ECPD ENLISTING LANDLORDS IN CRACKDOWN ON DRUG TRAFFICKING

Thick skin and common sense aren't enough anymore. A landlord's most
important assets today are knowledge and information, officials said
last week.

About 40 landlords met with police and housing officials Tuesday to
talk about ways to keep rental properties from become sites of illegal
activity. It was the final leg in a campaign by the Elizabeth City
Police Department to gain the cooperation of rental-property owners in
tackling the city's drug problem.

Officials discussed such issues as screening tenants, meeting minimum
housing requirements and the eviction process during a program slated
to run from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Hampton Inn.

Two and a half hours wasn't long enough, however. The seminar went 90
minutes over, with officials answering questions and speaking with
rental property owners until about 10:30 p.m.

"I was pleasantly surprised," Police Chief William Anderson said
afterward. "It was a great group who asked a lot of good questions."

According to the last U.S. Census, the majority of people in Elizabeth
City are now renters -- 62 percent of residents here don't own the
homes they live in, the highest percentage in the state.

In this kind of housing market, a thorough knowledge of the legal
rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants would seem to be
crucial. Few landlords who attended the seminar, however, felt
confident about their knowledge of the law. And they wondered if being
more aggressive in trying to keep drug dealers from moving into their
properties could make them vulnerable to lawsuits.

"It's just very confusing," Anderson said. "And a lot of folks, both
landlords and tenants, don't know their rights or responsibilities. In
some cases people on both sides are being taken advantage of."

Some landlords complained that it's almost impossible to properly
screen tenants. All landlords can do with a reasonable amount of
confidence, they said, is verify a tenant's income. Some applicants
lie about their previous landlords, they said, and give fake addresses
or the phone numbers of family members. And if the landlord makes a
mistake, he can be sued for violating an applicant's civil liberties.

So landlords wind up doing the minimum. They get a tenant's Social
Security number, make one phone call then deposit the rent check.

"And they keep getting bad tenants and don't know why," said Mike
Williams, the city code enforcement officer and one of the presenters
at Tuesday's meeting.

Williams told landlords that, in doing his job, he rarely talks to
renters. When the grass is high and the refrigerator is on the porch,
Williams says he goes to the property owner. They are the ones
ultimately responsible for the property's condition, he said.

"I can't put a lien on a renter," Williams said.

Like Anderson, Williams said he would like to develop a good working
relationship with landlords. After all, a landlord should be just
interested as the city in improving the landlord's property.

Anderson said he believed city officials' first meeting with landlords
had helped put landlords' minds at ease about the city police
department's initiative to enlist landlords in the crackdown on drug
trafficking.

"I think we were able to put the myth to rest where some felt we only
wanted to take their property," Anderson said. "I think the group that
attended came away with an understanding that we are really here to
help them as long as we know they want our help."

Keeping reasonable tabs on the condition of their rental properties is
essential, many of the presenters at Tuesday's meeting said.

"I talked to a woman who hadn't been in the house (she rents to
others) for 11 years," Williams said. "Come on! Eleven years?"

Williams said the best way to monitor what goes on at a rental
property is to make regular inspections a provision of the rental
agreement. Otherwise, federal and state laws bar a property owner from
just showing up and poking around.

"It should be in the rental agreement that you can visit every once in
awhile," Williams said. "Otherwise, once you give them that key, you
can't come in. They can refuse you."

Calling a cop won't help at that point, unless there is a
life-threatening emergency, added presenter Gary Bray of the ECPD
Narcotics Unit.

"If you want to violate the U.S. Constitution by conducting an illegal
search, that's not something the police are going to be able to help
you with," said Bray, who led a discussion on ways to spot illegal
activity and end neighborhood nuisances.

Another of the presenters, George Bright of the Mayor's Fair Housing
Committee, told landlords that a rental agreement can be both legal
and strict. The trick is to apply the requirements of the agreement
consistently. If a landlord makes an exception for one renter, but
applies the letter of the agreement to others, the landlord may set
himself up for a lawsuit, Bright said.

Other presenters included ECPD Lt. John Young, who talked about
interviewing and screening tenants; city Attorney William Morgan, who
talked about landlord rights and obligations; Teresa Forward of the
Economic Improvement Council, who discussed some of the intricacies
and misconceptions of Section 8 housing; Judah Person, of the
Elizabeth City Housing Authority; Shawn LeMond of the Fair Housing
Committee; and Deputy Travis Jackson of the Pasquotank County
Sheriff's Office.

The goal of the seminar was to give landlords methods they can use to
protect their properties while helping police. The presenters said the
response to the seminar and the interaction on both sides was positive.

"Hopefully we got a lot of folks' attention that we are serious about
drugs being sold in our communities," Anderson said.

One of the landlords who attended, Rick white, said just the fact that
police held a seminar on the drug problem was reassuring. He said it
demonstrated to him that local law enforcement is aware of the
problems landlords face and is serious about finding solutions.

"We learned that Chief Anderson is willing and open to help us," White
said. "I would be willing to go every year. This drug problem is not
going to go away. We need to keep fighting away at it. It's going to
be the landlords and tenants and police working together. That's what
we've got to do to alleviate these highly affected areas."

White said he can tolerate sloppy tenants. What he too often sees,
however, is a criminal element casting a shadow over an otherwise
attractive neighborhood.

"A dirty carpet and leaving a mess I can deal with," White said. "But
if I have a house with six guys who don't live there leaning up
against the front porch rail, that's a problem. It makes good
neighbors not want to come out of the house and enjoy their yards and
everything they should be enjoying. It's a shame that they can't enjoy
their own properties because of a few people."