Safe Rental Housing Program

November 9, 2002

From: Sergeant Mark Buschena

To: Apartment Association Members

Re: Safe Rental Housing Program

Chief Deborah Ness has committed the Bismarck Police Department to begin doing landlord notifications January 1st, 2003.

If you're not familiar with the Safe Rental Housing program, one part of it involves notification. This is where the police department informs you, the landlord, of police responses to your managed property. Landlords often lament, "I didn't know the cops were at my ''s apartment for loud parties six times last month. Had I known that I would have evicted him." Well, now hopefully you'll have the information and documentation to evict some of these troublesome tenants. The first step is to get information from you to put into a database. If you are interested in participating in this notification program, we'll need current information on your property addresses, and how to contact you. Please fill out and fax in the "Request for Notification" form. Please make a copy of the blank form, and when you have changes to phone numbers, addresses, personnel, etc. fax us an updated form so we can keep our data current.

The exact process for making notification to you will depend on how many requests we receive, and how many volunteers we can find to do the data entry. Right now I am thinking we would do weekly notifications. We might run a report of all the police responses to your apartments, with a short narrative of why the police were there, and fax that to you. Depending on what the report was, or how interested you were, you could then request a copy of the entire police report, if there is one, through normal channels.

We probably won't notify you on every call to your properties, only the ones you as a landlord would have some control over. For instance, if we were sent to one of your apartments to take a forgery report, we probably would not notify you of that. We would be more interested in notifying you of loud parties, disturbances, and fights. Also know that some of the information may not be releasable to you because it is protected by law. This might include calls involving juveniles and/or some child abuse cases. After we start generating some of these reports, we'd probably have a better handle on what might come up. We'd probably notify you on:

1. Noise disturbances--parties, loud music, etc.
2. Public nuisances
3. Possession of controlled substance
4. Disorderly conduct or peace disturbances
5. Minor possessing or consuming alcohol or providing alcohol to minors
6. Prostitution and indecent exposure
7. Unlawful use or possession of firearm
8. Assaults
9. Conduct, which violates laws relating to the need for protection services or for the delinquency of a minor.
10. Criminal damage to property, including burglary, robbery and criminal mischief or terrorist threats.

The reason for notifying you of police responses is so you are aware of what is going on with your tenants, and if they are causing you problems you may be able to use this information in their eviction. At this time I do not have all the answers. This program will undoubtedly have some bugs in it. We'll have to work together, and "learn as we earn." The first step begins with filling out the notification form. Stay tuned for further updates as we begin the notification process together.

SERGEANT MARK BUSCHENA
Crime Prevention Supervisor