Linda Westergaard, a city councilor in Des Moines, Iowa, recently expressed some outright wrong thoughts on lead pipes.
Resources mentioned in this video:
- Recording of City Council Meeting
- More Perfect Union tweet
- EPA proposal about lead pipe remediation
- National Resource Defense Council report on lead pipes
If you would like to subscribe to my free newsletter then please go here.
If you want the posts from this blog delivered to your inbox:
I also have a Discord server that you can join here.
Transcript:
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:30:15
Bennett Tomlin
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to my personal channel where we remember that the powerful are to blame. Today we're talking about real estate brain. Specifically, we're discussing Linda Westergaard Real estate brain. Linda is a real estate agent or broker, if you prefer, who also serves as the Ward two city councilor for Des Moines, Iowa. Des Moines is the largest city in all of Iowa, which means it has a population of about 200,000 people.
00:00:30:17 - 00:00:54:18
Bennett Tomlin
Why are we talking about a city councilor from a 200,000 person city in Iowa? Well, Linda recently ended up with a larger profile than she was expecting when some of her comments at the January 8th work session went a little bit viral. I initially encountered her from this tweet by a more perfect union, which highlighted her claim that many landlords do not make a profit.
00:00:54:20 - 00:01:24:23
Bennett Tomlin
That's not why they're doing it. What prompted this reaction? People recommending that landlords replace the lead service pipes connecting houses to the water lines. After seeing this small clip. I had to go back and watch some more of this meeting to get a better idea of what in the world Linda was even possibly trying to argue. The context you need.
00:01:25:01 - 00:01:54:00
Bennett Tomlin
The EPA is emphasizing new rules which are meant to help accelerate the removal of lead pipes from polices that carry drinking water for all the obvious reasons, namely lead in your water mix you stupid and sick. At this city council work session, one of the members suggested low hanging fruit would be requiring landlords to fix service lines before the next time they get to renew their license from the city.
00:01:54:02 - 00:01:55:08
Bennett Tomlin
That lets them rent.
00:01:55:08 - 00:02:15:12
Josh Mandelbaum
kind of the low hanging fruit. The first step is that if you have a rental property and a rental license, making replacement of your lead service line, a part of the rental licensing process and potentially doing that over one or two licenses.
00:02:15:12 - 00:02:48:11
Bennett Tomlin
for some context. Service lines are those that run from the big mains lines into the houses. In many of these in the United States are lead in in Des Moines. Service lines are owned in the responsibility of the home owner. So it does seem simple and straightforward to me that if you want to rent your house, have people live in it and give you money, you need to make sure that the drinking water in that house isn't going through lead pipes you own.
00:02:48:13 - 00:02:59:01
Bennett Tomlin
Simple, straightforward. Seems like something that should have been done a century ago. However, this is where we're at. Linda. Linda doesn't think it's straightforward.
00:02:59:01 - 00:03:07:18
Bennett Tomlin
Linda believes that if landlords are forced to replace lead pipes, well, then no one will be able to afford to rent those homes anymore.
00:03:07:18 - 00:03:42:04
Linda Westergaard
I'm not going to support anything that has something like that. I don't think we have that ten year mandate yet. And when you talk about low hanging fruit, I think there's better ways to reach our goal. Like when we're doing street maintenance, that's the time to have everybody, their lead, their lead lines, but to put the burden on one on one, a landlord may have one home on a street to spend $10,000.
00:03:42:06 - 00:03:54:09
Linda Westergaard
That's going to impact the affordability of those homes to be rented. And we know that that we need affordable rentals in our city of Des Moines.
00:03:54:13 - 00:04:09:02
Bennett Tomlin
She continues, by suggesting that instead of removing lead pipes, landlords will just sell the houses and that this also will contribute to a housing affordability problem, even if it does help pay her bills.
00:04:09:02 - 00:04:26:09
Linda Westergaard
And if you make landlords spend $10,000 to up to to update their service line, that's not going to happen. They'll sell the houses and and and then we and then we have more of a housing concern.
00:04:26:09 - 00:04:49:06
Bennett Tomlin
Let's take a moment on this claim. First, when someone sells a house, it is sold to a buyer. That house remains in one location. In Des Moines, Iowa, the fact that one specific landlord does not own that specific house does not remove that house from Des Moines, Iowa.
00:04:49:08 - 00:05:24:11
Bennett Tomlin
Furthermore, it means that it will likely no longer be grandfathered in or whatever, and it will be easier for you to exert state pressure to convince them to update the fucking lead pipes. We're talking about lead pipes. Holy fucking shit. It's lead fucking pipes. It's drinking water in lead pipes. Second, the house needs to be updated at some point unless you are content with dooming renters to lead pipes indefinitely.
00:05:24:13 - 00:05:42:16
Bennett Tomlin
Thus the expense already exists and needs to be paid, integrating it into the regular renewal process, or even as one councilor suggested two renewals from now, means that it is expected can be budgeted for and landlords can prepare for it.
00:05:42:16 - 00:06:24:14
Bennett Tomlin
Furthermore, should we decide to take a brief diversion to the Des Moines, Iowa Housing Code, as you all were waiting with bated breath for me to do, we can see that the most important section, of course, Section 60-3 clearly states this chapter shall be interpreted to ensure public health, safety and welfare as they are affected by the occupancy and maintenance of residential structures, nonresidential structures and premises occupied and or under notice of violation as rental units, owner occupied structures and nonresidential structures to require structures to be maintained in a good condition using a workman like level of maintenance so as to stabilize and improve the housing and commercial building stock of the city of
00:06:24:14 - 00:07:05:07
Bennett Tomlin
Des Moines. Removing lead pipes seems to be an important step if ensuring public health, safety and welfare is actually your priority. So based on the stated intent of the Des Moines Housing Code, then obviously it seems reasonable to make sure that these rentals do not have lead pipes for their water supply. Linda, however, is not done. She equivocate and points towards lead testing of the water as a possible more economical solution.
00:07:05:07 - 00:07:07:10
Linda Westergaard
we could do testing
00:07:07:10 - 00:07:21:06
Bennett Tomlin
However, this is not really a solution because testing only tells you if there is lead in the water right now and does not tell you if the pipes themselves are lead.
00:07:21:06 - 00:07:25:19
Bennett Tomlin
One of the other city councilors, Josh Mandelbaum, even catches this and calls her out on it.
00:07:25:19 - 00:07:32:07
Josh Mandelbaum
But they suspect there 20,000 of these lead service lines in in the city of Des Moines.
00:07:32:07 - 00:07:51:22
Josh Mandelbaum
there's a triggering event, you don't all of a sudden have 20,000 people in your community that don't have safe drinking water because they have litter. And that's one of the things that I think is going to be be a requirement. It's an issue we know we have to deal.
00:07:52:00 - 00:08:01:00
Josh Mandelbaum
It may be being sped up. I think regardless, it makes sense if someone wants to own a property or.
00:08:01:02 - 00:08:01:18
Speaker 3
Profit.
00:08:01:20 - 00:08:03:04
Josh Mandelbaum
Or profit
00:08:03:07 - 00:08:25:22
Bennett Tomlin
What he's trying to explain is that leaving these pipes there means next time there's a disturbance, next time there is street work, suddenly all these citizens are in danger of having lead in their water. You might have noticed, he said the word profit, though, and that is a word that Linda takes umbrage with.
00:08:25:22 - 00:08:32:00
Linda Westergaard
I think we should keep profit out of it because many landlords do not make a profit. Well, it's not why they're doing it.
00:08:32:00 - 00:08:37:19
Bennett Tomlin
That's right. These landlords are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.
00:08:37:21 - 00:08:57:15
Bennett Tomlin
They're not here to make money. They don't want your rental payment to pay their mortgage. They're here because they love being a landlord. They're here for the love of the game. They're like a Division three football player. There's no money involved for them. They just want to get out there and slam their head against other people's for fun.
00:08:57:17 - 00:09:27:14
Bennett Tomlin
No other reason. True, honorable love of the game. What a fucking load of bullshit. It's hard for me to believe. Even a real estate agent can say that with a straight face. After her little diatribe about profits, she returns to testing once again, confusing testing for lead in the water with checking for lead water pipes and then doubles down with many of those lead pipes are absolutely no problem.
00:09:27:14 - 00:09:31:16
Linda Westergaard
But many of those lead pipes are absolutely no problem.
00:09:31:16 - 00:09:56:08
Bennett Tomlin
What? No. The lead pipes are a fucking problem. I insist the lead pipes are a problem. And so the reason we are talking about this city councilor from the larger city and all of Iowa is because she doesn't care if renters are drinking from lead pipes and is way more worried that trying to keep renters from drinking from lead pipes will hurt landlords.
00:09:56:10 - 00:10:20:04
Bennett Tomlin
Linda claims to believe that landlords are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, which is a fucking stupid thing to say. And of course landlords should need to keep their places habitable. The Des Moines Housing Code. As much as that's a real document, we need to care about, makes it clear that that was its intent. One of the worst part about this all.
00:10:20:06 - 00:10:42:23
Bennett Tomlin
The National Resources Defense Council estimates that there are as many as 12 million lead service lines in the United States, serving up to 22 million people across all 50 states. That's right. There's a good chance you're living damn close to some dangerous pipes. And in many cases, your landlord does not need to tell you does not need to replace it.
00:10:43:04 - 00:10:57:18
Bennett Tomlin
And your city counselors and real estate agents like it that way. Have you been paying attention to your local city council work meetings on the rental code and lead pipe for mediation? Apparently you need to.
