At its second meeting in July, the Indianola Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to reinstate the citywide mask mandate as part of the municipality’s emergency proclamation.
On Monday night, the city fathers made another significant change; however, this time the decision was to implement a moratorium on evictions due to rent delinquency for 90 days. Although the measure passed on a majority vote, it was not unanimous.
The agenda item was attributed to Mayor Steve Rosenthal, Alderman Marvin Elder made the motion to approve it and Alderman Ruben Woods announced the second to the motion.
The vote was taken with Alderman Gary Fratesi voting no, Woods and Elder voting yes and Alderman Sam Brock abstaining; so the motion passed. Alderman Darrell Simpson was not present for that vote.
City Attorney Kimberly Merchant said, "What gives the city the authority to do so is the same authority that is vested in the city through an emergency proclamation." Merchant then mentioned an executive order originating from President Joe Biden regarding moratoriums that is being challenged across the nation by several lawsuits.
She also mentioned the Mississippi Code Annotated 33-15-17, which gives the city the authority to issue an emergency proclamation declaration and said the language is vague and broad, but it grants the authority to look out for the safety, health and welfare of the citizens. "That is sort of what governmental agencies across the nation are using in their respective jurisdictions to extend or implement moratoriums," said Merchant.
She implied that Rosenthal was doing it for the "same reason." Merchant said, "There's money out there that helps pay for rent and at this point those resources exist. Less than 10% has been used in Mississippi, for whatever reason, and I believe the mayor wants to give folks an opportunity to take advantage of that before getting evicted."
Rosenthal said the moratorium may not be necessary, but it wouldn't hurt to implement it. "I called around to a number of landlords; those who had people that were already delinquent are excited that they may be able to actually collect rent." Rosenthal said.
He said it is a simple process involving a three-page online application wherein the applicant has four major items to address and they have to have at least one of each one of the items.
He said payments would be made directly to the landlord in order to get the tenants caught up. “I can't say I am all in favor of the program, I'm not so crazy to say you can give it to somebody else, we're not going to take it," Rosenthal added.
He said the program would pay up to 15 months and that even if a person was six months behind, the program would send a check directly to the landlord to pay for those months and the remaining months up to 15.
Fratesi, who was against establishing the moratorium, suggested that it was only going to cause certain people to get farther behind and become overwhelmed. "This policy and these programs are out there, whether or not we do a moratorium, we don't need to do the moratorium, they can go straight to these places and get the money anyway. Why do we need to do it?" he said.
Elder said, "We've got $46 billion out here from the federal government. Our president is doing what he got to do to help the people in this country." He alluded to people who were struggling and said if the money is available it should be used to help.
He also mentioned the governor and others at the state's capital and said, "Every time Mississippi come up with something to help our people, they want to make this political, this ain't political, this do or die," Elder said. Fratesi disagreed and stated that it was political.
Nevertheless, Elder made the motion to implement the procedure. Rosenthal did not immediately call for the second, but proceeded to suggest and name agencies and organizations that he felt could help the citizens with the online application process.
After the motion, Merchant asked for verification of the start date and if the 90-day period was supposed to start on Tuesday. It was affirmed. Merchant also made it clear that the moratorium was exclusively for the delinquency of payment of rents and not mortgages.
Rosenthal added, "We want people to understand that this is not a free pass." No other provisions of the city’s standing proclamation were altered.
In other business,
At the end of an indistinct and somewhat confusing segment of the meeting that was deluged with crosstalk and simultaneous chatter from the aldermen, the Enterprise-Tocsin reporter asked for clarification on the actions/decisions that were just made as a result of their closed executive session, but was not afforded an explanation. Attorney Merchant said, "You're going to have to get the minutes."
City Clerk Kaneilia Williams added, "I don't understand why y'all people can just talk in this meeting." The audio to the Zoom session was then ended abruptly. The minutes from Monday night’s meeting were apparently not yet available as of press time on Wednesday.
