspect properties for health violations in any city that has a significant number of low income minority members (like most major cities) because the inspections would have a disparate impact on minority members.
The court would be condeming minorities to unsafe housing.
It isn't going to happen.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
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So, if "good" health inspections mean that the price of housing goes up and this impacts minorities if you can have that kind of a violation then, you can't have inspections.
What Pacific is concerned about is, then if judging someone based on the credit score means that more minorities can't get mortgages, does using a credit score to determine who gets a mortgage have a disparate impact on minorities?
Because if the City loses, you can see that case popping up in two seconds.
That is Pacific's issue.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
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That ruling was then appealed to the supreme court by the City because of the insane impacts if it goes to trial.
8:38 PM
This is the best one. Chuck you've been right on!
Actually Bob, its pretty laughable. They aren't even trying to argue the issue at hand, they are retrying the arguements that they have already lost to make their clients feel like they are doing something.
Its pretty sad and I'd say they don't have much of a chance.
Any clue when it actually goes to the court?
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Chuck,
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.
Winston Churchill
Bob, well said!!
Now we need a public review board to review the actions of the DSI inspectors.
We need citizen input (review board), as to what has been going on down at city hall with DSI inspectors.
Bob, I will contact you off line about this.
Bob, keep up the good work.
No one wants to touch this on the e democracy blog. Mitch berg had a great response.
Bob...
The City of Saint Paul's case was so strong and the landlord's case so bad that the President of the United States was concerned that the Supreme Court would see how ridiculous the landlords case was and that they might through out Disparate Impact in all FHA cases.
That is what just happened. That is why the Wall Street Journal just ripped the shit out of the City for backing down. They wanted the City to win the case because they think that the FHA can be taken to the extreme and end up with insane cases like this.
Nobody is worried about this thing going to court, the landlords have no chance of winning. The issue is that everyone can see that if the point of inspections is to protect tenants (and that part of the case the city has already won on) and the landlords are at fault for the bad properties (that part of the case is already won) then to have the landlords be able to sue under FHA to stop the tenants from being protected from the landlords bad actions (which is what this suit is... stop inspecting houses that can't pass inspections) makes the FHA a protection of those that would exploit minorities.
Once the Supreme Court figured that out the fear was that they would take it to the next level... read the amicus briefs from Pacific and the banks... their issue is when will someone sue a bank for not giving someone a mortgage because they don't have a job? (or a very low credit score?)... knowing that a higher percentage of minorities are out of work is requiring someone to have a job before you give them a mortgage a disparate impact on minorities????
There was a chance that the Supreme Court would agree with Pacific and say that insane logic of the landlords case... that you can't try to protect minorities in bad housing because the landlord might raise the rent is equally insane as saying you can't not give someone a mortgage because they don't have a job.
That is what the issue is about.
The landlords case is so insane that it shows that the courts could force insane cases in other areas under the notion of "impact" that have no rational reason.
I stand by my comments. I just didn't know how scared the left would be that the court might throw out the entire notion of impact. There issue is that they are still hoping to see class action law suits against banks for giving mortgages to people they knew wouldn't be able to pay them... or for doing mortgages that the buyers didn't understand. They want to be able to sue under FHA as disparate impact since a higher number of minorities got these loans.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Chuck I'm in the suit and I'll bet I put more money in each of my properties then you have ever put in your shithole. Your argument is always bad properties. Well chuck the jury will see the condition of these houses and the city can cross examine but the case will be about did the ramped up phony violations have an impact. Chuck the landlords won at 8 circuit and convincing a jury will be easier. If you think it's a slam dunk you're crazy. I like the chances. More money from a jury that will slap the city!
You have been wrong for 8 years so keep giving predictions.
8:45 - what is left is a disparate impact case. It has absolutely nothing left about targeting landlords (you have lost that one) or unfair inspections (you have lost that one) or about if your house should or shouldn't have been inspected (you have lost that one). If/when your lawyers try to bring up that stuff they will be out of order and they won't be able to discuss it because you have lost those parts of the case.
Here is your case.
1. Your lawyers will have to show that minorities were impacted by the City's housing inspection program. They need real evidence that a substantial number of buildings were condemned because of inspections and/or had significant rent increase because of inspections. And, it needs to be significant... I have no idea what percent of rental properties being impacted will be considered significant but you'd think it would need to be at least 5% or something near that.
2. Then you have to show that more minorities lost their housing (at least on a percentage basis) then whites did. You have to show that there was some disparate impact. What the court of appeals said was on a pre-trail, summary judgement basis you didn't have to prove it statistically to have a case, but now you are going to have to prove it.
3. IF you can prove those things, then the City has to prove that your houses actually failed inspections and that there was a public purpose to inspecting your properties, protecting the tenants.
4. Then, your side has to prove that there was some method of accomplishing the same goal that would have had less of an impact on minority residents. That is the PP2000 argument.
The landlords will argue that under the old pp2000 system the inspectors were nice to them and the landlords fixed all of the problems that were asked of them. The City will argue that they stopped pp2000 because baby sitting the landlords wasn't working and that they were not able to get as many properties inspected under pp2000. Also, they will argue since they were enforcing the same code under either the cost to repair was the same.
That's it.
That is the case.
There is only one charge and the court has a three part test that you need to prove your case by... and if you win, the victims aren't the landlords, because there is no damage to the landlord, the victim would be any tenant that was displaced that was not appropriately assisted by the City.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Apparantly the LandLords are back to square one:
Hopefully they can reopen the RICO Claims and force the DFL State AG Lori Swanson to be involved..
Public Policy Hopefully all litigants will run for public office to enforce the Fair Housing Laws.
You are wrong Chuck
Copied from the bowels of E Democracy.
From: mitch berg Date: Feb 13 23:01
The editorial was dead-on.
This suit has caught the city of Saint Paul in a fundamental hypocrisy: in the
name of "decent affordable housing", it has adopted precisely the same policies
that have made "decent" housing utterly unaffordable in many major cities. The
demonization of landlords (isn't it hilarious how ANYONE who runs afoul of the
city is a "slumlord"?), the extrajudicial remedies for criminal problems, the
jacking of landlords into spaces between rocks and hard places (incredibly
difficult to evict problem tenants, but failure to control them results in the
city taking expensive, binding, extralegal but very severe action against you;
you have great responsibility, but no power to enact it, which is
fundamentallytyrannical).
And the hypocrisy continues; after nearly a decade of yakking about principles,
the City is being inveigled to abandon its defense - because it'd remove a tool
that the Obama Administration needs to similarly harass banks and lenders, to
create the NEXT financial crisis.
Have you heard how easy it is to get "affordable housing" without government
aid in DC? Manhattan? Philly? Saint Paul is going down that exact path; turning
the city into an expensive donut riddled with little publicly-subsidized holes.
On the one hand, they've made it exceptionally difficult to provide "affordable
housing" in the private sector; on the other, they've seen to it (via their
*moronic* 2008 vacant bulding ordinance) that there is such a glut of
cheap-but-uninhabitable housing to flense home prices for the rest of us.
This case highlights exactly how liberalism destroys cities as effectively as
any terrorist attack, albeit more slowly, and with applause from the
participants.
The clinker of it all? *You all deserve this*. You keep working to re-elect the
financially-illiterate hamsters that prance around and spout populist dogma out
of one corner of their mouths, while assuming that the money to keep floating
their plans will be delivered to them, maybe by unicorns, out the other.
I told my kids to move the hell out of this cesspool when they could. They're
doing it.
Who hopes against hope that the landlords CRUSH the city, and just *knows* the
first response will be "why do you support teh slumlords and hate teh people".
Just you watch.
The Midway
Mitch, your logic is circular. The "tool" that the Obama administration wants to use against the banks is the "tool" that the landlords were trying to use against the City. Its not the City that's messing with the landlords, the City has already won that part of the case... its the landlords who have already been proven to be trying to rent substandard housing that are using this "tool" of the FHA to attempt to stop the City from making sure that every unit in the city has a working toilet and isn't rat infested.
I thought the paper was spot on with the conservative view of how to deal with the poor. Because not only did it advocate for rat infested housing, it wanted to make sure there were plenty of customers for the rat infested housing by getting rid of the minimum wage. Hell if they get rid of the minimum wage then everyone can live in the rat traps the pioneer press wants.
Unintended consequences my ass... the landlords want to screw the poor and make sure they have nowhere better to live and the pioneer press wants to gut the minimum wage to give them plenty of customers.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
The way I read this, when the leftist Saint Paul cadres stepped in to "help" teh poor, they made miserable lives unbearable.
And now they have to back off lest that truth become documented public fact.
That pretty much sums up the consequence of every single moonbat program that ever bubbled to the surface of the fever swamp since LBJ.
Nice goin' kooks! LOL!
Oh, and by the way, Chuck: "the landlords want to screw the poor and make sure they have nowhere better to live"
As opposed to the leftist dolts in city hall that want to move teh poor directly into the street.
"I'm frum teh government...here to help!" Pffft.
Chuck aren't you a landlord? Mitch good write up! Go landlords!
Love your political satire Swiftee.
This lawsuit caught democrats with their pants down.
Jamal
A couple of points, there is a difference between affordable housing and substandard housing. What the City already proved in court was that these were substandard housing units.
There are very few landlords in this suit and very few landlords that view the City's inspection process as any more difficult than any other in the Twin Cities. Most people actually think Saint Paul is easier because it does not have landlord licensing which is common through-out the metro.
And, sorry folks I have no idea what is going on at SPIF I haven't been a member of SPIF since last October... I was too mean to the people who like IRV and finally got tired of being warned that I was going to be suspended, so, I quit.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Chuck the city had a 80% more stringent code then a landlord has to deal with when dealing with section 8. Federal standards that keep tenants safe but keep housing affordable. Once again Chuck facts seem to get in the way of your spin.
4:32 - Wow.. somebody who actually gets the point. That is an issue that you can actually use in the third part of the three part test on disparate impact.
You could argue that the owners had the property up to PHA standard and that PHA believes that they have met all life safety issues in their inspections. .... and then you would have to get PHA to swear that is the point of their inspections and that nothing had changed in the building since the PHA inspection.
That's what would/could happen in the case. Of course PHA may say that their inspection isn't meant to take the place of life safety inspections... and/or that they had never seen the units in question and then that 80% over PHA level means nothing at all.
But, you actually had something there other than BS like most people here have.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Chuck they are HUD standards. And that is a true fact. HUD has something called minnimum housing standards. They are 80% less stringent then what the city uses. It's exactly what it is meant to do: keep housing safe but also affordable. St.paul codes were meant to control behavior also among other things. Since we all know one of the most common thoughtd behind the city was it was easier to control tenants civilly then criminally. Housing inspectors or cops? What's cheaper?
The city could careless about landlords. That's why you they can easily lump all landlords as one,"slumlords!" Ramp up code enforcement when behavior gets bad, squeeze the landlord(kinda like Obama did to StPaul), make him spend unnecessary money, to go along with his tenant behind on rent and boom, landlord out of business. Then when the landlords down put the final nail in the coffin, put that slumlords property as a vacant cat 2! Slumlord didn't deserve it!
Now we got that slumlords property because he abandons it like they did in Milwaukee. You know the breaking point? Now we have that house sitting vacant so we don't have to tolerate bad behavior.
Well I'm rambling but the list of evidence is out there. Read it.
Come on Chuck don't sit there and talk cheap. Let's talk real! Let's talk facts!
Tim
Sin it any way you want to Chuck but the city is still wrong in the way they do the inspections program. The worst crime zone in the city is the DSI offices and I for one hopes that these landlords put a stop to it.
Chuck you said, "And, sorry folks I have no idea what is going on at SPIF I haven't been a member of SPIF since last October... I was too mean to the people who like IRV and finally got tired of being warned that I was going to be suspended, so, I quit."
What a joke SPIF is. For once we agree.
Speaking of SPIF,
Here is an interesting article in the paper today.
http://www.twincities.com/stpaul/ci_19973119
As part of the three-year $625,000 grant, E-Democracy will hire up to 10 part-time neighborhood outreach staffers this summer to boost participation from communities of
color citywide, and specifically residents along the Central Corridor. (Appropriately enough, E-Democracy's new recruitment push is dubbed BeNeighbors.org.)
Still not one word on SPIF of the landlord lawsuit and the recent developments that Bob is talking about here.
Tim,
I am not a lawyer, and have not been a party to the case. All I know is that one of the witnesses for the plaintiffs said that PHA housing standards are 80% of what the City's housing standards are.
I don't know what he meant by it or why the first judge that heard the case didn't think that was of any value.
But, I will grant you that IF...and again its an BIIIIGGGG IF your side can get over the first step in the disparate impact case, that there actually was a significant (meaning more than a few, enough so as you would notice) number of housing units lost do to code enforcement and that there were a disparate number of minorities that lost their housing because of that. Then you will be able to argue that PHA standards should be the standard that the City uses to rent to the poor and that some significant fewer number of houses would not have been condemned or raised the rents so high that tenants moved out because of the City's higher standard.
So, the case that the landlords have to PROVE is that there was a significant number (hundreds) of housing units lost because of inspections. That the loss disparately impacted minorities and then that there would have been a system that would have lost significantly (hundreds) less houses so that less people of color would have lost their homes.
So, if the facts are that there were only 200 or 300 housing units lost during the time in question, as a result of code enforcement the judge/jury could determine that it isn't a significant enough number of units to have had an IMPACT on the communities of color in Saint Paul (the City was building more affordable units during that time as well...remember that was a part of the RICO suit that the City was trying to take over the low income market)
And then if there were a significant number of housing units lost... lets say 1,000 just for an example and using PHA standards would have only saved 50 of them then a Judge/Jury might determine there wouldn't have been enough saved to have had an IMPACT.
The landlord now have to PROVE disparate IMPACT and if there was that some other system would have been less IMPACTFUL.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Chuck said:
So, the case that the landlords have to PROVE is that there was a significant number (hundreds) of housing units lost because of inspections. That the loss disparately impacted minorities and then that there would have been a system that would have lost significantly (hundreds) less houses so that less people of color would have lost their homes.
Tim says:
Chuck wouldn't the 2,000 houses put on the vacant list be units taken off the market be an impact on affordable housing. Not to mention condemned property, revoked retail license and the high cost of code enforcement. It shouldn't be a tough case to prove. You can't say the city was promoting affordable housing. I've been in a lot of vacant property and can tell you we're probably seeing the last days of the vacant building code. That in itself has a desperate impact. In a city with not enough affordable housing we can't afford to take any offline.
Tim
Tim,
Good luck PROVING that the national foreclosure crisis was a direct result of the City of Saint Paul inspection program....
I think it will be pretty easy because of the City's system for you to go through the list of vacants and find out how many of those 2,000 had condemnation orders BEFORE they went vacant.
Good luck finding 200 of them because you are proving my point. The vacancy issue is a result of the national forclosure crisis and the impact of City code enforsement is insignificant in comparison.
Got it... NO IMPACT. And, if there is no impact there can't be disparate impact.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Chuck the vacant code was in place way before the forclosure crisis and did have a big impact on affordable housing in St. Paul. We all know St. Paul has an affordable housing crisis, we all know that heavy handed code enforcement adds to the problem and we also know that the vacant building program is cumbersome and doesn't help fact track safe housing stock back to the market. Moving a toilet 2 inches is not making housing safer chuck. Code compliances are completely unproductive.
12:32 - that isn't what is on trial... what is in the state building code isn't on trial... unless you can show that some tenant lost their housing unit because the toilet was to close to the wall...
Disparate impact during the Kelly administration is on trial.
Someone is going to have to prove that a significant number of people were put out of their housing units because of code enforcement... key words significant and because of... not because that some LLC didn't make his mortgage payment because he had never planned on making a mortgage payment before the next time he flipped the building... The housing unit was lost as an affordable unit because of code enforcement...
Then that some other reasonable way of assuring the health and safety of the tenants would have had a lesser IMPACT on minority members.
Again, just not enforcing the code and having the poor live in rat infested buildings doesn't work. It has to be something like Tim suggested that maybe PHA standards would have gotten to the same place for less impact... and then PROVE that it would have had less impact, not just one or two housing units.
Try, try, try again...
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Hey Chuck proving the impact is a piece of cake. The court ruling paved the way for that. They said if more minoritites depend on low income housing than whites and if you do something to harm low income housing then you have harmed the minotrities and thus created disparate impact. It's a cake wlak Repke. Landlords go from rags to riches and your power hungry law breaking politicians buddies downtown are left holding the bill for it. And then we have the political fallout. As I am sure you know that perception equals reality in the political world and when the facts get out about what they have done to property owners and renters their political careers are all over around here.
Living in rat infested buildings and violating the state building codes by violating the grandfathering provisions and violating the states Supreme Courts order not to violate those grandfathering provisions are arguments that are miles apart Chuck and you know it. Who was living in rat infested buildings anyways? Is this another figamnet of your imagination or just a flat out lie?
4:00 - like I said, what the court of appeals ruled on was if giving every argument to the landlords is their a chance that their might be a case for disparate impact? They ruled that there may be. That then means the lawyers will have to prove it.
They have to prove IMPACT first that a lot of people lost their housing do to code enforcement. Then that more minorities lost their housing. Finally that there would be a system that would make the properties just as safe but would have less impact on minorities.
You don't prove that by saying 2,000 houses are vacant, it must be the codes fault... or 2,000 houses are vacant, we can't afford to lose even one more... or there are a lot of minority poor people we shouldn't worry about how they live until we are sure they all have housing.
None of that PROVES that the City's actions had a disparate impact on minorities and that some other code enforcement system would have made people just as safe with less impact.
As to the rodent infested properties, read the transcripts.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
What transcripts? Are there some transcripts Bob hasn't posted here that talk about rat infested property? The only thing I read here was about a rat in the outside yard. Is that a infestation? Do you condemn houses for that?
8:08 PM, YES! Joel Essling (DSI) and Leanna Shaft, DSl (Fire) do this all the time.
The most rat infested places of all are city hall and DSI headquarters, when you consider the real rats. Now the landlords will be able to fumigate them properly.
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