Frustrations over rental housing-fee schedules, inspection benchmarks and problem tenants flared Thursday evening from landlords during the fourth rental housing task force meeting.

Just when it seemed as if the task force was making progress at its last meeting in May, it appeared to take a step back during the Thursday meeting after multiple disagreements.

Regarding the licensing fee, Albert Lea Fire Chief and Inspector Paul Stieler presented several different options for fee schedules and asked the task force whether the major cost of the program should be in the fees for reinspections or for the actual licenses themselves.

No one could agree on any of the proposals, and he explained that the Albert Lea City Council ultimately will decide the costs.

The discussion on rental housing formulated in April, after the Albert Lea City Council voted to table an ordinance that would have established a method of registering landlords and enforcing the already-in-place minimum housing standards to the living conditions of people who rent apartments and houses.

The ordinance would have required that before receiving a license, landlords would be required to have an inspection of their properties prior to renting them. Then subsequent inspections would be conducted every few years, depending on the results of the previous inspection. More than a dozen landlords showed opposition to this idea at that council meeting.

The landlords have continued to show much opposition while meeting with the task force. At the meeting Thursday, landlord Mike Carstens questioned whether the entire community could help in the involved costs that would come from licensing fees.

Further discussion led the group to question whether they could receive a checklist before any inspection to let them know ahead of time what will be looked at during inspections.

“I want a benchmark so that if I get a property in Albert Lea, I know what to expect,” Carstens said.

He requested that the checklist be included in the ordinance.

Other task force members suggested there be a line in the ordinance that states something such as, “a checklist will be available at the inspection department office.”

Moving on to the next discussion, detective Ben Mortensen with the Albert Lea Police Department explained the proposed “three strikes and you’re out policy” in the ordinance, which holds landlords responsible for the actions that take place on their properties.

If police are called to one property three times, then a landlord could potentially lose his license for that property.

“What we want to do is make landlords know what’s happening on their properties,” he said.

Landlords indicated they would like to be notified if something criminal were happening on their properties.

Mortensen said he would talk with landlords when problems arise, except for when there is an ongoing investigation and telling anyone about it might hinder that investigation.

He stated once landlords are notified of activities taking place at their properties, they should work to solve the problem or evict the tenant who is not willing to change.

Then if the landlord did his best to solve any problems and evicted that bad tenant, Mortensen said he would be the first person to testify that the landlord did not deserve to get his license taken away.

Landlords questioned why they were being accountable for their tenants’ behaviors.

“I can tell you what,” Carstens said. “This will go to court. Somebody will get nailed on this — a landlord will — and this will go to court.”

Stieler pointed out how this part of the ordinance is also put in place to protect neighbors of rental properties.

At the end of the discussion Councilor Al Brooks, who sits on the task force, stated his viewpoint.

He said he got involved with the task force because he felt he could be pretty objective.

And he thinks many of the issues that have been raised could be easily solved, Brooks said.

“The rental ordinance itself — we’re going to have it,” he said. “It’s a no-brainer.”

During the last meeting, he said, he thought people were getting a handle on the ordinance and finally coming to some agreements, but this meeting was just the opposite.

“We could have hundreds of these meetings,” he said. “I don’t want to get to the point that every meeting we have something else to argue over.”

The whole ordinance came about to get rid of the houses that people shouldn’t be living in, Brooks said. And if people have any major concerns that are really going to affect the living conditions of renters, he’s willing to deal with it.

“We don’t want to make it harder than it has to be,” he said. “It can be done.”

Carstens replied that throughout the whole process landlords have felt like every time they brought up some good points they were never heard.

“As we got started here, I was under the impression we were here to solve a problem,” he said. “But it wasn’t until two meetings ago that no, we’re here to form an ordinance.”

Carstens said he would like to sit down on a more intimate basis with a few council members to go through the concerns of the landlords.

Brooks indicated he would be willing to do that.

Though many concerns were left up in the air, the group agreed to meet July 17 at 6 p.m. for its next meeting.

A crowd of about 15 other landlords were also in the audience.