Danville Council Public Services Committee Passes Along New Landlords’ Rental Registration Form to Full Council

After a long discussion during Tuesday (March 25th) evening’s meeting, the Danville City Council Public Services Committee has passed along to the full City Council an update to the city’s Rental Registration Form for landlords.  The previously expressed goal of the council was to have a system with more teeth, and more guarding against retaliatory action against a tenant if they complain to the city about something.

As Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr explained afterwards, by signing the new registration form, landlords will be consenting to both random and follow up inspections to their properties.

AUDIO: They will actually be consenting to have their property inspected; either through random inspection, which we will be inspecting properties whether or not they have any complaints against them, and also specifically if there are complaints.  It’s a consent to have their property inspected because they are renting property here in Danville.

Mayor Williams also pointed out that if a tenant is claiming they are being discriminated against, the complaint will go to Human Resources.  If it’s more of a regular complaint, such as for retaliatory action, then it goes to the legal office.

AUDIO: Any complaint of discrimination in the City of Danville goes to the Human Relations Department/Human Resources Division.  However, if there is an environmental complaint, or a retaliatory complaint, that goes to the Legal Department.

Vice-Mayor Tricia Teague stated that both forms should be on the city website, with a definition right on each form of what it can be used for.

Meanwhile, some Public Works items on Tuesday night’s agenda included four allocations for the city to spend state MFT (Motor Fuel Tax) funds for various projects.  As Mayor Williams reminded everyone, this means a bureaucratic problem the city’s had for a while has now come to an end.

AUDIO: Unfortunately, all the way back to the 90s, the City of Danville had not properly closed out some of our projects through MFT, that’s Illinois Motor Fuel tax.  And because of that, they put a freeze on our ability to spend MFT funds for the past two years.

Mayor Williams says the reason city road projects were able to get done over the past two years while that was being worked out; was because of the efforts of the City Council and the city’s leadership team to be “good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars,” with extra surplus money allowing the road projects to stay on track.