Only about half the members of the Landlord-Tenant Rights Fact-Finding Committee convened for a scheduled meeting with City Attorney Margo Ely on Friday afternoon.

As a result of this failure to make a quorum, the task force will have to meet again Tuesday at 1 p.m. at City Hall to make a handbook recommendation to the DeKalb City Council.

It had appeared that the Landlord-Tenant Rights Ordinance had passed at the city council meeting on Monday, Oct. 22 and only the associated model lease and handbook had to be approved on Oct. 26, but the law did not pass as Mayor Greg Sparrow believed, because of a legal technicality.

Sparrow had assumed that 7th Ward Ald. Joe Sonsowski’s vote to abstain counted as a vote for the majority, but abstentions are not counted as being majority votes in cases where the city council votes to pass a bill on its first reading. As a result, the bill will have a second reading on Monday, Nov. 13, at which time the council also will be able to decide on the model lease and handbook.

At Friday afternoon’s meeting, the fact-finding committee was due to review both the proposed model lease and proposed handbook and make a recommendation to the DeKalb City Council. The lease and handbook are due to be voted on as a resolution, separate from, but associated with the Landlord-Tenant Rights ordinance. Since only about half the committee members attended the meeting, they agreed to review the model lease and meet a second time before Nov. 13 to discuss the handbook.

On the ordinance itself, committee member and President of Horizon Management Susan McMaster informed everyone that she would talk to the aldermen individually on or before Nov. 13 about changing the way fines are to be imposed in the Landlord-Tenants Rights bill.

As it is written, if a landlord knowingly enforces a provision prohibited by the proposed law or continues to include such provisions in new leases after receiving notice, an affected tenant can keep a month’s rent and judges may fine the landlord for compensatory damages payable to the tenant.

“This is the first time in the municipal code that the city isn’t collecting fines,” McMaster said.

Henderson and Ely disagreed, pointing out that individuals can already collect fines in towing violation cases.

McMaster was concerned that when the city collects fines, the city uses considerable discretion, but high fines might be imposed if judges know the money is going directly to the tenants. She also expressed concern that the word “knowingly” is vague and would be difficult to substantiate.

Dr. Guadalupe Luna, an associate professor of law at NIU, said the word “knowingly” is defined by case law. Luna also joined Henderson, Ely and law student Edwin Trinta in saying that “notice” is a term that generally implies receipt of a written document.

The first draft of the landlord-tenant agreement was created by Student’s’ Legal Assistance last December, and sponsored in the DeKalb City Council by 5th Ward Ald. Pat Conboy, who had been the founding director of Students’ Legal Assistance, and former 6th Ward Ald. Aaron Raffel. Former Mayor Bessie Chronopoulos intervened at that point, forming a fact-finding committee after local landlords expressed concern over not being involved in the process.