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Regular City Council Meeting <br /> Monday,April 6,2015 <br /> Page 10 <br /> familiar to others. Mr. Gupta advised that their staff continued to meet and work with the <br /> tenants to whom they provided housing, and printed informational and educational flyers <br /> for their use in their specific language. In spite of that, Mr. Gupta noted that adjustments <br /> were still difficult as tenants, used to outdoor living, didn't respect not spitting in building <br /> common areas or apartments, didn't understand the need for or meaning of window <br /> blinds, and often accessed the outdoors through their windows on lower level units by <br /> breaking screens out, as well as breaking or unlocking doors. <br /> After receiving the preliminary checklist from staff, Mr. Gupta advised that his staff had <br /> re-inspected their buildings five times to ensure they were in compliance, and had hired <br /> various contractors to go through each and every item inside and outside units to make <br /> sure items were taken care of, proven by the amount of funds spent in doing so. As an <br /> example, Mr. Gupta noted that they had hired an electrician specifically to test, fix or re- <br /> place smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, a very expensive project, but still unfamiliar <br /> to tenants who don't understand their function, causing them to disconnect them when ac- <br /> tivated from cooking or unplugging C. O. detectors to charge cell phones and then not <br /> plugging them back in. <br /> Mr. Gupta questioned at what point that became the responsibility of the owner versus <br /> the tenant, without being seen as harassing tenants repeatedly to make sure things are <br /> working. Mr. Gupta stated that management had attempted to communicate with these <br /> low income tenants in their own language, most of who were on state or federal funding, <br /> and not valuing the things given to them. <br /> Mr. Gupta stated he was unaware of anything ever left undone when reported by a tenant <br /> or City staff, and referenced visits from the Fire Marshal who had inspected their build- <br /> ing twice and gave it his approval on his last visit. (e.g. fire doors). Mr. Gupta questioned <br /> the importance of whether outlets were painted or not and how that became a fire hazard <br /> and counted as an infraction. As far as implications about lead paint, Mr. Gupta opined <br /> that no one had used lead paint for the last 30-40 years, and the outlets were all function- <br /> al. <br /> Specific to smoke detectors in each bedroom and also installed in hallways, Mr. Gupta <br /> referenced City Code (page 6) stating detectors needed to be located in the vicinity of <br /> bedrooms and in sleeping areas, while item #2 addressed sleeping areas other than bed- <br /> rooms. Mr. Gupta noted the difficulty in management knowing if a tenant had someone <br /> sleeping in the living room. Over the last ten years with Ms. Joshi managing the build- <br /> ings on-site, Mr. Gupta questioned how their diligence in managing the buildings. Mr. <br /> Gupta opined that there were so many small and petty items mentioned and repeated in <br /> the list of violations, he questioned how the Board of anyone in their right minds could <br /> determine that small and large items carried the same weight, further opining that it <br /> didn't make sense nor did it mean anything to him if there was differentiation between <br /> those large and small items. <br />