The article preceding this Council meeting Web Link reported that Mountain View staff first modeled their proposal on a 90-day notice requirement passed in San Jose, then MV City Attorney Quinn gave an "opinion that (California law) prevents us from doing this at this time." Quinn "explained this was an instance where two city legal teams had different interpretations of the law."

Something in this process isn't right. Since one city "legal team" (in SJ) already finds the measure viable, why doesn't Council, citing that precedent, DIRECT MV's City Attorney to adopt SJ's interpretation, and move forward? It's absurd that one town decides it can do something and another can't based on differeing interpretaions of the same statutes. There's only one reality.

As has been pointed out by some current and past council members, an "urgency ordinance" never seemed like a legitimate way to change land use laws in Mountain View in this situation.

According to city code, an urgency ordinance can only be used if "there is a current and immediate threat to the public health, safety or welfare". This legal power is intended for use in specific types of extreme circumstances.

Here's the source for the city code: Web Link

""I drafted this very simply and borrowed very heavily," Quinn said, explaining that she modeled the ordinance off a decades-old program in Palo Alto."We haven't had ample time to get guidance from the council."

Good gawd! Greed knows no limits. And I guess our City Attorney left for a coffee at Starbucks?

Ample time? Rents didn't just start going up last month..

There may not be a City Council majority for anything beyond requiring some landlords to offer leases and maybe requiring the same landlords to report evictions and rent levels to the city. Maybe there will be support for mandatory rent increase mediation available if the rent is increased over, for example, 10 percent in a 12-month period. But mediation is just a discussion. The landlord could simply not agree and, in the meantime, if the City of Campbell model is used, the rent would go up as noticed. Any new requirement or restriction on any landlords would need to provide some protection from eviction as a way around it. With regard to requiring longer than the state's 30 or 60-day notice for a rent increase on a month-to-month residential tenancy, the Court of Appeal held in 1987 in Tri-County Apartment Association v. City of Mountain View that state law preempted a Mtn. View ordinance requiring 90 days notice. It is a published opinion binding throughout the State. The decision applies in the context of a local law that only seeks to change the notice period and not as part of a broader rent control law, for example. San Jose has some rent control. So does Los Gatos. Anyone who claims that rent control "does not work" would need to address the rent control in those cities. Rent control does work to keep lower-income residents from being priced out of a city. Whether it is ever justified is another matter. The details of the law will always be important. But look, six of the 7 Mtn. View City Councilmembers were screened and endorsed by landlord groups fictitiously named. You will not likely see three of them double-cross the landlord groups to join with Councilmember Siegel in establishing any form of direct rent control.

Will this discussion even matter 10 years from now? In that timeframe we will likely have self-driving cars. The CEO of Panera just announced in that timeframe it's quite likely they will replace most of their workforce with computers, maybe keeping only 15% of their current workers. If more restaurants/stores/delivery services follow suit, will we even need low income workers here and will they even be able to find work that pays enough to pay rent in Mountain View even with rent control or other subsidies?

I'm not saying I think this is a good situation, however, it does seem to be a reality we are quickly marching towards. We could build more rental units, but likely in 10 quick years there's going to be a huge shift in the entire US economy with many people not able to find work. We can't possibly build enough housing here to make it that cheap that even people with no work can still stay here.

Those who still have jobs (even middle or low income jobs) may be able to stay, but I suspect we'll see a large exodus of people. No jobs means it will be impossible to stay here.

On the bright side, I've heard in some places in Ohio you can purchase a nice home for as little as $30,000! So for what people pay in rent for 1 year in Mountain View they could purchase an entire house (probably we a decent amount of land too) and live mortgage free! You may not need much of an income if you have no mortgage and live frugally. If I were in that situation, I think I'd start saving for my $30,000 house now.