Attorney General penalizes landlords for lead in rentals
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By Susan Smallheer Rutland Herald - Published: October 30, 2008
MONTPELIER — Six landlords from all over the state have been sanctioned and fined by the attorney general's office for failing to live up to their agreements to clean up lead contamination in their rental units.
One of the landlords is Richard Cate, former state education commissioner, who is now acting finance director for the University of Vermont.
Robert McDougall, an assistant attorney general, said each of the landlords had signed an agreement earlier with the Department of Health that they would perform annual evaluations of their apartments, do remedial work and file annual reports.
Dixie Henry, the assistant attorney general assigned to the Department of Health, said the landlords who were sanctioned and fined had either failed to file the correct reports on time or had failed to clean up lead threats.
Those cited include: Kingdom Property Investment of Irasburg, Gary Gunther of Arlington, Harold Harvey of Williston, Karuna Kress of Bellows Falls, David Montesi of Proctorsville and Bruce and Patricia Waryas, also of Bellows Falls.
Kipp, a Newport real estate agent whose Kingdom Property Investment lists Richard Cate as a partner, said the attorney general's office was on a witch hunt and he said his partners decided not to contest the $5,000 fine because it would have turned into a bigger and more expensive headache — and to avoid bringing any attention to Cate.
Kipp said in Kingdom Property Investments' case, they had simply forgotten to file an annual report about the lead situation in one of their apartment buildings.
Kipps said he had 30 apartment units in the Newport area. "This is going to affect affordable housing," he said Tuesday by telephone.
Two of the five landlords listed came from Bellows Falls, and Henry said it was probably a result of a special effort the Department of Health made in Bellows Falls last year to educate the public and landlords about the dangers of lead.
She said the special effort in Bellows Falls was launched because children in Bellows Falls had high lead levels in their blood, indicating a serious lead ingestion problem.
In both cases of the Bellows Falls landlords, their $5,000 fine was waived because of financial constraints, and Henry said other landlords were also eligible to argue for the fine to be waived.
Only rental housing older than 1978 is covered under Vermont law because after that time lead in paint was banned, Henry said.
Henry said lead paint was a very serious problem in older houses and apartments. In particular, the friction of windows opening and closing can make lead airborne. The Health Department is urging landlords to install what it calls "window wells" to lessen that airborne effect, she said.
"The problem is not isolated to Bellows Falls," she said, noting that there were "thousands" of apartments throughout the state that needed to be brought into compliance.
"There's an awful lot of people not complying with the law," said Henry, noting that the Health Department had published a report in 2007, "Get The Lead Out," talking about the risks from lead to Vermonters.
"We've been trying since 2006 to try and do outreach," she said.
Both Henry and McDougall said that other enforcement actions were pending against other landlords.
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