Fire inspection list updated

Landlords and College continue to battle it out

Nine Oberlin landlords filed a civil rights suit in U.S. District Court against four city officials on Jan. 20, sighting violations of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Carol Graham, Van and Kathalee Kirkendall, Glenn and Susan Gall, Richard and Elaine Hull, David Sonner and Elaine Baxter, who all rent primarily to college students, filed the suit as part of an ongoing battle with city officials over state and city housing codes.

Except Sonner, none of the landlords have received their rooming house licenses for the school year 1999-2000. The landlords say that at least 60 students have signed leases to live in property that is now unlicensed and that they will be forced to rent to many fewer people, seriously reducing their income.

According to Deb McNish, interim dean of student life and services, students living in unlicensed housing next fall will potentially have their off campus housing status revoked causing them to return to their on campus status. The college is still not yet sure about the details of these plans.

"I'm going to have 28 rooms empty next year-they're going to hurt me," Kathalee Kirkendall said.

The landlords are seeking $600,000 in damages from Fire Chief Dennis Kirin, City manager Rob DiSpirito and Building Inspector Kenneth Klingshirn and from an injunction preventing the landlords from receiving their licenses from the city.

Their suit accuses these officials of violating the 1983 Civil Rights Act and that starting in 1996, City officials began "willfully misinterpreting" state and city codes, "embarking on course of general harassment...to force compliance with their reinterpretation of the Codes."

According to an appeals brief, the landlords have also been involved in legal actions with the College, suing College President Nancy Dye and Oberlin College for "defamation and tortuous interference with contract and business relationships."

The landlords claim that letters sent out on March 11 and Dec. 10 by Dye and Acting Dean of Students Deb McNish, stating that the landlords had refused inspections or had no licenses, were defamatory.

The letter the College put out is causing us problems," said Kirkendall. "My houses are safe houses."

The suit was dismissed last July by the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas and the dismissal is now under appeal.

This suit was not unexpected, although we wish they hadn't filed it," Kirin said, explaining that there are still safety and egress issues that remained unresolved. "The state Fire Codes require compliance," he said.