You’ll have opportunity to voice your opinion to the Lakewood City Council when it holds its public hearing on the proposed Rental Inspection Program (RIP) July 5, and while there have been a number of articles written about the matter in this publication here are some additional thoughts to consider:
Letter: Toilet taxes and rental inspectors
The King County Council wants to impose fees on septic systems. The Lakewood City Council wants to impose fees on rental units. King County’s Council wants “an easement onto private properties so that investigators can check septic systems.” Lakewood’s Council wants city-approved inspectors to enter private rental properties to check on all manner of things. […]
Letter: More introspection on Lakewood’s proposed Rental Inspection Program
If there’s already a process by which to uphold due process is yet another process – a sub-process if you will to, truth be told, five other processes, so that somehow realized is the cumulative purpose of all six processes – is that a solution in search of a problem?
Letter: ‘Probably his last trip’
There’s a fellow out on the water right now fishing in one of our rental boats who may not make it back. That was the gloomy assessment of his daughter who, together with a couple of his friends also on board, sighed over the phone when making the reservation that he is dying of cancer: […]
Letter: Today I saved a life
Ok, it was only a baby field mouse. But it’s still a life and I saved it from a crow. I’ve neither a great affinity for mice nor necessarily an aversion to crows although I did have a pet white rat with only one eye when I was in grade school and I very much […]
Letter: A ‘foot-in-the-door’ is, literally, Lakewood’s Rental Inspection Program (RIP)
Under the guise of yet another – five currently – program to address so-called “rental housing problems within the city,” Lakewood’s sixth – in the form of a proposed ordinance that is distinguished from the other five in that it would for the first time require access by city-approved inspectors to the interior of private […]
Letter: Character is forged in the crucible of failure
There’s a rooster that lives across the street. I think its internal clock is set for 3 A.M., then the snooze button resets for 4:30 A.M. It’s a good thing I’m hard-of-hearing, as it may wake me up, or it may not, as I don’t know if it actually crows. At least if it disappears […]
Letter: Why Lakewood’s Rental Inspection Program should R.I.P.
Now that the Lakewood City Council is on record as having expressed its “consensus to consider an ordinance to initiate a five year inspection cycle” of rental properties in the city (May 16, 2016 City Council Agenda), with a public hearing slated for June 20 and a vote by the council likely to take place […]
Letter: The only way we grow
“It is the storm that tries the strength of the vessel” W. Moodie, D.D. ‘No one takes any significant step of growth, or achieves a measurable change in personality except for the sharp stab of a crisis or the dull throb of frustration” Cecil Osborne.