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

Obviously. Mr. Wesley is not an economist and doesn't understand how competitive rental markets work. Landlords may try to raise rents , but are limited by a tenants willingness to pay. To suggest price gouging is silly since it may merely reflect a landlord trying to search for the market price.

@"Not an Economis(t)": My letter is not about rent control but about City Councilmembers who have voted to subject landlords to mandatory mediation but refuse to protect tenants from eviction by landlords that do not wish to engage in mediation and understandably want far higher "market" rents. Under the mediation ordinance, as written, landlords would be both motivated and free to simply evict existing tenants and get new ones. The evictions would not be just the product of a high-demand market but also a consequence of the decisions of politicians on the City Council who were all endorsed as candidates by landlord groups. The bottom line of the letter is that Councilmembers should at least be honest about what is proposed for adoption. What part of the letter do you dispute?

Terms like "sky-high market rates" , price gouging, mass evictions, have no meaning in economics. Also to label TCAA As a ficticiously labeled landlord group is deceiving. This group has real employees, real offices, and real members . I suppose you think the SanFranciso Giants are a ficticiously label baseball team.

Have you ever considered that government decisions have something to do with "economics." Government decisions set much of the "market" for everything - including housing. Locally, land use decisions have been key in limiting the supply of land and housing and adding to the demand. Government decisions were and are not made by a "market." They were and will be made by politicians. As to the "Tri-County Apartment Association," the name is fictitious in that it does not identify the persons involved; however, I have used the term to suggest that the name does not even describe the actual interest groups involved (i.e., residential landlords). Tenants and other non-landlords would not know, without extra research, that a candidate endorsed by an "apartment association" or a "housing council" is actually endorsed by landlord-advocacy groups - groups that support candidates who will advance the interests of residential landlords in making decisions - including land use decisions. Organizations are often named to inform some voters and deceive others. They are not named by a "market." There is more to economics than supply and demand and there is more to life than "economics." Tenants are not merely consumers of rental housing. They are residents of an area and neighbors of other residents and sometimes fellow parents and school children. Evicting existing tenants to make room for new ones with more money to pay may suit some landlords just fine but there are other interests and values at stake.