Tenants, devils and a brief rental property registration update.

In December, Councilman Phipps sponsored a rental property regulation ordinance, then abruptly disowned it after council members got a whiff of fear and stampeded toward the exits.

Rental property regs inelegantly tabled as bile, petulance and "ethnic cleansing" fill the air.

At the January council meeting Phipps executed a 180-degree and once again offered to embrace the deflated trial balloon, hoisting the bloodied concept back into the sky under the mayor's ever watchful eye.

There'll now be a committee assembled in classic dilatory fashion, so as to determine ways to render any future rental property standards into conceptual mush, echoing the style of the Human Rights Commission.

New Albany again will be praised for Gahanian progressivism ...and the document will flutter into a locked file cabinet drawer in Shane Gibson's orifice office, never to be seen again.

The Green Mouse has obtained an e-mail from a prospective committee volunteer on the landlords' side of the aisle.

All jokes aside, it provides insight to the "tenant as villain" refrain as we're about to hear it. I may be jaundiced, but the landlords have little to fear, don't they?

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Good Afternoon Gentlemen,

Thought I would reach out to you and see, once again, if I can volunteer to participate in your proposed Rental Ordinance inception.

As not only a previous rental owner, but now currently a property manager for three clients, I bring insight to the table of how tenants can quickly learn and use landlord laws against the landlord. Faster than I can learn them. I would hope that potential “hic-ups” for the landlord would also be considered.

At your December meeting at lot of concerned property owners spoke their minds about how this would impact their investments & small businesses. It did not seem the Council was very informed and I was pleased this ordinance was table to the future.

I was able to let Mr. Brewer know I was volunteering but did not get to speak to everyone.

As you begin to gather research information on how many people this will affect, and how it will affect each one of them differently. Please reach out to someone that see different sides of this Ordinance. If, as you said in previous meeting, that this will only affect a small group of landlords, please host a Round Table Discussion and include those of us that would like to have a voice.

Thank you for your time. I know you have a meeting coming up again next week and I don’t see this ordinance being addressed. Please let me know how I can participate.