Trisha Rentz, secretary of the Cass County Rental Association, addressed Dowagiac City Council Monday night “disputing the ordinance that is putting past utility charges for tenants on landlords’ property taxes.”

“We do feel legally and ethically this isn’t fair,” Rentz said. “Normally, in a situation where you have a utility agreement with a customer, that agreement is with that customer. Therefore, if they do not pay, it is their responsibility. It should not be the responsibility of the landlord. I do understand that Dowagiac is trying to recoup these charges. (City Manager) Kevin (Anderson) attended a couple of our meetings and explained the dire need for the city to recoup this money. But we feel as a group you’re looking for, not necessarily a deep pocket, but an open pocket to get your money back. It’s very easy to tack that onto the landlord’s property taxes. We don’t have a choice in that matter. We just look at our bill and see we have that on there. Then we’re finding out that some of these charges are going back 2 1/2 years, which is totally unfair,” Rentz said. “I understand this is something that has been on the books for years, but was periodically or not periodically enforced.

“As landlords, we didn’t know anything about this,” Rentz said. “We have just totally been sideswiped as far as how this is being implemented. We would like to help the city. We want to keep our properties here in Dowagiac. We want to keep Dowagiac nice. We want to have good renters. We want to keep our people, our renters, spending money in the city.

“But it makes it very difficult for us when we find out of the clear blue that we’re getting all these extra assessments on our property taxes for utilities that should have been collected through the City of Dowagiac. We want to work with you. We hope there’s a chance that we can change this, that we can amend this ordinance so the landlords can be happy with it and we can have good tenants who pay their bills and who will also pay our rents on time. We’re hoping you will reconsider this and we await your response.”

Mayor Donald Lyons asked when the next CCRA meeting occurs.

Tuesday, Dec. 7, at 6:30 at Zeke’s is her association’s Christmas dinner, she said, inviting him or Anderson to attend.

“That would be absolutely awesome,” she said.

Third Ward Councilman Dr. Charles Burling suggested the council appoint a liaison to the rental association because “they are important to the welfare of this city. I think if we could talk to them before these ordinances and get some input, I think we could smooth these out a little bit better by opening up lines of communication so we don’t have to play catch-up. We’d have both sides of the picture.”

Burling said another approach would be to have the meetings rotate between the council’s three wards.

In other Nov. 22 business, for a number of years the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment (MDNRE) has provided groundwater monitoring at wells the state installed in and around Dowagiac’s former landfill on Nubour.

The MDNRE has reached a point where it is going to end monitoring activities and is required to either abandon the wells or transfer them to another party.

“As the owner of the landfill,” Anderson reported, “it is now the city’s responsibility to assume the role of ongoing groundwater monitoring. The transfer of monitoring wells will allow the city to avoid the cost of constructing monitoring wells in the future.”

The proposed agreement council accepted transfers ownership of monitoring wells contingent upon property owners providing access agreements to the City of Dowagiac. Additionally, the city receives the wells in “as is” condition and agrees to properly abandon them if they become non-functional or no longer necessary.

Once a monitoring transfer agreement is in place with the MDNRE, the city will send “consent to enter” forms to property owners on which wells are located.

The city then needs to hire an environmental consultant to monitor the wells and to provide appropriate documentation to the MDNRE, which Anderson estimated to cost $7,000 to $10,000.

Funding for this ongoing monitoring will come from the solid waste millage collected annually, Anderson added.

The council approved all five ordinances introduced at the previous meeting, but the two relating to water and sewer rates passed on 4-2 votes, with First Ward council members Lori Hunt and Junior Oliver opposed.

Council confirmed Lyons’ reappointment of Guy Piper for a term expiring January 2016 on the Construction Board of Appeals.