Franklin City Council presses Dorchester management after apartment power outage and tenant complaints

The Franklin City Council on Sept. 9 directed city staff to press Dorchester Apartments’ management and owners to address a recurring power outage and related habitability complaints affecting multiple units.

Residents and a city councilmember described a power outage that began Friday and affected buildings C through G, producing spoilage, hotel relocation for some tenants and allegations of rodents and mold in units. Ricky Sykes, a resident who spoke during citizen comment, said hotel accommodations were being provided for the short term and asked whether the city’s electrical staff could help if the private vendor could not resolve the issue.

“People cooking out on the grill. Your heart breaks for that,” Sykes said, and he asked the council to consider whether the city could intervene when private repairs stall.

Council discussion focused on two parallel tracks: (1) immediate relief and health-and-safety inspections for tenants, and (2) longer-term code or ordinance changes to give the city more enforcement options when multifamily owners fail to maintain utilities. A councilmember proposing immediate action urged staff to create an ordinance framework allowing the city to ‘go in and fix it and bill them for it’ when owners fail to act.

City Manager Bertram and the city attorney warned that publicly funded repairs to private electrical infrastructure pose legal and liability risks. The city’s jurisdiction over utilities generally ends at the public right-of-way, and the city attorney said that if the city’s utilities staff were to perform private repairs, the city could lose sovereign-immunity protections and face contract-like liability if something went wrong.

Nonetheless, councilmembers reached a consensus on near-term steps: staff will contact the property manager and owner to demand a repair plan and timeline; code enforcement will inspect individual units that register formal complaints; social services will check emergency-fund availability for affected households; and the city attorney will prepare a written memo outlining legal options and risks for council consideration.

Social services director Miss Rexrode said the department can sometimes provide hotel stays on a case-by-case basis and can process food-replacement SNAP claims for households that lost food because of the outage. She also reminded council that long-term solutions like replacing electrical infrastructure may require owner cooperation or capital work beyond what short-term city action can fix.

Council members also asked for copies of sample tenant leases and any Section 8/HUD involvement, so staff can assess federal or state program responsibilities and possible external agency supports.

The council did not adopt new ordinance language at the meeting. Instead, it instructed staff to (a) demand immediate remedial action from management, (b) send code inspectors the next morning to units where tenants filed complaints, (c) provide the council with a legal memo on enforcement and liability, and (d) report back with options for emergency assistance and potential ordinance changes.

If owners do not provide satisfactory relief, councilmembers said they may call an emergency meeting to consider further steps.

Next steps: code enforcement inspections to occur the following morning; city attorney to deliver a memo on legal options; staff to notify council when code inspections and outreach to the owner are complete.