These City Councilmembers represent the mostly out-of-town corporate landlords - not the tenants wh live here.

Disagree. They represent the majority and they also exhibit a solid understanding of economics. Rent control will not solve the issues, it will only result in issues that have been presented multiple times on these boards.

It's amazing how biased the article is. Doing nothing is bad. Rather than take sides on this debate, the council is staying neutral. Some people feel that the council should redistribute wealth to a few tenants at the expense of screwing up the rental market. I would argue that the hands off approach to the rental market is not doing nothing but is allowing the market place to work. It is allowing the tenant and landlord to make mutually beneficial exchanges. Suggesting that bureaucrats interfere with these sacred exchanges requires more sophisticated reasons and arguments.