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Franklin City Council formed a plan at its Monday evening, Sept. 23, meeting to aid residents of Dorchester Square Apartments that had been dealing with a power outage since Friday evening, Sept. 20.

The outage was a result of an electrical issue that has recurred, leading to similar outages in the apartment complex earlier this year.

Franklin Vice Mayor and Ward 5 Councilwoman Wynndolyn H. Copeland opened the discussion on the matter Monday with an initial summary of the situation.

“We know that the power has been out since Friday evening, and it’s affecting apartments C through G,” she said. “I was told by management today that hotel accommodations will be provided tonight and tomorrow and that school-age children will be picked up at the hotels by the school bus and transported to school.”

She noted that her understanding was that management would reevaluate the length of hotel accommodations after two days, possibly extending them, if needed.

Copeland acknowledged that the apartment complex has had trouble with this same electrical issue before — multiple times with the former owner and now once with the new owner.

Dorchester Square Apartments, a 125-unit affordable housing community in Franklin, sold for $9.5 million in May to a new owner.

In an interview later Monday evening at the apartment complex, resident Ashley Sykes said, “I’ve been staying out here for eight years, and the old company, Alpha, didn’t tell the new company anything about the lights ever going out. This is not the first, second or third time — this is the fourth time that these lights have gone out.”

She noted that the outages are happening in different sections of the complex.

“This is our first time,” she said. “The middle section always gets it, but not the backside. But this is the longest the lights have ever been off.”

She said they had been off since 6:46 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 20.

Copeland said this is the first time the new owner has had to experience this issue, “but I know we’ve almost cited them for high grass and the garbage disposals were overflowed, and today I saw pictures of rodents in people’s homes — I mean actually rats, roaches and mold.”

Sykes said the new landlord is good at her job and that issues like roach-infestation and mold are real but were pre-existing and should have been fixed prior to the arrival of the new landlord a couple months ago.

Copeland concluded her initial summary at the council meeting by saying, “Something needs to be done about this, and what can the city, what can we as a council do, because everybody deserves to live in a safe environment. So what can we do?”

THE CITY COUNCIL’S PLAN

An extended discussion amongst council members, the city attorney and Interim City Manager Darlene Burcham addressed some of the challenges in dealing with an issue occurring on private property. 

Then Ward 3 Councilman Gregory McLemore said, “Just for clarity, I’ve heard a lot of things we can’t do. So somebody clarify for me what I can tell the people we are going to do.”

Franklin Mayor Robert “Bobby” Cutchins said, “I can do that. I think from the consensus of everything, we’re going to put pressure on the landlords and the owners tomorrow to follow up with the procedure of how they’re getting (the electrical issue) fixed, and if it’s not satisfactory, we’re going to try to put more pressure on them according to what council wants.”

McLemore asked if the council would hold an emergency meeting if the response from the owner was not satisfactory.

“If it comes down to that, I think that would be proper,” Cutchins said.

Then McLemore asked Cutchins what he meant by his use of the word “pressure.”

Cutchins said, “‘Pressure’ means let them know that we are really concerned and interested in our people that live there, that we want to see them taken care of just like anybody else would be.”

Burcham added, “And we’re going to go in tomorrow and look at the code enforcement issues, so they will see that we are there not just for the power issue but for these other issues (regarding rodents, bugs and mold) that have been brought up.”

Burcham had previously noted that the city is granted authority to enter a specific residence to address code enforcement issues when the specific resident complains. 

Residents of Dorchester Square Apartments that believe their residence may have code enforcement issues can call the Inspection Hotline, 757-562-8580, provided by the city’s Building Safety – Bureau of Inspections.