Reader comments
Provo scraps mandatory background checks

"People were acting like it was the final draft," Stewart said. "And it was never meant to be."

Stewart, the people were reacting to the stupidity of the idea realizing that if they said nothing then you would have passed it as law. The idea that forcing rentals to do background checks increase costs that would be passed on to renters who are guilty of nothing, but having their life history in the hands of people who don't have any reason to know it is beyond wrong.

Just how much freedom are people willing to give up for a sense of security? There is no security if there is no freedom.

This would create far more problems then it will ever fix. Utah County already has a big enough homeless population...why contribute to that? Lets fix the problem instead of make it bigger.

Kudos for ending the exemption for BYU students, but this is still a bad idea. It is semantic to say landlords are not required to do the checks--the financial "incentive" to do the checks is the same as a fine for not doing them.

I hope somebody sues these cities, and the landlords who act as government agents by participating in the programs, for their unreasonable intrusion into renters' privacy.

When will the Provo mayor's office and municipal city council realize that they are there to execute the will of the citizen's of Provo rather than the special interests (including themselves). They continue to make decisions without due diligence. Honestly, we need to clean house and rid our city of the secret back-room politics being administered and advised by unqualified people.

Provo's municipal council and mayor are executing the will of many of us in the city who live in the neighborhoods filled with rentals. Talk to me about security when the house next door is filled with illegal immigrants, or when the house on the other side of the block has hypodermic needles laying all over the shaggy lawn.

Liberty and freedom?? Sorry, how about freedom from some of the worry I face every time my children walk outside the door?

John P

Call the police if you know there is illegals next to you and hypodermic needles laying all over your neighbors lawn.

I agree with John P. I wish all landlords screened their tenants as if they'd be their own neighbors. If this incentive offsets their cost of conducting background checks then maybe more landlords will do it.

Why limit this to renters? Let's require real estate sales people to screen their clients and be required to make the information available to the potential neighbors. Good idea for High Schools to do the same - we don't want any punks in our high schools. Put them on the streets where they belong!

I do background checks on my renters....voluntarily...always have.
My reason for doing so is to ensure that the prospective tenant can pay the rent. ;-)

I am wondering if laws forcing landlords to do background checks, or laws offering incentives if they *are* done, open the door to liability issues for landlords. I can envision a future court case wherein the landlord is asked why he didn't perform a background check on his/her tenant OR why he rented to the tenant *after* doing the background check which revealed a criminal history. Will I be sued if my tenant decides to commit a serious crime?... because I did not refuse to rent to him/her?

Ok. i can understand that no one wants that felon living next door but when does the person that made the mistake get to stop paying for them. and are they going to check for charges or convictions. i was charged for a felony but only convicted of a misdemeanor in 2001. it is now 2009 and now i cant get an apartment because i was charged incorectly. i have not done anything since that incident and i did my time and payed my fines over 7 years ago so why now i am a productive law abiding citicen of the united states of america i still have to pay for a stupid mistake i made almost 10 years ago. maybe if i spend the rest of my life homeless ill learn the lesson that i alredy learned 7 years ago. ok go ahead and do the background checks but there should be a stipulation on how far back they can look. oh say maybe 5 years.

SnidelyWhiplash-If You Read...The Letter Sent From The ACLU 3 Days Prior, The Concern Is NOT Background Checks So Much, As Not Being Given Equal Protection Under The Law, Simply Because At The Subsidized Housing, We Sign A Waver We R Not Students. They Will Not Rent To Students. A little beside the point, but, the Big Issue, is that LDS Are Not Checked.