City Council denies public vote on landlord registry

The Springfield City Council once again shot down the idea of a landlord registry during a chaotic Nov. 18 meeting, voting not to place an advisory referendum on the March ballot for voters to decide whether the city should compile a list of landlords and monitor their rental properties.

The ordinance failed despite a 5-4 vote in favor of placing a referendum on the March primary election ballot, with Ward 5 Ald. Lakeisha Purchase – who is a landlord herself – recusing herself from the vote despite past votes on ordinances related to such registries. That recusal meant that although more council members voted for it than against it, the ordinance did not receive the six votes considered a “simple majority” of the 10-member council.

Less than an hour after announcing the ordinance had failed, Mayor Misty Buscher made a point of order to correct the record and said she would have voted no on the ordinance; Buscher said she should vote on the ordinance due to the city’s consent decree requiring the mayor to break ties.

Gregory Moredock, the city’s legal counsel, attempted to explain the confusion – and distinction between a council member recusing themselves from a vote as opposed to voting present – to the council.

“While the most common situation (where) the mayor votes in the City Council is with a tie, what we had here was…where one half of the aldermen voted in favor of an ordinance, even though there was no tie,” Moredock said, explaining that Purchase’s recusal meant only nine members of the council had registered votes. “That’s a 6-4 vote in favor, if she (Purchase) had voted present; recusal is different than voting present.”

He informed the council that only the prevailing side of an ordinance – in this case the alders who voted against the failed ordinance – can call for a reconsideration.

Purchase’s recusal, which she said was a result of a conflict of interest, became a point of contention. The sponsors of the failed ordinance, Ward 3 Ald. Roy Williams and Ward 6 Ald. Jennifer Notariano, eventually requested the council members who voted against the ordinance to bring a motion to reconsider the ordinance but none obliged.

Joining the ordinance’s sponsors in voting yes to add the referendum to the ballot were Ward 2 Ald. Shawn Gregory, Ward 4 Ald. Larry Rockford and Ward 8 Ald. Erin Conley. Ward 1 Ald. Jeff Cox, Ward 7 Ald. Brad Carlson, Ward 9 Ald. Jim Donelan and Ward 10 Ald. Ralph Hanauer all voted against bringing the non-binding referendum to Springfield voters.

Jill Steiner, president of Springfield Independent Coalition for Our Neighborhoods (ICON), sent a statement to Illinois Times following the vote chastising the City Council and imploring residents to contact their alderperson to ask for an explanation on their vote.

“ICON expresses its profound disappointment and growing loss of faith in a process that is meant to be for the people, by the people,” the statement reads in part. “The no votes by the four City Council members silences the voices of thousands of residents who expected elected representatives to act in their best interest. Even more troubling, one alderperson’s constituents were left without representation in this critical matter.”

Even if the council had voted to add the referendum language to the March ballot and voters later approved it, it would have still fallen on the City Council to work out the details of the landlord registry and how to implement it.

At the Nov. 12 Committee of the Whole meeting, Carlson hinted that the council should potentially decide on the issue rather than voters. He ultimately voted against creating a referendum for voters.

“I have no problem putting this as an advisory referendum, but with that being said, we deal with very important ordinances every week,” Carlson said. “At what point do we stop? What other ordinances should we throw down the path of an advisory referendum in March? We talk about issues every week that are important – if that’s the case, we could just sit back and throw everything on advisory referendum, so that’s what I don’t get.”

Rockford took a different stance, arguing the council can’t seem to reach a consensus that would appeal to renters and landlords.

“We’re not getting anywhere (with these discussions), so if we put it on a referendum, give it to the people, let them decide what’s going on. And then we can come back to the table, we can discuss the fines,” Rockford said. “But to just keep kicking the can down the road again and saying, ‘Well, we’ll look at this another time,’ let’s get it over with. We’ve got plenty of time between now and March and we could have some good discussions.”

He implored landlords to attend a future council meeting and share their concerns.

In 2023, the City Council voted against an ordinance that would have established a landlord registry for buildings with more than 50 units and properties with at least 10 units in two or more buildings. That ordinance, which was also sponsored by Williams, garnered only four votes and failed to advance past the committee of the whole. Purchase voted no on that version of the ordinance.

Moredock, the city’s legal counsel, informed the council that the city has somewhere between 21,000 and 27,000 rental units. Census data shows 90% of Springfield’s almost 58,000 housing units are occupied, with renters accounting for about a third of the city’s residents.

Reform for Illinois, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics, reports Springfield city officials have received more than $100,000 from the REALTORS Political Action Committee over the past decade, with the majority of those funds donated to one officeholder.

Mayor Buscher, whose husband is a managing broker at The Real Estate Group, the area’s largest real estate firm, has received almost $85,000 in donations to her campaign committee from the Realtors’ PAC. The donations began during her initial run for city treasurer in 2015 and have continued through October 2025, according to Reform for Illinois.

Carlson’s campaign committee received $3,500 from the same PAC while Hanauer’s received $9,500, according to the database. It also shows the campaign committees for Gregory and Conley, who voted in favor of the advisory referendum, have received $1,500 and $2,500 from the PAC, respectively. Purchase received $3,000 to her campaign committee over a three-year period.

Nash Oldenettel, a lobbyist from Illinois Realtors, a trade association headquartered in Springfield representing “private property rights,” told the council Nov. 18 the association opposed the ordinance, claiming it would be too costly to license landlords and inspect properties in a similar fashion to how the city licenses restaurants, bars or other establishments.

The City Council voted in August to adopt a cited property registry, but Gregory said at the Nov. 12 meeting the council should take further action to make sure landlords who aren’t based in Springfield are identified and held responsible for their properties.

“The least we could do is say, ‘Out-of-town landlords, we not only need to license you, but we need to make sure that you take care of your trash and grass.’ That’s what we run through, fly dumping everywhere because people don’t have trash (services),” Gregory said. “This is about putting it to the people. They should have a chance to vote on it, up or down, because we done turned down every which way we’ve tried to do it.”

Over the past two weeks, numerous renters have addressed the council during public comments to ask council members to approve the ordinance to allow voters a say in the matter.

Multiple landlords sent emails, shared with Illinois Times, to City Council members last week urging them to vote against the ordinance. Of the emails from seven different landlords shared with IT, a majority argued that the existing market and policies should weed out “bad” operators while warning that increased inspections and registry fees would lead to rent increases.

However, costs and enforcement associated with rental registries are largely at local government’s discretion. Housing Solutions Lab, a think tank from New York University funded mostly by philanthropy, reported last year that landlord registration fees typically ranged from $15 to $50 per unit, with the lowest being $5.25 annually per unit.

Williams, who sponsored the ordinance, reaffirmed his stance for putting the referendum to voters early next year.

“It’s been well over time to do something different in Springfield, Illinois, for the landlords and the tenants to make things better,” Williams said. “This is not an anti-landlord type of situation. The problem in Springfield is, it’s been slanted one way too long and for so long that the people we’re hearing from and emailing us and doing all this, they want the status quo. But the need (for a registry) is there, and I think the referendum will show us that a need is there.”

Cox said regardless of a referendum, the council will need to decide how to establish rules for landlords and enforce any ordinances that are adopted. He acknowledged that the city does have work to do.

“We have good landlords; we have bad landlords. We need to get rid of the bad ones or make them rise to the top with the good landlords,” he said.

---