Seven of Illinois’ 10 largest cities require landlord registration, but thus far the Springfield City Council has refused to allow such an ordinance to pass out of committee for a vote. The Springfield City Council meeting held June 6 began with a continuation of the discussion from the prior week’s Committee of the Whole regarding an ordinance proposed by Ward 3 Ald. Roy Williams Jr. that would require registration of landlords with the city.
The matter did not appear on the written agenda for the meeting, and Mayor Misty Buscher started discussion by announcing that there would be a “presentation regarding ordinance 98.06, chronic nuisances” by Nash Oldenettal, a lobbyist for Capital Area Realtors. The ordinance, in place since 2016, provides for progressive penalties for landowners within the city who do not maintain structures or lots according to the building code and city ordinances and for placement of certain properties on a “chronic nuisances” list.
Oldenettal said the purpose of the briefing was “to bring highlights of what [the ordinance] does, what it allows the city to do, and what can be implemented.” He said the current ordinance covers all properties, while the ordinance proposed by Williams only applies to multifamily buildings.
Oldenettal urged the city council to explore more robust enforcement solutions before making any changes in the law. “This ordinance gives the city the ability to do whatever it wants when it comes to registration for nuisance properties. It just needs to be implemented and monitored.”
Although this was the first time a representative of Capital Area Realtors spoke before the City Council regarding the proposed ordinance, the organization’s affiliated political action committee took sides in numerous municipal races leading up to the April 4 election and has continued to make contributions following the election.
Filings from the Illinois State Board of Elections show that the Realtor Political Action Committee contributed $7,000 to Ralph Hanauer’s campaign, $7,000 to Jim Donelan’s, $3,500 to Chuck Redpath’s, $2,500 to Erin Conley’s, and $1,000 each to Brad Carlson and Lakeisha Purchase’s campaigns. Buscher received $55,000. The donation to Conley and $25,000 of the money to Buscher were reported after the election.
A couple weeks prior to the mayoral election, Buscher held a press conference where she complained the owner of a dilapidated house had received special treatment from then-Mayor Jim Langfelder’s administration because $42,000 of his $46,000 debt in building code violations to the city was forgiven. The debtor later donated $2,500 to the Langfelder campaign, which was returned after reporting by Illinois Times.
“I believe the citizens of Illinois are tired of pay-to-play politics, and I’m here to say enough is enough,” she said. “Our mayor did not have to accept this donation.”
Later, she complained about the lack of information flow between city departments and to the public. “It’s time for Springfield to elect a mayor who will disclose to the city council and to the tax-paying citizens what is happening at city hall.” She pledged, “If you elect me as your mayor, I will make sure that all of the data is available on a monthly basis to the city council and the taxpayers.”
All of the council members who received campaign contributions from the Realtor Political Action Committee voted against advancing the registration ordinance for consideration and debate, while all of those who did not receive campaign help from the group voted to bring the proposal forward.
Donelan, who was on the city council when the current ordinance was passed in 2016, said he remembered that during the previous discussions some members of the council were concerned about due process. “We provided administrative judges an administrative process, an opportunity to have a progressive penalty system that goes after bad actors,” he said. “The departments involved probably aren’t prepared to do this this evening since I don’t even know if they knew [the Capital Area Realtors] were coming…. I’d like a summary of how many have been put on the [chronic nuisance] list and what we are doing for enforcement.”
Ward 2 Ald. Shawn Gregory, whose constituency includes a high percentage of renters, said that none of the enforcement mechanisms against properties were working properly. “We have hundreds of noncompliant properties after the ordinance has been on the books for seven years.”
Williams added that “the current ordinance doesn’t talk about communication with the owner. It’s oriented around the property, but the people I deal with aren’t the owners, they’re tenants.”
He said the chronic nuisance list referred to by Oldenettal doesn’t contain any mechanism for efficiently correcting conditions that should be resolved quickly, such as trash pickup and mowing. “We know about these lots, and I want them to be cut and cleared automatically,” Williams said in reference to vacant lots that the city has to cut regularly.
Williams identified the problem as one of tracking down owners rather than identifying derelict properties. “We also have county and township lots [over which] we have no jurisdiction. We’ve been knowing about these lots for years,” he said, noting that many times the owner is an LLC or simply cannot be located. Without proper service of process, some of the enforcement mechanisms are difficult to apply. “If the name and address aren’t good, even judges are stuck,” Williams said.
Redpath and Ward 4 Ald. Larry Rockford also complained about enforcement of violations for building codes, grass and fly dumping ordinances. “What follow-up is there after two or three weeks have passed? How do I know if inspectors have been there?” asked Rockford.
According to the City of Springfield’s Public Works website, currently there are 297 buildings in the city that have been cited for being unsafe and dangerous, 181 buildings which qualify for demolition, with eight of them on the list since 2018 and 2019, and 123 buildings listed as vacant with violations.
The city is authorized by the current ordinance to maintain a list of chronic nuisance properties, but no such list appears on the Public Works website, and Illinois Times was directed by the city clerk’s office to file a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the information.
Don Howard is an intern at Illinois Times while completing his master’s degree in Public Affairs Reporting at University of Illinois Springfield.
This article appears in Juneteenth 2023.
Looks like the real pay-to-play politicians are Misty Buscher and all the alderman who also accepted Realtor PAC money and are now doing everything they can to make sure a landlord registry doesn’t go to debate. The level of hypocrisy and blatant disregard for truth and integrity that Buscher’s administration has started her tenure with is a slap in the face to every resident of Springfield, especially given the fact she ran an entire campaign on transparency and ending “pay-to-play” politics.
This all makes way more sense now. Great reporting, Don.
In addition to the direct donations to Mayor Buscher’s campaign, the Realtors also spent over $50,000 for mailings in support of Buscher. Her family connections to the group probably didn’t hurt. I hope our community isn’t going to be controlled by the Realtors Association in return for their investment.
Guess we will find out.
This is a very interesting story. It is sad that the new mayor was and is doing pay to play politics that she said the former mayor was doing. The mayor’s husband is a realtor and most likely has influence on her on her decisions. I did some research after I read this story and found on the state board of elections website that not only did buscher receive $55,000 from the capital area realtors but she received $90,000 from the Illinois Realtors Association for mailings and advertisement. That is $145,000 between the two realtor groups. These donations and not passing this ordinance definitely smells of pay to play for Buscher and several alderman. I voted on giving someone else a shot but now I wish I never did. This story shows Buscher is the epitome of pay to play politics and she should be ashamed of herself!
The Illinois Realtors website lists Kim Buscher as the Realtors PAC (RPAC) Fundraising Manager- any relation to Mayor Buscher?
It appears we now know who is going to dictate policy in this new administration.
Does anyone remember the Pink Floyd song Money? I cannot seem to get the song out of my head for some reason.
Get ready Springfield for massive westward sprawl. Here we come Chatham.
Does anyone have buyer’s remorse after reading this article other than me?
I don’t understand- why is Gregory all of a sudden in support of this, when he told ICON in his campaign questionnaire that he was against a landlord registry? https://springfieldicon.org/dontmoveimprov…
Also, it seems all the commenters are specifically targeting Buscher, but she doesn’t have a vote on what passes committee. Why wasn’t there a landlord registry before, under other Mayors? Especially during COVID, when this issue was at its height, and landlords were illegally evicting people, where was the City? Why didnt the Community Relations Department, who is tasked with Landlord-Tenant issues, do anything?
People that have an axe to grind with the new Mayor should probably pick an issue she actually has control over, and also should show where they were criticizing the last mayor’s inaction on this issue.
Mary, you must have missed the part in the article that stated Buscher took campaign contributions totaling $55,000 from the realtors and although she may not have a vote, she isn’t in support of a landlord registry. Furthermore, it would be naive to think she isn’t having conversations with the other alderpeople who are against the registry and making sure it has the votes to continue being tabled and out of debate. This all plays to her hypocrisy, considering this is the very type of political shenanigans (pay-to-play) she campaigned on not being apart of in April.
Arthur,
I think its more naive to assume a Freshman Mayor with one month on the job has that much influence over the City Council.
I don’t think YOU read the article. Getting campaign money because you are not favorable to a piece of legislation is not “shenanigans,” it is a universal condition of American campaigns and lawmaking. The pay to play Langfelder was doing was not about lobbying for favorable legislation; it was about him forgiving the debt, i.e. personally enriching, a donor, on the taxpayer dime.
I’ll ask again: if this was such good legislation, why did Langfelder propose it on the way out the door? Could it be that he wanted Misty open to criticism for her donors, even when there is no quid pro quo other than your naive speculation?
This is such a transparent hatchet job: hence why Gregory “doth protest too much” about it, even though HE was against landlord registries prior to the election. This isn’t even chess, its barely tic-tac-toe.
And the Langfelder self-pity party has been thick among his supporters; which is why local news is replete with this type of article, when there was almost no examination of Langfelder’s policies his entire two terms. A bunch of sour grapes over the fact the City finally rejected this clique of incompetants.
Well these are interesting comments on an article pointing out elected officials being against legislation that their “big dollar donors” do not like. Well I agree with a Mary’s comment that the election is over and a new mayor has been sworn in and people should move on. I also agree that elected officials who have been in office for over 30 days should still stand by their word as a candidate no matter who is the elected official is. Transparency and pay to play were the new mayor’s platforms. That is what the article was about. As the old saying “he in glass houses should not throw stones”. I do believe this landlord registry and land bank came up before and the Realtor’s lobbyist attended a council meeting to go against that and although several alderpeople complained about absentee landlords those alderpeople voted against it. Why would they complain about something but yet go against it? It is shame that certain areas need cleaned up but big money stops it because it harms them more than benefits them. People who read and comment should understand that elected officials are going to be critiqued for whatever they do. Langfelder had his fair share as well as several alderpeople. Just like past articles, buscher has complained and made comments of the past administration but I am sure she is going to take all the credit for what langfelder’s adminstration pushed and that have been in the works such as the firehouses. Buscher is in the seat now and will be critiqued and applauded on her actions but in her short period time as mayor she has done more to be critqued than applauded and that is her own fault.
Mary –
Not sure I understand your comment on “Why wasn’t there a landlord registry before, under other Mayors? Especially during COVID, when this issue was at its height, and landlords were illegally evicting people, where was the City?
Landlords during COVID could not evict tenants Thanks to the moratorium by the state and Governor Pritzker. Landlords complained, and rightfully so, because tenants were not paying which caused landlords having a hard time making their payments with no income coming in. I read that community relations for the city tried to help people by referring them to capital township for rental assistance but the township refused to help them until they were going to be evicted. Well if you have a moratorium on evictions you aren’t going to be evicted.
So Mary I think you are mixing up two totally different issues here. The article is about the landlord registry not COVID. From what I read, is for landlords outside of Sangamon County and getting contact info for issues on their properties. So you bringing up COVID is irrelevant.