WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=lOW3U1WbtS0

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: lOW3U1WbtS0):
- 00:00:00: Meeting Commences: Roll Call, Flag Salute, Sunshine Law Compliance
- 00:01:56: Introductions: Prosecutors, Code Compliance, Committee Clarifications
- 00:04:41: Request for Case Numbers and Fines Issued in 2025
- 00:07:43: Clarification of Fines Collected; Court Revenue Data Request
- 00:10:17: Revenue Numbers and Questions about Dismissals In Housing Violations
- 00:12:52: Prosecutorial Discretion, Trials, and the Lack of Statistics
- 00:15:58: Contacting Tenants, Repeat Offenders and Internal Tracking
- 00:18:12: Case Management Software, Staffing Levels, LLC Owner Information
- 00:20:24: Repeat Offenders and Trials In Abstentia for LLC Landlords
- 00:22:28: Penalty Enforcement, Liens, and Communications with Departments
- 00:25:10: Engaging with Tenants and Piercing the Corporate Veil
- 00:27:39: Resource Needs, Backlog, and Request for More Information
- 00:29:52: Treating Code Matters Like Criminal Cases and Additional Information Request
- 00:31:12: LLCs and Multiple Layers to Shield Individuals
- 00:33:10: Cost-Benefit Analysis, Monetary Allotment for Bad Actors
- 00:36:33: Ideal Manpower, Prosecutor Meetings, and Staffing Issues
- 00:37:53: Liability for LLC Members vs. the LLC Itself
- 00:40:51: Harassment Cases and Enforcing Rent Control
- 00:43:40: LLC Fines, Leans, and Judgements
- 00:46:27: Liens on LLCs and Collections in the Court Systems
- 00:47:50: Quit Claim Deeds, Statistics Analysis
- 00:49:10: Collecting More Revenue Due to Implemented Strategies
- 00:50:19: Staffing Issues, Good Software and AI Help
- 00:51:34: Liens Sold For More Than Amount Due
- 00:53:23: Innocent Until Proven Guilty, Enforcement of Court Rule
- 00:55:15: Connectivity with Departments and Aftermath Follow-Up
- 00:58:29: Discretion of Prosecutors, Repeat Offenders and Penalties
- 01:01:29: Discussion of Prosecutor Discrepancies Within Cases
- 01:03:10: Deterrent Consequences and the Repeat Offenders
- 01:05:36: The Substantiality Behind Repeat Offender Consequnces
- 01:07:14: Cost Benefit Analysis;Collecting Fines and Judgments
- 01:08:21: Summary of Violations, Inter office Comunication Protocol
- 01:09:42: Internal Protocol For Issues To Municipal Prosecutor
- 01:11:37: Change Code Civil In Nature; Civil Complaints
- 01:14:22: Interoffice Communication, Protocol and Communication Protocol
- 01:15:44: Good Department Communications and Protocols
- 01:17:03: Significantly Increase Violation Penalties; In Crisis
- 01:19:26: Unit-Based vs Complaint-Based Penalties
- 01:21:08: Court Collections and Law Department Docketing
- 01:22:30: County vs. State Judgement Collection; Lean Issue Resolution
- 01:24:22: Landlords and Owners in Constant Violation Repercussions
- 01:25:26: Actions Taken To Address Liens for Habitual Offenders
- 01:26:32: Liens and How They Are Implemented and Collected
- 01:29:20: Documents for Multi-Unit Landlords, Meeting Obligations
- 01:31:43: Challenges with Verbal Assurances of Meeting Requirements
- 01:33:45: Verfication of Super Intendents
- 01:34:52: Inspectors Not Fact Checking all Witnesses
- 01:36:14: Prosecution, Backlog and Capacity
- 01:37:03: Document System for BackLogged Situations
- 01:38:11: Case Backlog
- 01:39:12: Ideal Staffing
- 01:40:33: Outstanding Traffic Violations
- 01:42:11: Consolidating Matters For Time Payment Plans
- 01:43:03: Anti Harassment Violations
- 01:43:39: Repeat Violations: Public Availability and Access
- 01:45:55: Waving Rights Against Rent Increases, Not Recommended
- 01:46:48: Unconscionability in Rental Violations
- 01:48:56: Violations and Communications With All Departments
- 01:51:25: Office Connectivity and A Centralized System
- 01:53:04: Information on Shanepoint; A Lingering Co
- 01:55:16: Codes Permitting Closures and Enforcement
- 01:56:38: Centralized System Thoughts on Outstanding Violations
- 01:57:42: Lack of Communication and Penalties For Violations
- 01:59:05: Prosecution of Collection Handled by Court
- 02:00:11: Entities Harder to Prosecute than Individuals
- 02:01:33: Difficult Prosecutions and Frustrations In Collecting Violations
- 02:04:19: Recommendations To Improve Holdings of Accounts
- 02:04:55: Questions For Prosecutor and Barrows
- 02:05:58: Suggestions For Improvement of Prosecutors Office
- 02:07:18: Complaint Submition and Prosecution Followup
- 02:09:28: Document Requests, Meeting Adjourned
- 02:10:50: Communication With The Courts and Data requests
- 02:15:26: Interm report on Clarification of Committee Deadlines


Part: 1

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Evening everyone. We are on the record. Today is Monday, the 11th day of May, 2026. This is a regular meeting of the Rent Protection Special Investigation Committee. We had a scheduled 5:00 p.m. start on the clock. My cell phone is showing 5:16. May we have a roll call for the

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commencement of the meeting. Council member Labaro >> here. For the record, I I have to leave by 7 p.m. to go to another community meeting. Councilman Tom Jazupa. Easy. >> Just ask that you talk into your microphone so we can get you on the

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record. Councilman Gilmore, >> present. >> Councilman Efos, >> present. >> Council person Little >> present. >> And council person Singh >> here. For the record, I was here at 456. We have six council members in

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attendance at 5:16 p.m. Can we kindly rise for the salute of the flag? Would anybody like to do the honors? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the

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republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You may be seated. on behalf of the members of the Rank Protection Special Investigation Committee in accordance with the New Jersey Public Laws of 1975, chapter 231,

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the Open Public Meetings Act, also known as the Sunshine Law. Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by posting on the bulletin board of the first floor of city hall. In addition, at the time of its preparation, the notice of this meeting was similarly disseminated on Monday, May 4th, 2026 at

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3:43 p.m. to the mayor, municipal council, business administrator, corporation council, and the local newspapers and posted on the city's website so I can certify as to our total compliance with the sunshine law.

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And now, Councilman Gilmore, as the chair, would you like to get started? >> Yes. Good evening everyone. Um so what we'll do is how many people is here to present? It's wait uh don't don't we have do we have

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is this the meeting where we have additional um >> we can ask them all to introduce themselves to get started but I >> I know that but I do is Jake coming today too or is that a separate meeting? >> No separate.

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>> Okay. All right. So, we'll do um introductions um and then we'll go from >> uh good afternoon uh chairman, council members, uh committee members as well. I would like to introduce myself. It's a pleasure to meet you all. I may have may

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met many of you already, but I'm the acting chief municipal prosecutor, Vishnu Camraj. I'll let my colleagues introduce themselves as well. Good afternoon, council. Thank you for having us. Uh we're excited to present for you. My name is Graham Flewood. I'm an assistant prosecutor who works with

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housing code. >> Good afternoon, council members. I'm Joe Barrow, uh director of code compliance. >> And good evening, council. This is uh Ryan Spain. Glad to be here. >> Ryan, your function, Ryan. Your function?

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>> Oh, assistant prosecutor. >> Assistant. Okay. All righty. Um so as you know this this committee have been formed to look into the um issues as it relates to um

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housing violations and things of that nature. Um so I guess we can go with um the prosecutor first. We'll ask the questions. Um we have a list of questions. Were you guys given um the

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list? Do you have lists? I was not supplied with a list of questions. >> We provided them with a list of topics. The the list here, >> that's what I mean, >> is a draft. >> Yeah, broad topics, but this is a draft. Not all council members had a chance to put their questions on here. So, we can

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go in order of here. We can go the others who did not have a chance to put it on there. >> Yes. Uh, so in light of all that, um, Councilwoman Singh is up first. Sorry, I want to say I do not want to ask question right now. I'll ask when I'm

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ready. I'm not ready right now. >> Oh, you're not? Okay. >> I can go. >> Okay. Well, they have they have a brief synopsis of what we >> All right. So, go ahead, Tom. >> Uh, good evening, everyone. I I didn't submit questions in advance, but none of

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my questions are going to be surprises to you. They go off of what my colleagues had submitted it previously in terms of topics. Um, and we're starting with the prosecutor, correct? And we'll ask Mr. Barrow questions later. All right. Uh, sir, how many how many uh cases did your office handle in

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calendar year 2025? If you're looking for exact number, I do not have that number. I can tell you on average, a typical court calendar is 40 cases. Um we have three sessions per day. We have a morning session, we have

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an afternoon session and we have an evening session. The evening sessions the only time they do not meet is on a Friday evening. Otherwise that's our typical calendar size. To give you an exact number of how many cases we

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processed in 2025, I would have to try to get some sort of data of that. I the appropriate uh I guess query for that processing would probably be the municipal court but I can certainly um speak with uh the

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court administration about that. >> Okay. And that's something you can get to. So so for example every time a summon is issued there's a number associated with it. So we would know uh you should be able to ask the municipal court administrator and then uh you should be able to know answer my next

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question too I would imagine which is uh what was the amount of fines recovered or issued actually let's backtrack what uh what was the amount of fines issued that your office handled in calendar year 2025 >> yeah once again you're asking for

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specific data um I I want to first address the question about fines the the prosecutors are there to reach a just result. They are there's function as a municipal prosecutor, as an assistant municipal

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prosecutor is to find justice. We are not driven by fines. We are not driven by convictions. We are there to as the gatekeeper, so to speak, to to make a decision if prosecution is warranted. Uh

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many times that's a determination of if probable cause is is proper for us to proceed. Then we go through a process of plea bargaining reviewing reciprocal discovery that means discovery provided by our adversary the other side and we

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make a determination based on that information of the you know how that course should be taken in that prosecution. Uh we are not there to for convictions. We are not there to

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reach a certain dollar amount. >> Correct. Your your role is to do justice and to make sure justice is done. I was a prosecutor for the county for four years. I'm fully aware. All I'm asking about is if you are as the as the acting municipal prosecutor are aware of how many the amount of fines that were

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issued that your office handled. I can certainly try to get that data, but we we we collect certain information, not of every fine taken. Um, but that's an internal information. Um, we do not take

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a tally, so to speak, of uh, every dollar amount that when a defendant is found guilty of what fine is assessed, you're fair to say you'd also be unaware of the amount of fines that were recovered or received as a result of

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prosecutions by your office. >> The reason I'm asking to be fair is because uh, this this body is going to have budget uh, hearings soon. Obviously, we uh every municipality should know how much money is being budgeted for our prosecutor's office. How much money is coming back in terms

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of fines, not just on housing issues, but other issues. Uh but I will take it that you're you do not have an answer yet there and you're going to get that information from me. I appreciate it. >> If if I may add, yeah, council, >> um it's my understanding that the the

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court the municipal court does retain some sort of revenue number uh that they process. Now, I I want to explain to this committee, we may prosecute a case. A court may find that person guilty and

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assess a a dollar amount and whatever prosecution that is, that's one number. What is actually collected, that means the defendant actually paid is a separate number. Right? So there's

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a certain distinction as to if you're saying revenue that's been generated or fines collected. Um I I can probably summize that the municipal court can get you that data,

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>> right? Because there are certain fines where the municipality, the city will take it. Otherwise, for every plea or uh guilty adjudication, there's $33 in court cost, $7 fine, right? And then there's of course a $3 credit card fee if you do it online. So what I'm asking only is how

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much money if you know in terms of fines that were recovered as a result of prosecutions from your office. >> Yeah. Uh I believe corporation council might be able to address that. >> 2024 10.9 million 2025

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18.3 million. Year to date 6.4 million. >> What was the second number Sarah? 3 183 >> 18.3 >> 25 >> share the detailed breakdown with you all month by month. >> Thank you. And that was for 2024 20 and

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2025 >> and then years >> 2024 is 10.9 2025 is 18.3. There was a big jump from 24 to 25. >> Uh may I should be asking corporation council do you know how many cases resulted in dismissals that were filed

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in municipal court? I do not. Uh >> just know for the record, I'm requesting a number of dismissals in 202. How many cases resulted in dismissals in 2025? Uh Mr. Prosecutor, how many uh what number of cases did your office handle in in

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calendar year 2025 involving housing violations? >> Um I'm not sure of an exact number that we handle. I can tell you um the amount of sessions that are generally codeheavy.

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Uh when I say that um and I just want to clarify, are you asking about municipal code violations? Are you asking about state agency code violations? What code violations are you referencing? >> I'll take any information you have available to give to me today.

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>> Okay. Um so the majority of code we handle is from the municipality. Uh we don't track the specific numbers. I we do uh from our code compliance we

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do see the amount of summones uh an estimate of how much they have issued. Obviously there's several other agencies that issue. So I'll see if director Barrow has an idea. I our office issued um 20,000 summones

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last year. >> Okay. Director Barrow, do you know how many of those resulted in adjudications? >> I have no I have no idea. >> 20,000 you said, Joe, >> we wrote Yeah, we issued 20,000 summones. That's not counting all the housing

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violations that we >> in 2025. Yep. >> What I won't ask numbers again. It's clear at this particular hearing uh the witness is unaware of how many uh cases were filed but uh can you speak to the

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process of dismissing a case based on prosecutorial discretion? >> Absolutely. Um there's several factors that we consider and it uh when we're receive a case we make an assessment one

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can we meet our elements right every offense has an elements uh to it we in order for us to meet our burden general we have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt that's the highest standard um if we cannot meet one of

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those elements we cannot prosecute Right. Uh if we can meet those elements, obviously we can prosecute. In municipal court throughout the state, throughout the country, there's plea bargaining. Uh when a defendant is facing several

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summones, there may be a plea to some, maybe a dismissal to others as part of that plea bargain process because quite frankly, we just can't take every case to trial.

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We would never process every summons that was issued uh if we had to try every case. >> How many cases were tried in 2025 by your office? >> We do. Uh I would love if these questions would have came to me beforehand because I we do keep some

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stats internally that I could have uh provided you with some specific numbers. Um, >> well, you're aware you were appearing today to to discuss your office's response to uh rent control and housing summones, correct? >> Yes. And it was my understanding that I

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would have gotten some sort of structure uh as to the line of questioning. Uh many of this is not related specifically to rent. Um, so I wasn't sure what exactly the committee was looking for and I'm more than happy to provide those

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internal statistics that we keep. Um, >> what I was asking specifically about prosecutorial discretion was does one of your prosecutors have to come to you and say, "Hey, I I don't think I have a case here. I don't think we can meet our burden." What's the internal process before a case can get dismissed for

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prosecutorial discretion? >> Sure. If there is a question uh by an assistant prosecutor, yes, they do come to me for that discussion. They do have that independent discretion as I mentioned earlier about the quantity of

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cases. Um we have very skilled prosecutors in our office and they are quite aware of what our expectations are, what our standard is, what the law is importantly, which we are within the confines of the law. So we have to

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comply with uh what our requ ethical requirements are as well as our legal requirements for for a housing related issue specifically. Does your office have a mechanism to reach out to the tenant before the court date?

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>> We do not unless we have a specific witness. If the complaining witness is a tenant then we will reach out. Uh the question becomes if we can meet our burden of proof. Generally in code violations, it is the code inspector

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doing the inspection, finding the violation and issuing the summons. If we can meet our burden based on that information, then we don't need to reach out to anyone else other than the inspector.

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How about for repeat offenders? So, for example, if you have a tenant who files multiple complaints, is there any concern about making sure that those complaints are are abated in addition to perhaps a fine being issued by the court?

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>> Absolutely. So, we have an internal file system, albeit not a case management system, which actually went down a couple weeks ago because of the amount of information we store on there. our capacity exceeded well exceeded the

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limit and you know we need funding to actually get a case management software but what we do is we track properties internally um since we implemented that system several years ago we have a history we

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keep notes we we understand what uh the prior history is of a property and that obviously influences us when handling a matter going forward. So, if there is a repeat offender, they're going to be treated very differently than if you

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have a person that uh has owned the property for 20 years and this is their first time in municipal court on a summon. >> How uh how is that tracker kept? Is it a piece of paper? Is it a computer or spreadsheet? >> Yeah, it's it's on I don't know if

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you're familiar with SharePoint, Microsoft SharePoint. um it is not a case management software and it's something we need. We've looked into it in the past for budgetary reasons we were not able to do that and that's

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something I think this committee can assist us with to more effectively capture our information is to you know like every other law firm in the state or throughout the country has a case management software that they can

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effectively use. We are making do with limited resources. >> But let me ask that on that point. I'm almost done. I'll yield shortly to my colleagues. Uh how many prosecutors do you have currently? >> Right. Currently we have uh six

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prosecutors. Um one of them is currently out on on leave. >> Okay. How many of them are assigned to uh handle housing violations specifically? Uh they all can handle um code violations.

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Uh Mr. Fleetwood, assistant prosecutor Fleetwood here primarily handles code and we have assistant prosecutor Ryan Spain also handles uh large amount of code. >> What tools does your office have to locate uh the owners of an LLC?

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>> Yeah. So once again, we're limited on that as well. For a while, we've been seeking to add a skip tracer to our office. Um, but we need the budgetary resources to do that. So, right now, in order for us to do that, we would search

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the state website. We would search registered agents. We have access to Lexus Nexus. It's a legal program. Uh, that's our limited resources at the moment to try to obtain landlord information. Also we have coordinated

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with um HDC where through the landlord registration they share us that information. So if a landlord has registered their property we have the latest contact information from uh regarding that property based on that

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registration. >> Councilman I just have follow-up question. Can I ask? >> So when you were talking about um these cases, is is it a public information? Suppose I am a repeat offender. Can I find my information

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online? >> I don't believe there's a public database for code violations. So um >> so following up on that so uh I know one of the tools for let me ask it this way the tracker you

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referenced are you seeing that summones are being issued to repeat offenders repeat slumlords and they're not coming into court and if so what steps are you taking to to make sure we we have some sort of justice for those individuals >> okay So,

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for landlords that fail to appear, um, just permit me a little time because it's an little extensive explanation. We have something called for landlords that are companies, entities like LLC's. We

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utilize uh something in the court rules that permit us to go take them to trial. It's called trial in absentia. At their first appearance, if they fail to appear, uh, the court has the opportunity to enter a not-uilty plea. They send out certified notices pursuant to the court

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rule. If they fail to appear, we proceed with a trial in their absence. Once we proceed, we we have a full-blown trial, right? As we would if the other if the adversary was present.

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And then the court enters uh a decision court enters a decision. There's a decision where fines are rendered. Then we ask that that be a written order. Then we convey that to the law department to eventually put a lean on

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the property. Another avenue is penalty enforcement hearings. Penalty enforcement hearings are where we are just simply enforcing the penalty where our jurisdiction is simply civil in nature.

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Uh an example is from the fire department. They've done their inspection. They provided the notice to the landlord. The landlord has failed to abate. They assess the penalty. The landlord has failed to pay that

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penalty. Then they issue the summons to us for penalty enforcement where our only objective there is to enforce the penalty that has been assessed. The court makes the determination if that's

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a reasonable penalty and if it is done then ultimately we once again try to get a judgment. >> If you can ask I'm sorry just let me ask a question for on those notes. if you can estimate how many trials in abstensia has the office conducted in

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the last year. >> So currently we do trials on abstensia every Monday, every Friday. Now we're implementing them on Wednesdays as well, every Thursday nights for each session. Uh this can be about 30 tickets maximum per session and we've been doing that

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for about two years now. >> How many leans have been placed on property owners in abstension? I believe last count was upwards about 50. We have about 50 more that are ready to be uh docketed for judgment. Implemented a policy of setting one day to fill all

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the judgment leans out uh once a quarter so that we can keep track of all these uh time payments that we get, all the fines that we get and we can process them, send them to the law department for docketing. And last last set of questions here is about conversation with our uh your fellow employees from

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the housing departments. What if any conversations are happening with housing during the process from the time your office receives a summon to prosecute and the adjudication? Sorry, we are in contact with our witnesses whether it be

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from housing or any other department. We that SharePoint system that I referenced earlier, we have connected these different agencies on that system. They can upload the information. They have the ability to instead of picking up the phone, calling us, explaining to us,

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they can input that information into our case notes. So, we can we already know um what their position is, what their thoughts are. Um, so there is not that we're not taking away from their day

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where they have to answer phone calls uh or address questions or inquiries we have. So we constantly communicate not only with that department but other departments throughout that city that we prosecute on. >> And my last question, at least my opinion of what's going on

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with some of the bad actors throughout the city is that going to municipal court, getting fines, going through the process is part of business for them. It's it's part of the cycle. It's part of doing business. It's part of a they're it's a game they're playing with the city. So, what steps do you envision

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being able to take to engage with the tenants who are filing the complaints because they'll have the best knowledge. They'll have the history. It's their own experience as opposed to a a compliance officer or inspector who's issuing tickets and perhaps is not as certainly

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not personally as personally invested as a tenant would be. >> Right. So only thing I would respectfully say is um we certainly can engage with tenants. However, for a fact witness, our

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inspectors are the more appropriate party. You have a biased opinion maybe biased, maybe not biased, but a court potentially can see somebody has a vested interest or ulterior interest sometimes when they're providing

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testimony. When appropriate, we do use tenants as witnesses. Um, otherwise if we can otherwise we use our inspectors or in addition to our inspector, our inspectors. The issue that we find as

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these landlords recognize that they're responsible when they're, you know, ABC LLC. uh and then what they do is what they

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transfer that property to another LLC and then they transfer that property to another LLC and it's a complete game right if we had the manpower right and this committee and council can certainly provide us with that we can look into

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piercing that corporate veil because generally you're finding that's the same members for ABC LLC 123 LLC 456 LLC But, you know, that's something I think if you equip the law department, if you equip my office, that is something that

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I think can be addressed. Right now, we're just struggling to maintain status quo because we are down on staff, right? If this committee, this council can provide us

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with the budgetary resources to increase our prosecutors, we would have the ability to do much more, right? We have a substantial amount of cases that need prosecution. In fact, we have a a judge that is

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sitting in the evening right now. He currently only handles Parkers because we don't have an assistant prosecutor to provide that judge to address other cases. Did >> you say Parkers >> parking violations? >> The prosecutor's office doesn't handle parking violations. Correct. >> That is correct.

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>> Okay. So that prosecutor, you don't need a prosecutor for that particular judge because many years ago there was a scandal in municipal court and the prosecutors don't handle it. Goes straight to the judge, right? There's no prosecutorial discretion for parking tickets. >> Correct. Correct. They're self-proving documents. They'll sever self-proving

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summones uh pursuant to the statute. They are um you know quite frankly it should be simply if the litigant is guilty or not guilty. So either plead guilty or they or they they want a trial

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the burden shifts to that defendant uh to prove that they are not guilty of the fence and then the court should be making a decision. I do want to add that there's a significant backlog of code cases right now. There's approximately

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50,000 code cases that need to be scheduled, but they're not because of the limitation on those resources, right? Limitation on judges, limitation on prosecutors. With the manpower, that can significantly cut into that

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backlog. And this council has the ability to do that. And I implore you all to consider that because having the ability to address those will certainly help the city I believe in the long run to address bad actors to address bad

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landlords. Um and the only way we can do that is by addressing those cases and holding those landlords or litigants accountable. And I'm not saying there are good landlords out there. There are bad landlords out there. Right? That's

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the role of our of the prosecutors. So when we get a case, we make that assessment. Depending on the history of that property, depending on the history of that defendant, we'll determine how we address it. Just like in a criminal case, we treat it the same way in a code

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matter. >> Mr. um you done, time. >> Sorry. Um >> just the last point is Mr. chairman, if I could request uh the the information that I had asked for, which is the number of dispositions, number of cases, number of fines issued, because for the second

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consecutive hearing, we have uh it's it's no it's not your fault. You should be advocating for your office, and I I appreciate that. Uh but witnesses who are saying they don't have enough money, don't have enough resources, and neither of them brought this council or this committee information on how much what their offices are doing in terms of

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numbers and fines. So, I request that information. I'll yield the rest of my time. Thank you. >> All right. Uh Mark, so you have a >> just a follow-up question. You said that ABC LLC start another LLC. How do they change the founder owner's

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name? because even if you start multiple LLC the contact person's information cannot be how do you >> so if I may just give you an example um

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ABC LLC buys 280 Gro Street right they accumulate summones they go and sell it to 123 LLC right same members but the owner of the property is the entity

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Right. In and the whole reason uh companies are brought is to protect individuals unless they're doing something wrong. They're not they're they're violating their fudiciary duty. It's a much higher

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burden to go after that individual. The whole point of having a company is essentially to have a shield. >> Yes. >> Yes. But you do get unique number. it is little complicated then uh I feel the address verification and everything is

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done when you start a new LLC. So I'm just wondering how this one landlord decide to have multiple LLC. >> Well, interesting enough and I would love to go into detail with all of you so you understand what happens is these

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landlords have multiple layers of LLC. The owner of the property might be LLC. The register agent, which you're required to have, will be an LLC. And then that register agent is an LLC. You have layers of LLC's that are

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essentially they're trying to best shield the individual that's really the actor, right? And the whole reason they're making these companies is to evade uh the actor themselves getting into trouble.

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Mr. Prosecutor, um, so just let's stay on LLC's for a minute. Um, and just an FYI, we understand the sentiment that every department needs more resources, but the reality is we on a shoestring

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budget and we're going to have to make do with what we have. Um, so I do want to allow um, Councilman Efro to ask questions and anybody else who have questions as it relatesly to the LLC's.

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And >> Councilman, if I may just mark Councilman Griffin present at 5:36. So we have all seven committee members in attendance. >> Can I just quickly just address your point and I respect uh, what you said, Chairman. I I personally believe the costbenefit

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analysis will address that issue. I mean based on processing of cases and ultimately the outcomes although we are not fine driven we are justice driven. >> So so Mr. prosecutor, in light of all of that, um, in your assessment from a

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financial standpoint, what monetary aotment of money do you feel your office will need to help pretty much go after these bad actors and tracking down these LC's and things like >> Well, let me just say ideally if I there

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are six sessions in the morning, six sessions in the afternoon. If I had, and we're talking ideal world, and I don't I don't know if we will ever get there. If we had six prosecutors, uh, 12 prosecutors, six in the morning and in

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the afternoon, they're specifically addressing their case load, digging and identifying, um, using that time, you know, because we I want this council to understand when we work, we are not a 9-to-f5

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um personnel for the city. We are on 24/7. We are preparing into the evening. We are preparing before uh early in the morning. I have prosecutors that come in at 6:00, 7:00 in the morning. I have prosecutors that are leaving late at

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night, taking work home, come in on the weekends. Um we are a 24/7 hour efficient prosecutor's office because we believe you know in reaching justice.

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Now what that means we write briefs briefs legal or legal documents or arguments that we have to put forth. We address motions. We have to do all that work beyond physically being in the courtroom. In order to achieve our goal, we need to do the leg work before the

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case even uh is at in court and then after. Um, obviously for preparing for trials and things like that, that's, you know, an allnight event, all week event, all month event. Um, just so this committee knows, every week I have a

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prosecutor meeting every Wednesday at noon where we go over all our trials, all our trials and abstensions, all our uh motions. Um, we may I take that opportunity to ensure if any of the

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prosecutors have questions, we address those questions and we handle them. If it's strategy, if it's um a legal issue, whatever that may be, we want to make sure we're on full throttle and

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everybody's act um at the maximum efficiency. So I guess I don't want the question to get lost. Is there a monetary amount or a manpower amount which will help you to effectively do the business?

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>> Manpower manpower. And the reason I say there's no monetary amount because depending on the the person you bring on will determine what their pay scale is. But it's it's a manpower. >> And you're down how many people? Six. >> So right right now we have six. I want

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to explain that we have um six courts in the morning, six courts in the afternoon, five courts in the evening, right? Um that are going uh and we only have six prosecutors. We do in the evening have some help from the law

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department uh in those evening courts. I want to just a couple weeks ago we were down two prosecutors because of leave for many months. Right now we are down just one. So we're down to five assistant

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prosecutors struggling to cover six courts. >> Okay Jake, >> thank you chair. Thank you for for coming and um agreeing to walk through all of this with us. Um so on the note of LLC's

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um limited liability companies exist pursuant to uh New Jersey limited liability company act NJSA 422 and 40 uh 422B 422C um wherein they have uh any lawful

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purpose is an entity distinct from its members and therefore the debts obligations and other liabilities of an LLC whether arising contract toward otherwise are solely the debts obligation or other liabilities of the company and they don't become uh the

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debts obligation or other liabilities of a member or manager solely by reason of the member acting as a member or manager acting as a manager. I'm not telling you anything you don't know, of course. Um, but I just want to get that for the record that we have this issue, as you were explaining before, of the

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distinction between the person, often referred to as the natural person, um, someone making money off of a business behind the LLC and the LLC itself. Um, and it seems like we are encountering some issues in addition to just the

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staffing issues here with the the LLC question. the state of New Jersey versus Joseph Man in July 2021. Uh there were 25 complaint summons against Joseph Man, a prolific Jersey City landlord. Um court found only the

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LLC was guilty of the violation and and Joseph Man has I I don't know how long of a list of LLC's um from the Heights to downtown uh Westside. Um and man goes in court argues that because the

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properties are owned by an LLC of which he was a member rather than by him individually complaints were fatally defective uh on their face. Um the decision was that the state court uh this was appealed from municipal court. State court reversed and remanded the

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municipal complaint summits vacated the record of conviction as to man individually. Um and so it leaves me wondering that we have this system where tenants are left to file petitions against natural persons. uh if you are

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filing a rent violation petition um rent hike uh right um that is in violation of code 260 or if you're filing a petition as a tenant around harassment from your landlord you have to name if I'm not

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mistaken the natural person who is your landlord behind whatever LLC but then you can go to court and they can get thrown out the summons can get thrown out violations can get thrown out because that person is no longer liable. So I I

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I'm wondering why should tenant petitions be filed against natural persons? Why should we ask tenants to have to file these petitions against individual people if they are not going to be found responsible anyway? >> Direct please.

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>> Okay. be for if your question is regarding harassment or anti-harassment that is specifically to an actor. So in that regard yes obviously a criminal charge of harassment as well is to an

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individual itself because they're the ones acting you know harassing that person. So in that in that regard, yes, obviously for rent leveling uh determinations that you have to address against the landlord.

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>> But harassment is uh that lives under 218 code 218. Correct. To that lives all under >> no 260. >> 260 as well. >> 260. Correct. >> Both of those live under our municipal rent control >> ordinance. 260-7 is the anti-harassment.

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>> Okay. Um, and that can be uh there's a plethora of reasons where somebody could be harassed by a landlord, right, or an individual and depending on what that those actions are will depend on what violation is being

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sought. But I I guess I I'm still a bit confused as to if we know that the outcome can be something like what was found in the state of New Jersey versus man in July 2021. What what else could we be doing in this process? Like how else could we

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set up our municipal code? And how else could we set up the tenant petition process to avoid that kind of outcome where these violations are, you know, are going to be subject to just being thrown out. So, you're specifically asking about legislation,

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right? I >> I guess I'm asking, is there a fundamental gap in our municipal code that is preventing us from enforcing code 260? >> Yeah. >> Whether it's about harassment or whether it's about rent control, >> right? Okay. So,

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the anti-harassment is specific. For example, if you do not provide heat, right? that's that can be uh subject to that 260-7. Uh you would have to name the landlord,

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the LLC in that event. Um in that inquiry, the way we would take that prosecution >> name landlord, you mean name the natural person behind an LLC, correct? >> The LLC have to name the LLC. >> Name the LLC. If you're if you're being

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harassed by an agent of the landlord in that instance that I'm using and your your landlord is ABC LLC, um then you would name the landlord, uh which will be the LLC and then that's who we would prosecute.

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>> Okay. And and so then uh what happens if this goes to court? um the the the litigant the um plain is ruled in favor. Uh how what what then happens to the LLC

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and the the agents or the members of the LC? >> Sure. So if there is a judgment against the defendant um it will usually result in a monetary penalty. the the court, the municipal court is not going to be able to direct

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um a landlord that they must do x y and z. That's a different court, a different venue. Typically in superior court where they can get injunctive relief is an example of that where you can go into superior court and say

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landlord you cannot do this or landlord you have to do this this specific action. the municipal court is only can enforce that a penalty cannot force a landlord to do something. >> Okay. So, it still seems like there's a

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there's a risk after all of this of an appeal going to state court, the agent or the member of the LLC saying, "Okay, these these charges were leveled against the LLC. This has nothing to do with me. How why would I have to?

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>> Well, well, ultimately, you know, if if it's levied against LC, so when we prosecute, we may, you know, prosecutors are critical thinkers, right? That's why you hire us, so we can critically think. Um, obviously, if

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you know those folks a lot of times, and it was referred to earlier, there's a cost benefit analysis for some actors. They rather come to court and and think they're going to pay a fine and commit this bad act because this bad act is

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garnering them more money than what potential fine will be. When we're assessing that case, we're making that determination. Right? So therefore m if we get a guilty plea we're making that argument to the court that this penalty

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should be x amount y amount because we want to deter that action. The only way we could deter that action is to let them understand that continue if they continue to do that they're going to feel it more than that benefit they thought they had.

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Hope that answers your question. >> I appreciate that. I I have some more thoughts, but you want to >> Okay. Um, so >> as it relates strictly to the LLC's, um, ABC go to court, they're found guilty,

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they're assessed the fine, what does the process look like? Um, when said LLC don't pay that fine. I know you spoke to some about a lean and >> that. So the leans are what we do when we have these trials and absentions

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meaning trials in their absence or penalty enforcement hearing where they do not appear. We know they didn't appear. The court gives them maybe x amount of time. They don't come back. Then we get a written judgment from the court that we then uh pass on to our law

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department to potentially dock it and put a uh get a lean on the property. Now, other act other defendants that plead guilty and don't pay the fine, my understanding is the court transfers that into collection.

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>> Okay. No, specifically as it relates to the LLC's, you give it to legal and then you said potentially like what I need to know exactly. >> Sure. Sure. The reason I I I I assume I I don't think we've ever made a request

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for a lean to be done and it it has not been done. So what happens is once we get that written judgment, we for it on to a legal department, then they go to superior court, docket that judgment, and then that's when it becomes a lean because it gets down to Trenton and it

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becomes a lean on the property. >> When they try to transfer, the lean pops up. Correct. >> Correct. So what happens generally um is when you transfer a property when you say when you sell a property uh there should be a title search yes and

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judgments are revealed >> the issue that I'm trying to give strategies to to landlords but I want to address the questions there are something called quit claim deeds >> where there is no uh >> title search and disclosure okay so

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you're aware of that very all right Um, so in light of of time, um, Councilman Griffin also has questions. >> You asked my question. >> Oh, that was J. >> Okay. >> LLC. Okay. All right. So, those are all of

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the LLC questions. Go ahead, Mom. >> Curious to know why. Um, so the we collected 10,000 in 2024. Uh, >> oh, 10 million. >> 10, sorry, 10 million. 10 point something million and then 18 in 25 and

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now already six plus million. Why uh we are do collecting more fees now this year? We are going to hopefully is there any reason that the cases have the number of cases have increased or the staff remains same? What what is

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changing right now? Um, I I can only speculate. I I can only speculate that. I mean, I can tell you since I've taken over as the acting chief, certain strategies we've implemented, certain um, you know, our

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the way we handle cases, the our pressure to do uh, the pressure that I put on these assistant prosecutors to get um, trial and abstensions done, penalty enforcement hearings. In the past, those defendants were simply put in failure to appear status and nothing

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happened. Now, we're taking the position of if it's an individual and there's a health issue, um a habitability issue, uh some sort of danger, we're asking for a warrant for those defendants arrest, right? And if

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it's an entity and they're not coming to court, we're we're proceeding in their absence. So one way or the other, we're we're addressing these cases. In the past, historically, it I think that was not the case as much as is presently.

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>> So um you know, you you feel that there are not enough staff members you have and unfortunately I don't know what the situation would be going forward and maybe this year. Do you feel that there

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can be some good softwares or AI help you can take to cut down the labor or the data processing or that work where we can use >> actually that is an appropriate question

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because I just had a conversation with my colleague just a few days ago the end of Friday last week Friday there is some uh AI I software that Lexus Nexus, our legal system that we use has. Um, currently I don't think anyone in our

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office has that and I've requested to get a quote on that. So, at least me as the acting chief has access to it to see if it's something that cost benefit would work while well that cut down on

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the um the menial task. Uh, we're we're trying to do that. And then as I mentioned earlier just a few weeks ago, we've exceeded the storage space for what our what we've made into our case management software.

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We need a case management software. I mean that's the any effective law firm I think uh has that. I think it would cut down on uh the menial task that we have to achieve to

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get uh the functionality we need to prosecute cases. But having an actual case management software, I think will help cut down on that as well. >> Sarah, quick question. as it relates to

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um the leans that's placed on LLC's um can those leans be sold like outstanding taxes because it serves two purpose. One, the municipal council gets the money right away and then two, the bad actor is essentially on the hook for

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more than that amount because it accumulate interest which will incentivize them one to change their behavior and two to pay it quicker. So, Councilman, um, there's two different kinds of leans. There's tax leans and then judgment leans. We get

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judgment leans from cases that we get. Those we can sell them, but not in the same way as tax leans. We can't sell them to a third party who's going to make interest on them. Tax leans are restricted to taxes and >> water and okay, >> but also areas where we actually abate

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the violation. Whether it's snow and we clean up the snow, we can charge for that and then get paid back later. grass, same thing. Or even in extreme circumstances, we're in there fixing the heat, delivering oil where there's no oil in a building, we can get repaid for that. >> Okay, Councilman Griffin,

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>> just want to add that there is president for that because New York City actually does do that. >> Yes, Councilman Griffin. >> Yes. So, I just wanted to make sure I had this correctly. So, if the landlord does not show up to court, you put in a non-guilty plea for them.

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>> Correct. Pursuant to the court rule, if they're an entity, uh, typically an LLC, it could be a corporation, could be an organization, an entity, the court has the ability to enter a not-uilty plea for them, and then as long as they're

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provided with the appropriate notification pursuant to the court rules, we can proceed with trial in their absence in the future. So what that means is we would have a full-blown trial like we would even if somebody was

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there and we have to bring in the inspectors. We would have a you know a full-blown hearing opening statement you know calling our witnesses entering evidence closing statements and then you know if we're if the defendant is found

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guilty we we're able to be heard on what we recommend sentencing to. So, so this is so this is based on excuse me the landlords or the defendants writing into the to the court and then

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you guys put that judgment in. No, >> I don't understand why we would put a non guilty judgment in for defendants that don't show up to court because I know some non-tenants, right, who

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don't show up to court and a warrant is put out for their arrest. Uh judgment is is um placed against them. So, I I don't understand why we're using that that ability to protect these landlords

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and give them an opportunity to to come to trial when that happens when the judgment can be placed right there when they don't show up. >> Sure, I can uh answer that. Everyone, whether it's an entity, whether it's an individual, is innocent until proven

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guilty. We have the burden of proof to prove them guilty beyond the reasonable doubt. And I I want to put a pin in that reasonable that beyond a reasonable doubt for one second. But no one is automatically found guilty in our judicial system. We as a prosecutors

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have to prove our case. And if we cannot prove our case, then the the defendant will be found not guilty. >> He means when the when the first appearance happens, uh if they're present, they would enter a plea of not guilty. the courts doing that on their

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own so that the case can can proceed as opposed to it going to failure to appear as what the prosec >> correct I I yes the in case I didn't make that abundantly clear we are not the ones entering a not guilty plea it is the court pursuant to court rules

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entering a not-uilty plea on the defendant's behalf >> so that the case can proceed in abstension >> correct >> um >> so Mr. Prosecutor, I do want to ask um because you spoke to earlier about your

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connectivity with inter departments. Um I do want to ask um what does that communication and that dialogue look like? We have open complaint code compliance go out. They have a bunch of citations. They write the issues. It

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goes to you guys. What if anything happens after that? So once we get uh the summons issued, we actually have code compliance, one of several agencies in the city that upload

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their discovery, meaning the evidence that we will need to meet our burden of proof. We also have the case information that they can put in any information they think will help us to understand what they witnessed, what they saw, what

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their thoughts are. Um, and we try to implement that. So once again, we don't have to pick up the phone and pull an inspector off the street or or talk to them. You want to add to that? >> Yeah, Joe, if you can just talk about what does the back and forth look like? Um because we've heard testimony before

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this council um before this committee previously um where um housing basically said they write the infraction, they give it to the prosecutor's office and at that point they're pretty much out of it unless and

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until the prosecutor's office reach out and acts. And the reason why I say that is because for one um the better the connectivity, the more accountability. Case in point, if I know as a construction code office that I've

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issued six violations against ABC LLC, hopefully by the seventh, I'm putting an extra note to the prosecutor and say, "Hey, what happened with the other six?" Because they keep doing the same thing. So clearly there's a disconnect here.

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No. Oh, so uh the inspectors write the summons, they put their discovery, their pictures, their memo to file all up in the address in SharePoint and it goes to court. We speak with the prosecutor. The prosecutors will call the inspector if there's a problem during trial instead

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of bringing an inspector in for every case. You know, we write 20,000 tickets. You can't have a inspector coming in for each one of them. And um if we also make a a file red if it's a a bad actor like that we've been we've hit a bunch of times for different things and we're in

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communication all the time. So if they need something from our office, you know, we we talk. >> So when the prosecutor have come with a package of a plea agreement, um do they circle back around with your office or that strictly reside within the

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prosecutor's? Um, no. Most of the time it's pretty much, you know, it's up to them afterwards. It's up to the prosecutor and the judge afterwards. >> So, so we we have prosecutoal discretion on how to handle a case. Uh, I give you an example. I I can tell you in uh a

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title 39 matter, a moving violation, an officer was not pleased with uh the resolution of the case, right? But ultimately, it's the prosecutor once again as the gatekeeper to find justice. whatever that just result is, we're going to find that. Now, absolutely, we

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collaborate with our witnesses. Um, we want to find out that information. We just have an internal system currently that is hanging by a string, but it's an internal system to aliate that daily back and forth because they have a function to do and we don't want to

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distract them from that function. So, we've implemented this system. In the past, just so you know, this is many, many years ago. Inspectors would come into the courtroom during the day every single session. That doesn't get them out on the street doing what they're

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supposed to do. So, we eliminated that completely with this on with this virtual communication. >> Um, I do want to ask a question. Um I know there's litigation with port side so I don't want to speak as it relates

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to the litigation but I do want to point out the fact that in or around um it may have been last year I was on a zoom um and the landlord was cited I want to say for not

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not displaying where this resident super was located or if there was one. Um, and I thought, I guess I heard it wrong. I thought that um, the entity had plead guilty and subsequently they were going

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to pay fines, but it comes out. It comes back that they went hold on, Sarah's grabbing the mic, so I may be out of line in question. Am I is is >> you can finish the question. I am going to instruct the witness not to answer it, but we can facilitate a closed session if you'd like to talk about

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cases that are in or may proceed to litigation. >> Okay. Well, scratch that. Um, so I I guess what I'm what I'm just trying to figure out how connected it is as a because I'm literally flabbergasted that

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the construction code applying official is saying that there's constant dialogue between his office and the prosecutor's office and another director is saying I write the ticket and there's no followup. So is there followup with some officers and not of like what is it? We

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follow up with every office. So, I'm not sure where that disconnect is. We uh for every witness that we have, when we need additional information, we we certainly speak with them. I I don't think now

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we've implemented a system where we don't need to contact our witnesses. As long as it's an agency within the city, they're able to provide this information uh of what they witnessed, what the infraction is, their discovery to help

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us meet our burden of proof. They provide that. We have discussions with them. If we have questions, concerns, um if we don't if we think there might be trouble meeting our burden, we'll discuss those things with them. uh but generally speaking

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uh we the information that's provided usually is helpful in meeting our burden. >> Okay. Well, I guess a better question is after a case have come to some type of plea arrangement, what if any communication you have with said

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department that wrote the infraction? >> Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. It it really uh if if it's if a plea agreement is based on the information we are getting from that department, we will have previously

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communicated with that department prior to entering that plea. Right? So they know we know their position in advance of us entering that plea. But I mean I'm I'm concerned not necessarily with the

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with the pending violation but more so of like the deterine of the repeat violations. is what I'm saying like is there is there some type of mechanism that basically that basically says that hey

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this entity or individual has had several viol like case in point when you're prosecuting a traffic tickets one of the questions that's almost always asked is how many traffic violations have you had in the p like there's some type of data that's you know

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communicated and logged >> correct So in our internal system we and it's I'm just going to give you an example of our code violations and our code section violations we we have properties listed by their address

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within that we have subfolders um uh our code inspector folder our health inspector folder or HDC folder within that it'll have the dates of each summons or violation so because on one

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date uh code may issue five summones for um ABC LLC on uh May 10, 2026. They're going to create a folder in that in in our SharePoint under that address

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with the date of May 10th, 2026. Um and upload all that information. Now I'm going to see if January they had another one, November they had another one because our our intercom

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communication have the have them already putting that information there. >> Oh, so there is a system to track repeat offenders >> 100%. >> Okay, better. So my next question would be >> would have what like how substantial is

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the I guess the I know you like to use the word punishment but the consequence. >> Sure. >> Or repeat for repeat offenders because >> essentially the law is is meant to change behaviors. >> Absolutely.

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>> Right. So I need something to deter me from constantly doing >> Exactly. That's exactly correct. So when we um when we get uh a complaint in court, we go into our file system, we look at it. If there's a list of other

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prior incidences, we know as prosecutors when we're addressing that, they've had a litany of other violations, right? And based on our case notes, right? Cuz we keep case notes of how we handle those cases. Now if we had them plead guilty

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in November of last year, we had them plead guilty in January last year. When they come back in May, it gets higher and higher, right? So when we are evaluating cases, we are looking at aggravating factors, mitigating factors.

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So if they're habitual offender, we treat that very differently than that person that has that one offense and they've owned that property for the past 20 years. I will just say this as my last um I don't know exactly what is going on as

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it relates to the issuing of the tickets, the consequence behind it, but I can definitively say this, there are several LLC's and and establishments in my ward that

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I don't know if that consequence was sufficient enough because they constantly keep repeating the same offense. I don't I don't know why. I don't know. I don't know if they just say it's the cost of doing business and they pay the fine. I just know what I see. >> Yeah. And Councilman, if I may address

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that, I think I think uh Corporation Council showed you our our enforcement, right? I mean, just the numbers alone spoke volumes to me when she said in in 2024 it was 10 million. In 2025, um it was 18 million, right? And I I

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want to emphasize we are not prosecuting for dollars right. But I think that speaks volumes right now. It just because and this happens just because somebody has come to court either found guilty or plead guilty that mean that

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doesn't mean they're paying anything. They may sit on their laurels and never pay a dime. See, that's that's a whole separate issue I think that needs to be addressed is to collect once the fines are assessed. Okay. All right. Well, in

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light of all that, if I mean I think time request if we can if this committee can get some document that states are um within the last year we've issued this many citations, this many judgments have

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been placed and we've collected this amount to date because that that'll give us a big picture because I'm looking at 18 million. I'm like, "Hey, hooray." But we could be due 17 million more. So if if if if we can get that I do want

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to um because Councilman Rando has to leave. Um so I do want to yield to him just to see if he have um no questions as of yet. Oh, this is no questions. None >> defer to my colleague. >> I have Jake and then uh wait, let's

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Elena because she's been patiently looking at her notes. She got everything queued up. So, let's do >> you want should I >> add some on the on the follow-up conversation if that's okay. Thank you to to follow up on the follow-up conversation here. It sounds like there

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is an internal system. Um you said it's hang by a string. Um I mean and you explained some of the components of you have your folders with you know relevant histories in each of the departments. Um, just would would your offices both

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for quality of life and for the municipal prosecutor's office, would you be able to produce a kind of memorandum of understanding or a written protocol of the exact system of followup that happens between receiving or a summon

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being issued, excuse me, and then all of the steps that go after that, including the followup between the relevant department and the municipal prosecutor's Sure. Absolutely. Um it's exactly as I articulated though and and I'll I'll

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repeat it that our system is built so we don't need to make daily calls. If we have questions or concerns or need clarity or we think we're missing information, we will then reach out to the agency. We've tried to build a

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system that to be as efficient as possible with the limited resources we're given. Time is of the essence. So, as long as the the department that's issuing the complain or summon has provided us with the information and has

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provided us with the evidence to support a complaint and we can meet our burden, we will use that to plea negotiate, right? And if we resolve the matter, the case is resolved. generally a lot more um communication comes into place is

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when the the our adversary is disputing what this department is providing us. they're suggesting that it's wrong for X, Y, and Z reasons or that is not accurate information, then we will take this the steps to double check that to

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make our make sure our information is accurate that we're providing because we have to prove beyond the reasonable doubt. And I want to I I put a pin in that earlier and I just want to address that. You as the legislature can change that burden of proof. Okay? You as the

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legislature can make a lot of our code civil in nature rather than quasi criminal in nature through legislation. We can then seek more penalty enforcement rather than these quasi

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criminal prosecutions. Right. So that's something I would highly recommend that uh this committee consider uh moving forward. And and if that were the case, um do you feel like you would have the capacity to actually prosecute if there was a substantially or just

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substantially enough lower bar as opposed to um beyond a reasonable doubt? Do you feel like you would be equipped to prosecute? >> If if we're referring to the manpower, we're still we we're still significantly down on the manpower. What what that is is is just the burden of proof. So when

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we take something to trial, we have there has to be no doubt in that court's mind that that defendant is guilty of that, right? As opposed to like a prepoundonderance of the evidence in a in a civil matter, right? It's completely different of burden to proof

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potentially getting more convictions because the bar is lower. And then obviously if somebody fails to appear, there's a different mechanism to proceed in their absence. I imagine fewer cases would get settled if if there were a lower burden of proof.

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>> Well, I think I I think with the quantity uh that we have, we still proceed with plea negotiations and because obviously setting up trials is pretty extensive. So, the goal is if we can resolve it. Now the resolution may

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be a maximum penalty um or close close there too but it depends once again uh mitigating aggravating factors right I mean that's that's what we're there for that's what we evaluate when we handle a case >> thank you and then I just >> I ask a followup >> wrap up very quick

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>> if I may just as a followup sorry just one um so for you were talking about civil violations right so civil complaints so your office would litigate civil complaints on behalf of >> we do currently. Yes. For example, like

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our penalty enforcements, right? The the violations that our fire department sends um we are there strictly to enforce that penalty. It's those are civil in nature. So, we do do that currently. And more importantly, you know, I've been in communication with

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our corporation council about re-evaluating our code and making some recommendations uh that I think will address that. um we would we would still be handling that and and prosecuting that in municipal court because there would be code violations.

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>> I I just want to wrap up this I appreciate that. Um to wrap this up uh for director Barrow um mean last session as as I think my colleague was alluding to Director Richardson gave an unclear answer as to whether there was communication between his office and the

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municipal prosecutor's office. I brought up the instance of 995 Summit Avenue. Tenants reached out um citing harassment from their landlord and he said that's not our office. I asked to the effect of so then what did you communicate to the tenants and he couldn't recall if there

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was any communication between his office and the tenants as to hey you actually need to go fill out this kind of form go to municipal prosecutor's office. So just with that in mind, that being such a recent um kind of admission in in the last hearing here, um Director Barrow,

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could you also commit to a kind of protocol of what happens when you get issues that must be directed toward the municipal prosecutor's office or another office in city government? How does your office handle that? What is the clear protocol there? Well, we talk speak to

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the tenant or whoever and give them, you know, the office number or the email of the other department or I'll just reach out to whatever department and say, "Hey, listen. We have a problem here. Here's the contact information." You know, I'll just send them an email and saying, you know, we were here. We also,

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if I find a health violation at >> a place that one of our inspectors are at, we just, you know, send an email over and they send an inspector. We have a we have a very good communication with the other uh divisions and offices. >> And would you be willing to also spell

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that out very clearly in the kind of protocol that we can make sure the public is aware of? C >> if I may just add as a followup, I I don't know if you all are aware, but we have a quality of life task force >> that we go out weekly on that is

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interdep departmental, right? uh we're on the spot there at locations communicating interdep departmentally. >> I guess the issue that every infraction doesn't cause for the whole task force.

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So the connectivity that Councilman Efro is speaking upon is you know if something comes in and it's not necessarily within your jurisdiction like how does it looks like? Because the last thing we want is somebody to feel

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like when they call in the city, we can't provide answers like this. So if a complaint come in and it's ward E or something, I'll see my colleague on the email and from there, you know, I'll step away. So that's basically, you know,

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>> yeah, we usually by email. Um, we'll reach out to them, give them all the tenant contact information, phone number, everything. That's usually how it works. >> I I appreciate that. And then just not to beat a dead horse, but I really do I think this would be helpful if we could

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get from both your offices here clear protocol of how that communication happens. Would you be willing to spell that out in a kind of written statement? >> Yeah, sure. >> Thank you so much. >> Um before I begin my line of questioning, I think Councilwoman Singh

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you had a followup to Councilman Effort. >> I >> No, no, no. You you have your followup. >> Yes. I'm sorry. My questions are pretty basic. So some clarity about violation penalty. Can we increase the amount

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significantly if we need? >> Sure. >> We are in crisis. >> That is the prerogative of the city council within you know certain reasonleness. You certainly can set a certain standard. I for example in

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chapter 287 for violations for units from one to four the minimum is 250 from uh if the building has five or more units the minimum is 500 so that's something you know within reason uh the council can

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legislate >> especially the big >> if I can just clarify within the limits of state law and so state law authorizes maximum penalties for municipal violations what prosecutor Kim Mrage is referring to is that separately there is

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a schedule of offenses that are payable and so what types of offenses you can just log on online and pay it and not go to court. Um what are the violations that are associated with those that is currently under review. I'm I'm happy to share that with the committee. Um but the maximum penalties of $2,000 that you

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often see throughout the city code that's set by state law. See because for big developers if amount is not really significant rather than hiring a lawyer they would just continue with the violation. So

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something to think about >> and that's why I think um mayor uh at the end of uh last year um he clarified although it was codified in case law but there are daily penalties um that can be

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assessed. Uh and as long as we have the evidence to support that that's something we can pursue. >> I'm sorry Councilman. >> Per unit per day. It's not per unit. It's uh it's a Daniel Pent penalty for the complaint that's filed.

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>> Oh, well in in No, in some instances it's per unit per unless I'm reading that code wrong. So, in some instance, as it relates is that 260? >> No, you you're thinking probably of the rent uh control violations, which Yes.

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with Yeah. And that and that's something I I I hope you all understand that's not that's not our office that handles that as a municipal prosecutor. If there is an enforcement of a penalty by the board, we can handle the enforcement, but that is separate and apart um

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through the uh leveling board. >> How do your office enforce said penalty? >> We we just once again it's a penalty enforcement here. If we get that whatever that rent living board says that that number should be um we that's

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what we will prosecute and say that's that's a penalty that landlord should face. Generally I can tell you landlords they have a right to appeal that determination through a court of competent jurisdiction which is not municipal court. But once once they've

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reached all of the appeal thresholds and it's finalized that this amount is to be collected, who's responsible for the collection? Well, that and that one I believe when they appeal that up, a court makes a

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determination and I will have to defer to our our legal department on what when it gets to superior court, you know, what happens there or if it gets in federal court, what happens there? >> No, but so s at what like who's responsible for collecting the money

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once have exalted all of their appeals? >> So let's say there is a judgment. >> Yes. The municipal prosecutor will refer those cases to the law department. We will docket that judgment with superior court. That's the point at which it becomes a lean. Historically, the city

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has not, to my knowledge, invested any resources in actually collecting on those judgments. We are working on going out to bid for a collections firm that can do that. That is not 100% of the money owed across all cases. Those are just the cases where there is a judgment

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that has been docketed in superior court. Well, currently, just so the record reflects, we have no mechanism to collect outstanding debt due to the city via collections for the violations. >> I wouldn't say no vehicle. There are

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instances where whether it's the prosecutor or the law department will do things like send letters. If they know the entities, they have called them. But it has always been ad hoc. There has not been a systemic approach to collecting those judgments. >> Who's been docketing the judgments in Trenton?

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the law department >> that's being done as best as you know is that the being done >> that's correct that that has been happening to my knowledge every time we've received a referral from the prosecutor's office in recent years the law department has docketed it that's a fairly pro-forma filing not a very complicated thing

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>> so when the violations when the violations the infractions and the fines have to be collected it goes to Trenton why isn't it going to the county the register's office to put the local lean

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on it so when they try the quick claim deed and all that other stuff you know locally we will be able to see that >> the statewide system so that if they try to sell property it comes up so I'm sorry I >> but at one doesn't it it comes back to the county at one point though right

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>> so the the deeds are at the registars's office >> but if you're trying to sell your property and you have a judgment against you >> is at the state yeah >> comes up through a statewide search yeah Okay. >> Okay. >> So, has there ever been a case

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>> has there ever been a case to where um no one uh paid their judgment and penalties and and they've received penalties and then uh like a repossession of property or anything took place on these landlords.

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>> So, when a lean is placed on the property, that lean is good for 20 years. um you know, you can go back and try to renew that, but it sits on that property and nothing happens unless there's a transfer um of that property, then that

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judgment needs to be paid as a lean. >> Okay. And then I have a a question for uh code enforcement and um Sarah, you may want to jump in on this. Um, what what are the repercussions

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of landlords, property owners who are constantly in violation and are looking to do business with Jersey City? >> That's not something I can handle. Um, we do go back to these landlords. we, you know, we would do another

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reinspection and issue more summones, but there's nothing that I can do to um not let them do business in Jersey City anymore. >> I I can address maybe a portion of that. So, our office handles approvals for

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short-term rentals. So, if there's a violation on that property, my office will then check to see if there's any outstanding violations, and we will not approve a short-term rental application until those violations are addressed.

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So, in that regard, we have that internal capability to address it when they're seeking a short-term rental permit. and and and Sarah, is there anything that we can do as a council to put an ordinance or a res resolution on

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the books to um not do business with constant violators? So, one example off the top of my head of another place in the city code where we link extent unabated violations to

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things that are within the city's power to grant um is with respect to COOs. Uh I believe that the construction official does a search for violations before issuing those as well. We could work with the committee to undertake a review of other permits, other licenses, other discretionary things that the city gives

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out and determine whether or not there's already either a law or a practice of searching for those violations. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Also, I guess my latest question as it relates to so you said the leans are placed on the property for 20 years and

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after that would they evaporate or you got to renew it or what? It's just >> correct. So, and I might defer more to corporation council on that one, but that's my understanding that once again, not within the municipal prosecutor's purview, but that's my understanding of

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the lean law of uh the state lean law. If ABC ABC got a lot of tickets, by the way. Um, >> so if ABC LLC has accumulated upwards of $100,000 in lean and they decide to say, "Hey, well,

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I'm going to pass the property to my kids anyway. I don't need to do nothing." But then So there's so there's no other means of trying to to get this outstanding um these outstanding fun. For God's sake, if I miss a quarter of

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taxes, it go to tax lean. And by the time I had the money to pay it, it's three times the amount. And all I did was have financial hardships. I I believe that's a process and I wish it was different. I wish there was more teeth to it. And and I earlier in in our

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discussion, we talked about piercing the corporate veil if they're that LLC. I mean, those are things I think we certainly need to explore some more. um you know, if they're a habitual offender, uh and there's some health and

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safety issues at that property, but if they're just racking up, you know, a certain amount of uh Yeah, because I mean, if they what if they get so what if someone gets so many fines that it's better to leave it alone than to try to

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sell the house because the financial burden associated with it, you're essentially I mean, it's just I don't know, for me is like it's I mean that granted it's 20 years um but I I just from a legislative perspective Sarah is

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there is there anything we can do to I mean if PSCG for God's sakes come after you the easy pass people come after you Lord knows Viola is coming after you right so all of these entities

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coming after like the regular folks who may have fallen on hard terms. >> So the 20-year limit that's set at the state level. You can kind of conceptualize that like a statute of limitations. The law only gives you so long to enforce the rights and try to

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achieve remedies. But what we can do is go after them, which we have not spent a significant amount of resources doing historically based on my assessment. >> Okay. And and we're planning on embarking on that journey. Correct. >> That's correct. >> Okay. All right. Can we allow council um

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woman? >> Um so I I do have my list of questions. Um thank you. Um I'm going to start with a very specific one if that's okay. Um and then move on to some more broader ones.

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Oh, sorry. Um I hope you can hear me with this mask. I have a cold. So um all right. Uh so chapter 260 section 2F1E requires the superintendent's name and dwelling unit number to be filed with

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the Bureau of Rent level Leveling. Um and chapter 260 section 2G separately requires that the same information be served in writing on every tenant and posted um to every tenant and and posted

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continuously in a conspicuous place in each building. So before the prosecutor's office tells the court that a multi-unit landlord has come into compliance with the chapter 260 um provisions for superintendent disclosure.

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What specific documents are in your offic's file showing each of the three obligations that is filing um the information being served to the tenants and the posting in the lobby has been satisfied.

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Well, the filing uh we would rely on HDC to provide us that information because that's through their rent registration that they would provide that information and if they have provided that to that department um we rely on them for that

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information. Obviously the posting will be determined by the inspector. The inspector uh goes to the property and sees the posting. We rely on that. >> Okay. So in every situation um

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it it would not just be the um division of it would not just be that rent leveling like told you that it was there. It would be that there would also be an inspector director Barrow from your office sent out. >> Not my office. That would be housing preservation. >> Okay.

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>> They they enforce chapter 260. >> Okay. Um and and when you're in court, you provide the um you would provide the documentation from that inspector. >> We would rely on the information. So if the

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inspector or the uh department representative tells us that they've received information, we rely on that. >> Okay. But there's but there's no So they could just verbally tell you yes. >> Yeah. We we we trust our departments and

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their representatives. Um if they're providing us with that information, we assume it's correct. We don't we don't generally question uh the validity of their statement. >> Reason to suspect that in a certain case

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maybe their verbal assurance was not accurate. Would it would it be um would this committee request further documentation or >> I apologize. Could you repeat that question? I didn't hear you. >> Um sorry. Um

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and and what would be the procedure for challenging that if there's no like photographic documentation or anything like that? So if you're suggesting that um an employee of the city was not truthful um I I think that's a larger picture

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that will be should be addressed uh internally to their director obviously depending on what the circumstances is. We do have a a an investigative portion in the city where we we where an employee could be investigated if

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they're doing something wrong. And in the past, we've done that. Not necessarily providing us uh information with prosecution, but just in general, if we feel like there's some nefarious activities, we do have an independent investigation. >> Okay. >> But what if what if Okay. What if what

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if the the the employee is actually being truthful based on the procedure like you said going in and seeing something posted and then okay it's posted they're here with nothing being put in place where

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it's like all right where's this person so I can talk to them interview them and you know make sure that they're here doing what they're supposed to do on the grounds. So sorry, Councilman, it it

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uh the department or the inspector issues a complaint, that complaint has certain elements we have to meet. If we if we get information that we cannot meet that those elements, then we cannot prosecute. um we're relying on that information

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because what's the point of having that witness come to court, testify, and say, "Hey, uh they did X, Y, and Z." Um when we know that's an element that we allegedly claim they did not do

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initially with the complaint. Uh so we don't we don't fact check any of our witnesses. we um if we have knowledge that they might be doing something wrong, we may then you know take a different course of action

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>> that okay maybe I asked the question wrong right but it's it's okay so what you were saying is they go in to the building if this documentation is posted that's all they need to see right but

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then you have tenants saying and they No, there's no one physically here. Like, what can we do? And maybe this is a question for Joe. Is there anything that we can do to ensure that these these supers are being seen?

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>> Yeah, you would go you would go to the apartment unit that they're living in, knock on the door, and talk to them. >> Not just take the post, you know, not just take the notice. That's what we do in most places when we go check on a super. We make sure we

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don't just say, "Hey, do you have a super?" We go, "Well, where do they live?" And we knock on the door to see if they're actually there. >> When the super is not there, they're you come back or until you >> issue a summon. >> Okay. You issue a summon if they're not

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there for any reason. You just issue >> for any reason. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. >> But that was my very specific question. I have some more general questions for the um acting prosecutor. Thank you. Um

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so we know your capacity is sort of a limiting factor with the number of um sta w with the number of staff and the number of assistant prosecutors that you have. Um are there ever citations that

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would otherwise be pursued but are unable to be prosecuted due to capacity? Uh I don't I don't think so. Um there like there's a calendar that we receive. We handle that calendar accordingly. As I mentioned earlier, there's about a

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50,000 case backlog that needs to be addressed. >> So So cases are never dismissed just because you do not have the capacity. They are instead logged on the backlog. >> No. So if you I CA cases are addressed

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as we get them um and we handle them in normal course. I think in order for us to be current we need a lot more manpower. >> Okay. Um and so what is the process for working through backlogged citations and

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and I assume you have a sort of documentation system for all that. >> We do not have a a documentation for the backlog. That's something that the court has provided me with that estimated figure. Uh they're the ones that schedule it. We are the enforcement

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branch of our government. Uh so as the cases come in, we handle them. We prosecute them. We I have been in discussions with our chief judge and our court administrator to try to address the backlog. Um, specifically, we talked

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about uh reallocating cases uh to certain courts to help move the the backlog cases along. And we're we're continuing to have those conversations and to change those calendars to address

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that backlog. Can >> I ask a clarifying question? The backlog is based on the court's calendar. Anything over a year, right? Correct. Any case over older than a year is considered backlog. >> I'm not sure what exactly the court

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categorized uh as backlog for the 50,000. I will defer to the court on that. >> Well, my my question is you don't have a $50,000, excuse me, 50,000 case backlog because there aren't enough prosecutors because the court's just not getting to all the cases heard because of the volume.

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Well, they it's it's the volume is one issue. Um the the personnel is the other issue. >> I mean, for example, in superior court, prosecutor's office, civil or criminal, there there's cases being heard for trial that are from 2021. That's not

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because there's not enough lawyers in New Jersey. There's plenty of us. You would agree with me of that notion, right? >> Yes. There's Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But if I may add, as I mentioned earlier, there's a judge sitting in the evenings that the chief judge has

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constantly been requesting if we can man that uh have a assistant prosecutor um so we can add some additional cases beyond the parking violations and we just haven't had the ability to do that thus far.

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So um talking about staffing earlier you um said that your ideal would be so so there's six courts in the AM 6 in the PM and 5 in the evening and in the evening you get some help from the law department but your ideal would be

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having at least for the morning and the afternoon having six prosecutors each and then in the opposite time frame they can do their their preparation work. Right? So your ideal would be at least six assistant prosecutors. Is that accurate? I mean 12.

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>> 12 in total. Correct. Yes. >> Sorry. Um and um we me you mentioned about capacity. Um last year you were able to collect 18.3 million in fines. This year we are not yet on track um to reach that

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number. We are on um just proportionally for how far through the year we are. We're a little bit below that it looks like. Um but not far off, but we're a little bit below that below that. But um would you say that if if your office were to be staffed

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with 12 prosecutors, would their salaries pay for themselves and then some in the amounts of fines that we could collect? >> Absolutely. >> So this would actually be a revenue generating. Again, we don't prosecute for the

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revenue, but I think the costbenefit analysis speak for itself. >> It's it's just a happy side effect. Um, okay. Thank you. Um, and so going back, Council Gilmore had some

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questions about repeat offenders. Um, if there is a repeat offender that has an outstanding unpaid fine and or an ongoing open prosecution and there is another case for them that comes, is the process any different if they

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have that outstanding unpaid fine and were ongoing open prosecution? So, it's um this is a an issue I've been addressing with the municipal court because we are working with them to consolidate matters. So, when a litigant

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comes to court, he may have a violation from uh April, he may have a violation from February, he may have a violation from January. And because of the way it's currently processed, when it comes in, he may have

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a court um in one courtroom on one day, in another courtroom on another day, and in another courtroom on a third day. Uh we are and I think they're struggling with the manpower themselves because we've constantly been trying to get them to

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consolidate all that, including outstanding time payments. So if a defendant previously came to court and was put on a time payment plan and we want that matter consolidated with all their other open matters. So one if they need an extension on that and they have

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a plausible reason for that they can address that with the court and two they we can also address all their matters at one time. uh and you know that as well will prevent a litigant from going from multiple courts but more importantly I

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think it'll be more effective uh prosecution. Next question is what if any mechanisms are in place to protect tenants from retaliatory actions from landlords if tenants are to lodge a complaint and you know bring it to court

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or even serve as a witness in court. Um are there any mechanisms in place to protect them against retaliation? >> So we do have the anti-harassment section in our municipal code. Um there are state laws that they can pursue as

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well. um in superior court. Uh I I don't think a tenant should feel apprehensive about coming uh to court and uh assisting in prosecution or being a witness for the uh city or state. Uh

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there are laws to protect uh our witnesses. So if a developer is repeat offender, repeat violation he has on his name or the the building's name that is it

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possible to and this is the question for you uh Sara. Is it possible to have their information public? Correct me if I speak out of school here, but violations, citations, judgments, fines, whether or not they're

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collected, that's all public record. That's record that anyone in this room could submit an open request for. It would take a lot of time to compile because a lot of that information lives in different places. Um there is no one central repository of here's the

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complaint, here's the inspection, here's the citation, here's the judgment, here's the fine. Um but that is all public record. So nothing legally would stop the city from making that information more readily available. So because people around the world come

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here to live and if when they look for an apartment if they Google this developer is it possible to get the access of or possibly finding okay you know this is a bad landlord because then

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you don't get stuck in that hole where you are stuck now you have given you have signed the lease because you literally can't go through the lease by the way if you start reading everything you would never signed the document but you'd sign right because we we just can't read all that legally we are not

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that you know we don't have that knowledge so I'm just trying to see that how these innocent people moving here going to a bad landlord and then getting stuck for a year or more because they have no idea about all the how the law

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work and the behavior of this bad landlord just to clarify when I say that those are public records. What I mean is that the public has a right to access them, has an entitlement to that information, not that that information is in fact

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available to the public or readily available to them or easily available to them. So, it would be up to the city to invest the resources, design the system that would let the public easily access that information. >> I I actually have a follow-up question about your comment on leases, and I

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think this question is uh for corporation council most likely. Um, I talked to a tenant in one building in my ward um who said that in her lease, her lease had a provision that says by signing this lease, you are waving your

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right um against um unconscionable rent increases. Is that something that can be waved in a lease or would that lease not hold up in court? So the law department can only

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provide advice to its client, the the city, the city council. We can interpret our code. So I am not in a position to provide any legal advice for any third parties. But unconscionability is a common law doctrine. It is developed by

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state courts. So ultimately it would be up to a court, not up to a landlord to determine whether or not that rent was unconscionable. Um, >> but the lease stated that she was waving her right to pursue claims for unconscionable rate increases.

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>> Nothing would stop a landlord from trying to enforce that term. I find it really hard to believe that a court would enforce that term. Um, uh, Director Burl, um, if you can help me understand,

390
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um, if someone it's in violation of their CEO, um, and a citation is issued, um, it goes to the prosecutor's office to LLC,

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um, and I guess a fine is levied against How do what internally um how does said entity get permits to do anything else?

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>> So I don't handle cos that's the that's the construction code. We don't file violations for cos um there is >> you're you're in the office that files cos all of you guys are together right? Um,

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>> no, completely different department. >> No, no, no, no. What I mean, yes, different department, but we're all under the same entity. We're all doing the business of the city. So, my question in in asking you that is how you alluded to the connectivity to the

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prosecutor's office. I want to know what if any what if any connectivity do you have to enter your department or other divisions? Oh, >> I work very close with every other department. We we're on the task force every week together. I have um I speak

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to departments multiple times a day. So if there is an issue so if there is a construction issue, I know who I can call right away and get that inspector there immediately. So my question is, how does someone who

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are how does someone who's out of compliance as it relates to a CL can obtain permits to do other things? >> That's not because I don't handle the COS. That would have to be under the construction code. That's how I I wouldn't know how

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>> you wouldn't know if the C you wouldn't even know if the CO is not valid or not. >> No, not my department. Not my department. the construction code would and and zoning would >> confuse. So if so each department doesn't know if there's pending

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violations. >> Um no not separately like you know I'm sure with bad landlords I'm sure every department has violations against them but as far as checking for cos I don't have the ability to do that. That's just

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construction code and zoning. Do you feel like >> thousands of cases how would you know them by name one department to other department you are saying yes we generally know the bad de bad bad bad landlords but I'm just saying that how would you remember the

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name of all bad landlords if you are not communicating with other departments >> well because we're there for different reasons so you kind of if you're doing this for a while you know who's a bad landlord and who's not you know there's different addresses that we always go to different

401
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But I think so. Every time we do a ribbon cut in, right, and we work for the city, one of the main things we do is verify that the space we're going to cut the ribbon has a valid CO.

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>> Yeah, but that's not There's people that do that. It's just not me. >> Is there someone in your office? There's no one in So, your office is responsible for doing what exactly? We handle housing. We go after landlords. Like if your landlord doesn't act, we do a

403
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housing investigation. We handle sanitation issues. We handle sidewalk defects. We handle um street closures. We handle entertainment licenses, licensing things through commerce um enforcement like that. Co are handled by

404
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construction code and zoning. That's it. >> And then permits are handled by who? >> It depends on the permit. The construction code permit, construction code. Yeah, that's not that's not my office at all. >> You But you guys are in the That's You guys are all under HDC, correct?

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>> No, I'm under public safety. >> Oh, you uh >> quality the quality of life. >> No, Joe Barrow and Oh, >> that happens a lot. I'm sorry. I'm not Joe Severini. It's been a long evening.

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Maybe the witness is going to reidentify themselves whether we're can >> I just think uh >> not the first time that happened this week. >> Okay. Okay. Do we think it would make your lives and your work easier if there was a kind of centralized system where

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someone, you know, an LLC, a property owner comes up for whatever kind of code violation might be coming through quality of life and you could get pinged that, hey, there's this whole other list of outstanding violations that are relevant to the other departments in the city. Do you feel like that would be

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helpful in the kind of work you do on a day-to-day basis to have that additional information? >> Yes. And we do share information with each other. Like I said, we I'm in communication with every division usually every day about different properties, different inspectors, you

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know, and so we pretty much know what's going on with other places. >> So once the violations are issued, then it's out of our hands. >> Okay. It sounds like that information exists through through kind of word of mouth as opposed to there's not a there's a a centralized system.

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>> Well, we can also access SharePoint where we put up our discovery. So, we can actually see the other departments when they, you know, oh, health issued a violation to, you know, um 35 Kensington, >> right? >> You know, um construction code was there. They did this. You could see all

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that in SharePoint. >> Okay. I guess my question for the prosecutor um if there's um there because there's this lingering issue about um a CO and I

412
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don't know exactly what happened because the city's position and the establishment owner position is contrary to one another. one saying that they submitted the appropriate paperwork and our position is well they we didn't they

413
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didn't submit what they said they was put in there. Um so I say all that to say um there's an outstanding violation that's been outstanding for probably over a year. Um,

414
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and I'm just scared that if there's a if there's an issue with occupying the building, i.e. the certificate of occup occupacy, um, the last thing I want to see is something happened to someone that's

415
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there and then someone filed a lawsuit and everybody's looking at the the city like, well, they weren't even supposed to be open. Why are you guys prohibiting them to occupy the space when there's no proved co?

416
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Um, so I'm just trying to figure out like and this kind of alludes to the issue earlier of how do we go after people that owe money? How do we enforce the actual laws that's on the books? Like what do we have out our disposal?

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Can we go and remove them from the premises? Um, is that an option? Because the last thing also I don't want everybody to say, well, you know, they really can't do nothing. We don't got a CEO. We still won't stay open. They ain't got no

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mechanism to collect the money anyway. So there are certain reasons that are both our city code and administrative code permits closures um for certain health violations for certain uh construction violations

419
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um if the building's structurally unsound. That's that's those are reasons that um folks can be removed from there and if their tenants can be re relocated. Uh >> hold how does that removal look?

420
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>> I actually director Barrow is one of the key personnel that handles relocation. >> Well, for relocation, not for shutting down the business. I can't do that. But for relocating tenants, um like you said, working with the health department, goes into a place and sees something that's uninhabitable.

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They come to me, I issue the order to community development. um community development works with the tenants, puts them up either in a hotel or they can get $4,000 in funds to go find a new place, you know, go find for a down payment on a

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new apartment somewhere. Um, however, >> if those are federal grants, so then the federal grants once they go to court and summones are issued, that's how the city recoups the federal grants. That's a better question for community development. I don't know all the ins

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and outs of it completely, but um but I'm the one that issues the order. >> Okay. Yeah, Mr. Pros, you can finish on your thought. Um >> but I just wanted to address um Councilman Afro's question. If there was a centralized system, I think that would

424
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be helpful. Um because that would let all the agencies know. Uh I I know there this is something that has been in discussion for quite some time regarding some centralized system. The issue of

425
01:56:53.599 --> 01:57:09.199
denying someone the ability to do certain things because they may have an outstanding time payment or um you know requesting to pull a permit. There's some legal issues with that uh that may

426
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limit the city's ability on denying that, you know, depending on the the circumstances, but a centralized system would at least put folks on alert so we can try to address those issues. >> I I appreciate that. Um would you anticipate that those legal limitations

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would be statutory or would they be existing within our municipal code as written? >> It's statutory. >> Statutory. Okay. And then if I can just go to an example briefly of where I feel like this kind of inter office communication would be especially helpful. Again to bring up 995 Summit um

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in in the Heights uh the the owner Isaac Sabog failed to obtain construction permit. Um it looks like what's owed is $6,000 for the failure and then uh $42,000 over time um from uh 1,500 per week

429
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since October 8th, 2025. Um we have all these violations. Uh the staffing was there to issue the notice and order of penalty. Um but it I I don't know if I mean this is open question. Have we collected any of that

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almost $50,000 from Isaac Sog? And now uh units that were under construction um appear to the information I've been given um from tenants appear to actually being rented out at illegal rental rates. Um, so I just want to cite this

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example as a as a case when this exact kind of interoffice communication should be going on so that we can really get a a a handle on these uh slum lords before they go ahead and um, you know, violate code for months if not years and then

432
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start illegally renting out units way beyond what is in white rent control. Um I I I know um I've been bringing up this case a number of times, but if there's any information that you have about those kind of outstanding violations at 995, that would be very helpful.

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>> If not right now, then I'm happy to follow. >> I'm not sure if there's any specific litigation. I I can tell you once we prosecute the collection is then handled by the municipal court or if it's referred for judgment um then it's docketed. So that'll be beyond the

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municipal prosecutor's scope. >> Okay. Thank you. municipal court used to be um good with coming at the people who owed fines if I can recall correctly. Um I mean I don't know what happened since then. Um

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>> I just think like there has to be other like there has to be other triggers. Again, if it's a traffic violation, there's a fine assessed. If you don't pay the fine, your license can get suspended. Then you have to pay a restoration fee. Then there's even

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mechanisms where registration can be um suspended. So not only can you not drive, no one can drive a car you own, right? There's all these instance where certain thresholds are reached for individuals. So is

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is it the opinion of of your office that pro prosecuting entities are drastically harder versus prosecuting individuals? >> Well, I do want to remind the council during a period uh during COVID those

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license suspensions were not taking effect. Those registration suspensions were not taking effect. Warrants were not being issued. This is what accumulated or was a contributing factor to the accumulation of this large back

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backlog that we have. Um now that it has that has been uh reverted or rescended I should say and now they are license suspensions, they are registration suspensions, they are now warrants being issued. Um and I think that's one of the

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contributing factors of why we're getting folks to appear uh entities. Absolutely. Right. because there's there is not that consequence of them going to jail, right? With an individual, there's a warrant issued, they can go to jail.

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Um, depending on the penalty, they can go to jail. Uh, it as a entity, you cannot put an LLC in jail, right? Unless we're piercing the corporate veil to get to a member.

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I mean, I think that's that's part of the problem that we're having is these entities. Um, and I get a lot of it is state law. You can't really tell someone they can't have a LLC that own a property, the LLC

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that managed the property, LLC that's a investing member. You know, it's it's hard to navigate those waters. I just think internally um again speaking to this inter department uh network and

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there's things that we can do you know to essentially kind of make life hard for them because I mean if I'm if I'm an entity and I know and understand that I need permits to do X Y and Z fine I'll just go do the

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work um I'll get the fine I ain't got to pay it in 20 years anyway in the meanwhile Well, I'll just be renting out an illegal apartment, accumulating money, right? It's it's it's cost effective. I don't have to go through the rigorous screens of going through a process that's going to cost time and

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money. I can almost like circumvent the process, get the tickets, acknowledge the tickets, see that they're there, and then there's no real mechanism to collect it. So, there in lies the frustration of everyday residents, right? because residents are looking and

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saying, "Hey, councilman, I'm following up again on this building. They're still doing X, Y, and Z. Oh, by the way, uh, I got my car tow because my registration was suspended. I forgot to pay it." Right. So, in in one in one

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light, we're like, "Well, well, you your your car was supposed to get told. You should have renewed it." But in another light, you're saying that, you know, these entities can pretty much run a muck. And that's that's the real frustration for the council because we

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have to feel these questions, comments, concerns every single day. So, you know, this committee in part is tasked with bringing you ladies and gentlemen here, asking you the hard questions, trying to see what are your strengths, what are

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your weakness, what are the threats. Um that's my business SWAT analysis uh education on display there. um but to opportunities to definitely um and we're tasked with trying to find

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a way to give our constituency answers because I'm going to be honest for me it's hard to look a resident in a phase who had the same issue or the same issue with a establishment for over two and three years, right? because it it looks

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like, yo, you guys aren't doing anything and they're getting away with everything. And that's the frustrating part every single day, right? Um so, you know, we're going to make recommendations to the administration.

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Um we've heard your concerns as it relates to to manpower. Um, I can't assure you that we'll be able to get you guys more manpower seeing that the deficit in which we are facing. Um, in fact, I can't guarantee you'll have the

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manpower you have now. Um, but you know, we're just trying to find ways in which we can hold bad actors accountable. We know and understand that all landlords are not bad, but damn it, the ones that are bad are horrible.

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And there in lies the problem. Um, so does anybody have any uh questions, comments, concerns, or followup before we conclude uh this meeting? >> Um, so I had one more question for um the municipal prosecutor and I did have a few questions for uh director Barrow

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as well. >> Yeah, >> sorry. Sorry. Yes, I had one more question for the municipal prosecutor and um a couple more for director Barrow as well, but um I notice we're not at quorum, but I I think mom's coming back. I think she just went to the bathroom.

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>> Hey, hey, hey, Councilman Griffin, if you can wait right here until mom to come back so we can be in quum. >> We need you on the dis. >> Yeah, you if you could come up. >> Yeah, at this level we have to take turns. is going out of the bathroom

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unfortunately. Um and hopefully council lo will return soon. Um so my last question and I told you I was saving the broadest one for last. Um you talked a lot already about um some of your suggestions for improving

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uh improving the functionality of the municipal prosecutor's office. But do you have any other suggestions on how the municipal prosecutor's office could be more effective? I think I've touched on the items that I think will be will certainly equip us

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with the tools because I know some of my requests may be aspirational with the amount of manpower but just you know any additional resources will help uh the case management software the additional manpower I think those are steps in the

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right direction to get us on the right course. Um, I think we're an effective office currently and I think we perform at a high level. Um, but I think we certainly can fine-tune what we have provided we have the the resources to do

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that. Thank you. Um I I want to open it up in case anyone else had um questions for um for uh municipal prosecutor Kimj or uh director Barrow before before I launched

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into my questions for director Barrow. >> Okay. >> Okay. Okay. Um so when a complaint is submitted to your office, uh what is the process and typical timeline of determining if a violation has occurred? And um what is the subsequent process of

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a citation being generated and submitted to the municipal prosecutor's office if a violation has occurred? >> So we have a pretty good response time usually in a day. Um that day the inspectors there. They have um the complaint system on their phones. It

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gets sent to them when the complaints assigned to them. They're there immediately. Normally, especially with a housing complaint, they're probably there that day, if not the early next morning. Um, they issue the violations that day. Um, when it comes to housing,

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they have uh the landlord has 30 days to abate the issue. If they don't, then they get then it goes straight to summons. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, and does your office ever follow up with the municipal prosecutor's office on

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citations to see whether they've been prosecuted to sort of check the status or >> in certain cases? Yeah, we we'll speak about especially um, you know, uh, repeat offenders and bad actors. >> Are you leaving? We we have to have a core. >> I I just have one question.

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>> You got a couple more questions. You hold on. >> I I have one question left. I'm sorry. Um, are are violators subject to increased inspections for a period of time? >> Yes. Well, yeah, absolutely. >> And can you talk about >> We'll go back. We'll go back and make sure that Yeah. that the problem was

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fixed. >> Okay. Okay. I'm done. I'm sorry to keep you all late. >> No, that's that's I mean this what we this this what we were tasked with. Um so if um Mr. prosecutor, I guess, or um

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Sarah, if we can get those requested documents um that council persona Zupa have requested and also um a copy of um or a list of all infractions that were collected um all that were

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guilty or guilty verdicts um in the amount uh in an outstanding amount. that would be uh helpful as well. >> And if I can just reiterate the request for some written protocol on the kind of inter office communication and the

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follow-up procedures that would be extremely helpful as well. >> Yes, if you can send all three of those to all or you can send it to legal and then legal um she will forward to us. What would be helpful is if the committee could compile its data

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requests because we have already put in a data request with the court administrator. Okay, their system is not set up in a way that is particularly straightforward to query and so it is taking a meaningful amount of manual time to compile that information. So, if

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you could give a priority, you know, we'll we'll talk to them and figure out if it's easier for them to pull it by year, if there's a way we can do it on a summary basis that reduces the administrative burden on them. But, if you could just put together your list of data points, we'll we'll confer with them and do our >> Do the court need more staff, too, or

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they could. >> I'm sure if you asked them to come here, they would tell you all about it. >> Okay. I I just want to note it is difficult for us to coordinate a list of questions because we can't really talk at a group outside of this uh committee because of sunshine. Um but maybe if the

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three of us want to coordinate on those. >> Yes, we'll have we'll send uh Sarah email just to follow up that way they have everything in writing and then they know exactly >> or or yourselves and councilman Zupa. I'm also okay with that arrange but yeah if we can just >> council chair may I ask a question of

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legal um is it in violation of the sunshine law for all councils to be on a shared document >> you are discussing the business of the governing body I would advise against it not discussing but like they have questions compiling questions that could

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be a discussion if there's just a document that is shared with all of you that is not a forum for discussion then that is a safe zone But if you are specifically creating a forum to discuss. >> No, not a forum. So I'm having all council send me the questions and I'm putting them all on one document.

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>> If you are facilitating a back and forth, so for example, if council is submitting things that are populating in a document and then there's subsequent questions about what other people are putting in the document, I I would say submit all of your information. If you could compile it in one final document and then circulate it, then there's no

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point final. There's any discussion happening. >> Okay? So, don't share it with everybody until it's finalized. >> No back and forth. >> Do we have our date for the next uh meeting? >> The second Monday of every month. >> Yes. >> Right. So, that's June

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8th. >> 9th. June 9th. >> June 9th. The first is a Monday, so June 8th. >> June 8th. >> June 8th. >> So, I think we should uh pause as it relates to when >> because of the way it's set up. Um, in

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this case, it looks like June 8th is caucus. >> First is caucus on my calendar. >> Oh, my calendar's just wrong then. Sorry about that. >> What? On the eth.

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How was you set to caucus on our date? >> Oh, because it was summer. >> Yes, the summer. Uh, well, note. Isn't that the >> So, so no, it would be the 15th then. It has to be on a Monday. >> Okay. June 15th that

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>> I want to say thank you so much for coming out to answer our questions. >> No, absolutely. I I want to take this opportunity to thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to come out and address any concerns. And I encourage you all if you have questions to reach out to my office. We are more

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than will I believe the line of communication as per your own questions and our interdep departmental communications. I want you to also feel free to do the same. Um, obviously there might be some issues if there's a pending litigation, what information I can disclose or not disclose, but I

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think having the information will be able to you all to address your constituents when they have questions. I can tell you I can testify to you that our office I believe is running on all cylinders. If you provide us with the

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equipment, we can exceed and excel. But I implore you all feel free to come and witness us. Look at us. See what we do to witness for yourself rather than just taking my word. All right. Thank you. So are we >> are we go we going to which the is the

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15th is the next one is the following Monday. >> Yes. If we can Yeah. Let's we'll do the 15th. Um and then we'll take that time to reconvene amongst the group. um just to discuss what we've gathered so far

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what recommendations what are our next steps kind of like to bring a little more structure into the uh committee and then I guess that following month or that yeah the following month we'll call the uh former municipal prosecutor in

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and then whatever entities or individuals we need to talk to after that. >> Thank you. Um, one one quick comment that was on the agenda that I don't think we got to. Um, Secretary Walker, of the clarification on committee deadlines, the 90day rule. Um, I wanted

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to clarify, um, what was the intent of the council member who was drafting that that res I'm so sorry. Thank you. Um, I told you I was second. Um it I I think the deadlines were a little

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ambiguous and so I wanted to seek clarification on that >> for the which which specific >> for for the interimm report. Is that right? >> The inter the 90day report. Um Erica you were saying the 90-day report.

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I think we need to clarify on the record that deadline. >> Yes. So, the intention was for the 90-day report to come after the last public meeting, not 90 days from the start of the committee. I don't >> No, no. Yes, that's it's the last meeting. >> Okay.

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>> So, after we've after we've convened all the meeting, talk to all the individuals whenever that last meeting whenever we say this is our last meeting, we have n the 90 days starts. That's when the 90 days start. >> Okay. And that was that was the intent when you were drafting the

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>> Yes. And that would be 90 days from the we we have a sixmonth >> run of this. >> No, we we also have the Yes. And we also have the ability to extend too. >> Okay.

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>> So, case in point, if we don't get all of the necessary information we feel we need to allocate time frame, we'll extend it. Okay. >> Um we don't want to handicap ourselves. >> Motion. I hear a motion from Councilman Gilmore

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to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Councilman Efos to adjourn at 7:33 p.m. >> I sorry. >> All in favor? >> I >> I >> meeting adjourned at 7:33 p.m. Have a good evening. >> Thank you everyone.