It's all about greed. My landlord raised our rent 200 because he had to repair our upstairs bathtub and said well look around, all the other places are charging more rent than I am charging you. I've lived there ten years. I shouldn't have to pay more because he replaced an old tub that broke. What's the old saying, harder for a rich man to get to Heaven than it is to get a camel through the eye of a needle. Increasing rents just because they can and however high they want to increase them doesn't mean they should. Soulless people making so many families homeless. And the city council, shame on them. Just because these rich folk can come up with 520k to oppose any form of rent control, should make you wonder, don't they already have enough money! I wouldn't raise rents if I were a landlord. So many haven't because they are decent people. Those that do are just despicable in my book.

What a disaster! It is becoming increasingly obvious that Measure W was a hastily thrown together effort to confuse and thwart voters from Measure V, the people's measure for which over 7000 residents signed a petition. City Council could have passed an ordinance but they took this tactic instead. It's no wonder, most of the council members are in the pockets of the California Apartment Association and Prometheus, who have made large donations to their campaigns.

Clearly the "W" in Measure W is for WEAK.

Measure V provides VITAL renter protections and is VERY fair to landlords.

Vote No on both. This is a nightmare. Council never should've jumped in with "W". They panicked because of some preliminary rumor "V" might pass.

Vote No on both. Rents will stabilize (and perhaps drop) when all the new housing stock comes online and the economy turns (which is starting to happen).

Where can we see a list of the 7,000 MV residents who signed the petition. That should be publicly available, right?

The 7300 signatures were submitted to the Santa Clara County registrar of voters, and like all initiative signatures are not available for review. This was an important point to many signers who rent, and might have feared retaliation if their signatures were published. To me, it seems similar to our right to privacy of how we vote.

Mountain View has not been ruined by its long time home owners - they are part of Mountain View's community fabric.

Mountain View will also benefit from finally protecting its renters so they can also continue as members of the community for the long run - unafraid of sudden rent increases. Yes on V!

This is just false information that the proponents of measure V keep claiming, the city council at a public city council meeting stated that people keep claiming to be evicted just so landlords can increase rents is not true. They have been asking people to come forward with said information to show that, and they said no one comes forward.

What measure V does it takes away the right from responsible landlords to manage their property by evicting trouble Tenants. Measure V copies other cities rent control ordinance like East Palo Alto, San Jose, San Francisco and others and takes away this right, one must file an application with the rent board and ask permission, which all rent boards deny the request and you no longer have landlords even try to do an eviction.

This is one of the top reason why neighborhoods deteriorate and the city gets a bad name. No one but trouble makers will live their.

Had council member Lenny Siegel been successfull in his first attempt at rent control 30 sum years ago, our city would look like other neighbouring cities like East Palo Alto today, instead of the vibrant city we have now where people actually want to come and live in.

Remember this, Council member Siegel has said at a council meeting that this is just the start, he wants to go after other businesses but knows he does not have the votes yet.

Is this what we really want to turn Mtn.View into?

It you support rent control that has had public review and can be amended
Vote yes on measure W.

Please do not support measure V that has had no public review and has not been advertised in its entirety to the voters so they know what's in it.

Believe me, there is so much more in it that the proponents do not want the public to know about for now. You do not need to create a new 5 panel rent board just to cap rent increases. This is a new expense for the cities tax payers as well.

Choosing ambiguity is the ultimate cop out vav what the Measure W is meant to accomplish ie it means "NOT MUCH" re protecting the renting residents. What bought and paid for cowards we have sitting on that dias now. Look forward to new faces with more intrepid ovaries and gonads.

I think people on both sides of the rent control issue can agree that this is just further evidence of a dysfunctional and incompetent city council

I think people who understand basic economics can agree that neither measure is going to help or change renters. It will dramatically help developers (all those older units that will be sold and parceled into smaller, even more profitable units) or it will lead to slums and units not kept up because the landlords cannot afford to keep up with costs.

And I will say it here again. For those of you homeowners reading this, thinking "yes! let's protect those renters who can no longer afford to pay rent here" I will say this:

Unless and until you are willing to step up and take the same hit/limit on your equity gains then you had best vote no.

If you think it's OK to limit an investor (landlord) on their profit/gain then you should be just as willing to limit your gain in equity.

It's that simple.

Hey mvresident2003. You want some "basic economics"?

If you screw over a heck of a lot of people (renters in this case), there will be a backlash in a democratic society.

You want some more "basic economics"? Homeowners already have their equivalent of rent control. Prop 39 (tax control on owned properties) is artificially lifting our home values. Guess how the lost tax revenue is raised? By having high sales tax and state income taxes that are paid mostly by people who do not benefit from Prop 39. (Renters)

Make you a deal. We will pass Measure V and as soon as Prop 39 is repealed, we will repeal rent control.

What is Prop 39 and how does it affect the price of housing?

About Proposition 39 (Facilities) - California Charter Schools Association
www.ccsa.org/2010/09/about-proposition-39.html
Proposition 39 was written to ensure that all public school students share equally in district facilities. The bargain made when Prop. 39 was passed by California ...

Web Link

Prop 13 sets a cap on annual property tax increases.
Measure V sets a cap on annual rent increases.

Sounds fair to me!

There 2 Prop 39's, one for charter school facilities access and one to close a tax loophole created to allow companies to avoid state income tax. No connection between the 2. Neither one has anything to do with rental prices.

@basic economics, here's the real world way to look at it. You keep discouraging people to make Investments, be it rental property or home ownership for equity then you REALLY create a problem.

Just because you want to live somewhere does not guarantee you can. Period.

Rosenberg was ABSENT at the August 9th meeting where changes to the tenant relocation ordinance were discussed in conjunction with approval of what is now Measure W. Though apparently legal, it is simply not just that he would be able to move for and vote on tabling the discussion.

@A Supporter of Measure W

Do you even understand how MV's council works? It takes 4 votes to pass a motion. Anybody can make a motion. If it doesn't have support, it won't get a second and won't go for a vote of the full body. The three people who were NOT a surprise in this motion to table were Rosenberg, Inks, and Siegel - who are all opposed to Measure W. The surprise with this vote, to the extent a surprise was evident by the "gasp" from the audience), was that Kasperzak voted to table the topic. He didn't back-up Measure W - an ordinance he voted for in the first place!

Is your contention that a council member who misses a meeting shouldn't be allowed to comment or act on agenda items during a meeting that they are sitting in? You don't understand democracy or Robert's Rules of Order, apparently. Think through that logic.

@A supporter of measure W: Rosenberg never supported W:

Web Link

@Laurel

I did not assert that this was illegal or even incongruous with Rosenberg's position. I was pointing out that the effect was akin to "I wasn't here when this was initially discussed and now I'm going to move to postpone any discussion." I do realize Kasperzak is arguably the one who shifted positions. Both of these things do not improve people's opinion of the City Council.

On a side note, society a whole could benefit from a change in tone in internet discussions. It is not necessary to resort to insulting someone's intelligence or level of knowledge on a given subject to get your point across. It caused me to think that I really struck a nerve with you.

After V passes, I will suck up all these slum properties it creates and tear them down to make way for my new century city including casinos and $5000/month units. Vote yes on V!!!!

Rosenberg is absent during a lot of controversial votes

Eric,

You may have your reasons for posting this, but your statement is demonstrably false.

Which controversial votes are you referring to?