Thank you for this commentary. It has been so sad to see homelessness grow week by week in this city and friends and neighbors have to move out, while rent control, endorsed by the majority of voters, is ravaged by ideologues on the rental housing committee (RHC). Council's appointment of outspoken rent control opponent Tom Means to the RHC is like Trump's appointment of climate change skeptic Scott Pruitt to the head of the EPA. Please RHC, follow staff recommendations as you set up rent control in Mountain View. And please council, you got us into this mess when you appointed Mr. Means. The process has gone off the rails and is costing a bundle because of your appointment. It's time for council to step in and do some damage control.

Maybe the voters need to reconsider their votes in the next election!

Economics 101 on the Rental Housing Industry in Mountain View

The City of Mountain View has adopted Rent Control Measure V for all housing of 3 or more units which were built before 1995.

This measure caps rental increases on 15,000 older rental units in the City of Mountain View to the CPI (Consumer Price Index) making the units NOT ECONOMICALLY VIABLE as an investment to new operators in the real estate industry.

CPI is considered the annual inflation of a region, in this case the Bay Area which was 3.4% over the past 12 months as reported. If a candy bar costs $1.00 12 months ago it should have increased in price to $1.034 today according to the CPI.

Apartment building valuations are determined by Capitalization Rates by buyers and banks that finance them. After that the buyer who is now an investor looks at their Return On Investment Rates. ROI Rates rise directly and only as a result of increased rental income minus all expenses.

Return on investments need to increase over time from rising rents to make an investment Economically Viable to the investor. If the rents rise at the rate of inflation or CPI then the Appreciation Rate of that investment is stagnate and mirrors the inflation rate or CPI, meaning there is no financial benefit to investing in it. That would be like knowingly buying a stock that is always worth the same forever.

If the building was worth $1.00 12 months ago, and now $1.034 but so is everything else, what's the benefit to the investor of investing millions of dollars and risking losing capital with all the work necessary to run the business? The building will always be worth the same amount taking inflation into consideration.

NOT ECONOMICALLY VIABLE is the definition of what has happened to all these apartments under Measure V. The values dropped dramatically enough leaving owners to either demolish them for new ECONOMICALLY VIABLE housing or accept no appreciation in the future. The larger properties will be redeveloped with expensive housing, further frustrating the shortage of affordable housing in the City.
The smaller properties that can't be redeveloped because of zoning requirements will fall into disrepair over time as the owner cuts back on expenses to cover the financial shortfalls.

This is the future of Mountain View apartments under Measure V.

Looks like we need a better rent control measure to be passed. This one apparently contained a loophole allowing the corrupt city council to nullify it.

Dave, I think you failed Harry's Economics 101 class.
We will have make ups on finals in September. Please bring a number 2 pencil and notebook.
Thank you, Tom.

[Post removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]

[Post removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]

Measure V was certainly not approved by a majority of Mountain View citizens. It was narrowly approved by a majority of voters. Many citizens did not vote.

Here is a really different story to acknowledge:

As far as the RHC voting last night, The RHC adopted the HUD FMR rent standard to use as a base line for the “VEGA” rent adjustments. With regards to the city apartments, our rents have been higher than the HUD FMR.

With this information the result is:

For year 2015, if a rent one is paying is above $1,213 for a studio, $1,419 for one bedroom, $1,809 for a two bedroom, $2,551 for a three bedroom and $2,892 for a four bedroom, these units are not allowed to get any rent upward adjustment under VEGA.

For year 2016, if a rent one is paying is above $1,348 for a studio, $1,582 for one bedroom, $1,994 for a two bedroom, $2,777 for a three bedroom and $3,098 for a four bedroom, these units are not allowed to get any rent upward adjustment under VEGA.

For year 2017, if a rent one is paying is above $1,507 for a studio, $1,773 for one bedroom, $2,220 for a two bedroom, $3,078 for a three bedroom and $3,545 for a four bedroom, these units are not allowed to get any rent upward adjustment under VEGA.

The average rents in Santa Clara County is $1,845 for a studio, $2,338 for a one bedroom, $2,794 for a two bedroom, $3,331 for a three bedroom apartment.( Web Link

This would mean that the vast majority of rents in Mountain View are above the HUD FMR standards. If a petition is filed for example because a rent paid is $1,300 for a one bedroom apartment but 2017 FMR rates it at $1,507, the tenant can challenge that request and there will be a significant likelihood that such upward adjustments may be rare. Especially there is a “hardship” provision in the CSFRA which means that an adjustment may be negated on that grounds as well. The cost of petitioning alone may negate any benefit for a petition for a rent adjustment.

This decision was made with Tom Means not being present at this meeting.

Business man,

Contrary to all your past postings I have to agree with you on this one.

But after taking Harry's Economics 101 class, I think this is a big mistake for the renters in Mountain View.

You're going to see a lot of this housing torn down to make way for expensive housing creating a greater shortage of affordable housing and the city will approve this redevelopment because of the increased property taxes.

The other properties that can't be redeveloped due to zoning requirements are going to fall into disrepair where the landlord does nothing more than keep the water coming in and the sewage going out.

Now with Measure V, the land is more valuable as a vacant lot than it is having a rent controlled building sitting on it. The only buyers are developers who will pay full price for the building.

Rent control will fail because of this. Mark my words, I know because I'm in the business.

I see @Bob tipped his hand. It's no surprise the landlords and CAA members want rent control to fail, since it cuts into their bottom lines.

What is truly surprising is that the City Council has done so much to undermine it, since they were elected to uphold the city charter. Appointing an ideologue like Tom Means is just one example, on top of stacking the housing committee with pro-landlord members.

Recall McAlister, Matichak, and Abe-Koga!

In response to Bob

There is a major problem for everyone in Mountain View

It appears that most of the city is polluted with TCE. Thus, there may be no land to develop. If you do any significant research, TCE requires Billions of dollars to actually clean up. But no development in Mountain View has done so. Only tried to “control” it.

But even Google failed to do this if you read this story (Web Link

THe EPA cannot assure the safety of Mountain View if you look at this story.(Web Link

So if you argue that:

You're going to see a lot of this housing torn down to make way for expensive housing creating a greater shortage of affordable housing and the city will approve this redevelopment because of the increased property taxes.

Given that it is toxic to live in the city, and the clean up will not take place, it would appear that any “development” is almost insured to fail. In fact, some residences may need to be taken down and never rebuilt. THIS IMPACTS NOT JUST APARTMENTS, BUT EVERY RESIDENCE IN THE CITY. THE FUMES OF TCE PUMPING AWAY FROM THE RESIDENCE SIMPLY SPREADS MORE DAMAGE TO A LARGER AIR FUME DOME IN THE ENTIRE AREA. NO ONE WILL WILLINGLY LIVE OR SHOULD WORK IN IN A PLACE THAT IS DANGEROUS TO THEIR HEALTH.

The EPA CANNOT establish safety in Mountain View at all. So the likelihood of your approach is not very good. Unfortunately it appears that when Mountain View let industry pollute the land, it unfortunately sealed the City’s future.

The City simply has a no win situation, pollution control systems are simply likely to fail because they are fallible. No one can be properly be assured their environment of Mountain View is safe. This is the most damaging problem for the City and there is no solution.

Any investor who does their homework will reject any sales proposition to invest in what is inherently not a sound investment. Thus your claim falls apart.

I find it disturbing that so many of our peoples are against the obvious needfulness for the other peoples

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?

Business man,
Is the sky falling?
Come on, are you saying that all housing in Mountain View should be condemned because of TCE pollution?
Wow, I can't wait to see this clean up bill...??
I think you and John Q Public need to have a beer together:)

Business Man, if he were genuine, would move out of Mountain View immediately to preserve his health. Unfortunately for his abused landlord, he isn't going anywhere when he can enjoy below market rent while being a predatory litigant shaking others down. The reason he needed Measure V and harasses his landlord is the TCE in the air has affected his ability to secure and maintain above average remuneration from his employer(s) commensurate with his superior levels of education, none of his personal circumstances are his fault, it is the City Council, the CAA and his landlord conspiring to hold him down.

This will be a bit long but wort it.

In response to Bob and Chicken Little

Bob stated:

“Is the sky falling?

Come on, are you saying that all housing in Mountain View should be condemned because of TCE pollution?

Wow, I can't wait to see this clean up bill...??”

If you bother to look at ACTUAL SCIENCE and look at my referenced material (the NBC news report and the San Francisco Gate news report, you would discover that my observations are NOT UNREALISTIC. They are proven and verified independent information.

Technically speaking, history has condemned entire towns involving EPA Superfund sites where it is determined that no current ability can effectively CONTROL or REMEDIATE a uncontrollable toxic problem. An airborne toxin or hazard that encloses an entire location can in fact cause forced relocation. Please refer to EPA Superfund Relocation Information (Web Link

And the history of Love Canal (Web Link and “Valley of the Drums” (Web Link amongst many others.

Chicken Little Stated

“Business Man, if he were genuine, would move out of Mountain View immediately to preserve his health. Unfortunately for his abused landlord, he isn't going anywhere when he can enjoy below market rent while being a predatory litigant shaking others down.”

I do not have the money to relocate, however the federal government may be required to assist me to relocate. Regarding predatory litigation, if my landlord complied with CSFRA there would be NO CAUSE FOR LITIGATION.

“The reason he needed Measure V and harasses his landlord is the TCE in the air has affected his ability to secure and maintain above average remuneration from his employer(s) commensurate with his superior levels of education, none of his personal circumstances are his fault, it is the City Council, the CAA and his landlord conspiring to hold him down.”

That is simply not correct, I have never claimed that my situation was the fault of the City Council, the CAA and my landlord conspiring to hold me down. I have accurately demonstrated the entire failure of the above TO ADOPT THE CITY CHARTER RIGHTS I AM ENTITLED TO. I am not harassing my landlord, harassment by definition REQUIRES:

The civil HARASSMENT LAWS say “HARASSMENT” is: Unlawful violence, like assault or battery or stalking, OR. A credible threat of violence, AND. The violence or threats seriously scare, annoy, or HARASS someone and there is no valid reason for it.( Web Link

My first amendment expression and legal action clearly is NOT committing unlawful violence. My first amendment expression and legal action is NOT committing assault and battery on my landlord. My first amendment expression and legal action is NOT committing stalking my landlord. My first amendment expression and legal action is NOT committing a credible threat of violence, and even if my “violence” or “threats” in effect scare, annoy, or harass my landlord, it is ALLOWED if there is a VALID REASON FOR IT.

Non-compliance with the CSFRA establishes my VALID REASON to compel my landlord to repay overpaid rent. I have followed all appropriate behavior to seek remediation in the courts. You simply wish to attempt attacking my character instead of dealing with the actual problem.

The actual problem is that Mountain View is reaping the consequences of poor judgment and the reality that the inflated values of land in the City is significantly likely to burst due to scientific reasons that are unavoidable.

[Post removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]

Really? How is it that social justice warriors can write a snarky "Guest Opinion" with class warfare comments, but I call them out as social justice warriors who wrote snarky class warfare comments and get censored?

Looks like the moderators triggered our precious snowflake, @USA. Maybe you need a safe space?

USA,

The moderators of the Mountain voice consider any opinions that do not reflect their liberal agenda and viewpoint as disrespectful and remove them.
That's why your postings are removed.
Let's see if I'm removed for saying so and exposing the truth.

Business man,

I can understand your concerns about TCE in the ground. I know what happened here in the 60's and 70's and how these companies poured these chemicals into the soil all over their lots to save money on disposal.
It is a problem that needs to be abated but not in the residential areas.
Ya if you want to build housing over in the old business parks or at moffett field where our own government polluted the soil, then you better remove the contaminated soil.

Mountain View is a Business center of the world. I see Chinese nationals with suitcases of money coming here wanting to buy into it because of the business climate. They want to own real estate here because of this. A little TCE isn't going to stop that or scare away the investment money. They're used to pollution on a grand scale in their Country. Mountain View is pristine to them by those standards.

This land will be redeveloped into expensive housing. Rent Control just accelerated this process by making the land more valuable when you tear down old apartments and redevelop into $1.5M row houses.

The market is craving this with Google, Facebook and Apple and all the other suppliers of these corporate world giants with high paid workers that want to own in this world center.

So, let's thank the voters because the Emerald City is going to be built. There's just not going to be any affordable housing for the renters to control.

Just some observations...
I attended the RHC meeting this week just to get a sense of the process. Other than some guy with a phone in his ear walking around saying he was going to sue everybody, I thought the proceedings were quite orderly. There were a couple property owners who spoke about their legitimate concerns, and some renters who voiced their legitimate concerns, and the members of the council appeared quite rational in their approach to a pretty complicated issue.
I guess the real surprise was the lack of involvement from the landlord community. Of all the thousands of rentals that are effected, there were only two or three owners who even showed up. That kind of tells me there is either a lack of concern, or perhaps a general level of surrender.

Fred,

You're right...they gave up and are listing their properties to sell to developers to tear down and build $1.5M luxury townhomes.
They're to busy like me making money to go play with the socialists at city hall.

@Aware

LOL, good one.

No, I need actual journalists who report all the facts without filtering out the ones that run counter to their political agenda. I need editors and moderators with an even hand on filtering out editorials and reader comments. Is that so much to ask?

In response to Bob you said:

"I can understand your concerns about TCE in the ground. I know what happened here in the 60's and 70's and how these companies poured these chemicals into the soil all over their lots to save money on disposal.

It is a problem that needs to be abated but not in the residential areas.

Ya if you want to build housing over in the old business parks or at moffett field where our own government polluted the soil, then you better remove the contaminated soil."

Please understand, that the TCE is not confined at this time, the EPA in fact admits it does not know how bad the pollution problem is and it is not constrained to industrial lands. Please refer to he report here (Web Link and here (Web Link

These reports indicated TCE is an airborne toxin, it simply drifts over everything, the only way to prevent that is to put a dome over the ground in areas where TCE is detected. Of course this is not being done. But the EPA doesn’t know at this time where the TCE is, it does know it is more spread out in the City of Mountain View than first discovered. My work in the past involved an old army base in Cape Cod with a similar problem. The groundwater activity there continued to distribute the ground based toxins, and after that, it became airborne. The initial project of ground pollution control eventually failed and it became a known hazardous area, here is the story (Web Link Very specifically, that the pollutants are continuing to spread outside the original areas identified.

THIS PROBLEM SIMPLY IS NOT CONTAINED, AND IT IS SPREADING INTO RESIDENTIAL AREAS.

In response to Fred you said
“I attended the RHC meeting this week just to get a sense of the process. Other than some guy with a phone in his ear walking around saying he was going to sue everybody, I thought the proceedings were quite orderly.”

You are very inaccurate, I am the one suing my landlord for overpaid rent that has not been returned.

I have not threatened any other litigation.

I only stated that if a unreliable and invalid statistical resource prepared by for profit industry invested resources resulted in significant variance between the HUD FMR and the statistics used by the City of Mountain View, it would likely be challenged. FOR EXAMPLE STATISTICS PREPARED BY COSTAR OR OTHER COMMERCIAL RESOURCES. I only indicated that these resources would not disclose their methods publically, essentially “BLACK-BOXES”and claim them as proprietary information. THUS TRANSPARENCY COULD NOT BE PROVIDED, AND THE INTER-RATER AND EXTRA-RATER RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF SUCH INFORMATION COULD NOT STAND UP TO ANY COURT CHALLENGE.

You simply did not pay attention to what I discussed, or wished to mischaracterize my behavior, anyone can listen to my comments by going to the City of Mountain View website and play the audio recording of the meeting. This will in fact prove you did not understand what was being discussed. Fortunately the RHC did and chose not to deviate from the HUD FMR standards.

I like the usually cool and relatively rational/scientific comments ad thinking of BUSINESS MAN. Thanks for continuing to post commentary on Mountain View civic issues. Take heart! There will always be chicken littles running around proclaiming "the sky is falling, the sky is falling." And they most often are not talking about meteorites, Space Labs, or airborne toxic chemical residues.

In response to the sky ain't falling C.L. you said:

"I like the usually cool and relatively rational/scientific comments ad thinking of BUSINESS MAN. Thanks for continuing to post commentary on Mountain View civic issues. Take heart! There will always be chicken littles running around proclaiming "the sky is falling, the sky is falling." And they most often are not talking about meteorites, Space Labs, or airborne toxic chemical residues."

I know my comments can be considered quite alarmist. To be honest, it didn’t occur to me how significant this problem is likely to be. I truly assumed that our ambient air quality could not be threatened in this way. All you need is 25 parts per million, or 0.0025% of TCE (Recommendation; 10-hour TWA) to be a violation of the National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health.( (Web Link

That is based on 10 hours of exposure per workday because TCE in accumulative. Thus for those who reside in an exposed area, it should be multiplied by 10/24 to account for a possible 24 hr. exposure day. Thus it could be reasonably argued the only 10.4 ppm or 0.001% would be considered a living violation of safety. You can see that this is particularly small exposure can be dangerous.

My father, a Dr. of Chemistry was an expert engineer of chemical analysis equipment particularly spectrophotometers (his patent is still used today) and ambient air monitoring equipment. We designed multiple gas correlation detection systems the size of a bread box that could monitor 7 different chemicals simultaneously for the Department of Defense to monitor munitions exposure while piloting an apache attack helicopter and NASA space station environmental quality systems. He introduced the first certified microprocessor controlled gas correlation optical analyzers into the market.

I was his project management assistant at the time even though I was only 15 yrs old at the time starting a 1982 through to 1999. He provided me with an intense education support at that time so that I could coordinate all aspects of the research, development, manufacturing engineering, and validation of his designs in order to enter the markets.

Why using optical detection? It is the only way to detect a chemical compound without errors caused by other concurrent toxic compounds. Chemo-electrical sensors are prone to be inaccurate because of cross-chemical contaminants. From what I understand, these devices are still being used even though they are reaching 40 yrs of age, because only when the devices are certified by the National Institutes Standards of Technology and the Environmental Protection Agency device certification process.

There is a major reason for the prospect that a complete study of the City’s atmospheric quality is NOT occurring. The fact that if this is detected, the economic impact on all properties in Mountain View can be staggering. And even worse, no real estate agent could promote any future projects for financing given that the environment would be so hazardous the financiers would reject any proposals.

This is a clear problem with the City and all other governmental units, none of which wants to be responsible for the initiation of such a dramatic crumbling of the economic foundation of land and building development in such a large scale like the City of Mountain View.

@Bob
Note that those townhomes or rowhouses will definitely cost more than $1.5M if they have 3 or more bedrooms.

Darin,
Thank you, I'm tearing down $575,000 units for $1,700,000 Townhouses.
I'll make a note of that. WOW ECONOMICALLY NOT VIABLE APARTMENTS FOR ECONOMICALLY MAKE ME RICH TOWNHOUSES.
I'M in Mountain View!!
Landlords: think about it?

In response to Bob you stated:

“Thank you, I'm tearing down $575,000 units for $1,700,000 Townhouses.”

OK that is your right to do. Have you got an approved plan from the City Council? Do you have an approved demolition permit? If your answer is No on either, if you take any action now, you will be in serious violation of building and demolition permits. You simply may be surprised that it might take at least 2 years to acquire the approval of your new project.

But realize that you will need to provide relocation assistance if this apartment has more than 4 units under the CSFRA, if it was built before 1995. Just understand the significant out of pocket expenses you will have long before you start receiving any revenues.

Also make sure that your land does not have any TCE in the ground or air. If it is there, you might find yourself frozen from doing any development until you remediate the pollution. This is required regarding an Environmental Impact Report prior to any development. You may be gambling as much as $3 Million up front to proceed and perform the construction before you receive a single dollar in revenue.

Landlords, you must think about the above before you start the process, it simply is not a case of “I can demolish my older building and build a new one instantly and without a significant “opportunity cost”. Landlords you must be very careful to make sound decisions.

[Post removed due to violation of terms of use]

In response to USA you said:

“HOW TO GET YOUR CITY COUNCIL BACK.

“I want to share my testimony with everyone, my name is USA from the USA, after 40 years of living in Mountain View, the city council left me for the siren's call of rent control which led me into frustration. I did all i could to get them back to reason but none availed, until an old friend of mine told me about a spell caster Dr.jaja on the internet who helped her in a similar problem, at first i doubted it but I decided to give it a try.I contacted the doctor (jajaspellcastertemple@gmail.com.com) he helped me cast a spell on the city council and within 48 hours my country was great again. I can't stop”

Are you saying you’re married to the City Council, and they divorced you to get hitched to rent control? Are you saying you’re reverting to “witchcraft” to get a love spell to force them back to you? Are you suggesting “witchcraft” is the only solution to “Make America Great Again”?

By the way that slogan was stolen from Ronald Reagan, Trump must pay a trademark penalty for using it without authorization.

I think you might have a “fatal attraction” to the City Council, be careful you don’t make rabbit soup.

I hope you have a good sense of humor.

Business man,

Thank you for your warnings.

Redevelopment approvals are currently running between 10 to 12 months in the city of Mountain View, depending on how many coffee breaks the city council and building department takes.

As far as TCE or other soil testings it will come up clean. Your sky's falling lil chicken TCE is everywhere, abandon Mountain View thing is nothing but that.

I think waiting a year for approvals is nothing compared to forever rent control eating away my investment year after year not to mention the work to run it.

So my property here at the Current value is 20 units @ $575,000 = 11.5Mil
If I wait a year and redevelop 20 units @ $1,500,000 = 30 Mil

That's $19.5Mil more profit minus building costs which are about 500K/unit or 10 Mil and relocation costs of about $10K/unit.

So that leaves me $9Mil more in profit or over 20Mil out the door, see ya rent control Mountain View, if I redevelop.

Your a business man, what should I do?

I can't help but laugh at Bob's made up numbers that conveniently leave him with a massive windfall profit. Why don't you back your statements up with real numbers and point us to the parcel that you're talking about? Because you can't, as this is all FUD to undermine rent control.

Recall McAlister, Matichak, and Abe-Koga!

In response to Bob,

Your information you describe in my book is full of risk. My field in information security requires me to be VERY SKEPTICAL when warranted. Just understand when it comes to behavior of the housing market, it is not predictable. You can be reasonably assured of events as far as 90 days (except for the 2007 financial disaster), but making predictions financially over 2 or more years, and NOT anticipating any unforeseen obstacles, is like counting chickens before they're hatched. I would strongly urge you to seek more information than what you provided so far for your financial well being before taking any action.

My observation regarding the TCE problem is that even though the EPA and the California Air Resources Board are required to test the ambient air quality of Mountain View, it is not being done intentionally. If it was, there would be a high likelihood of scientific proof to warrant categorizing living in Mountain View unsafe. I will provide proof below. Intentional ignorance is occurring because the consequences of having a record of a problem would be to borrow the term from the Donald, “HUGE”.

I discovered the state of California Air Resources Board knows about airborne TCE if you read the following webpage (Web Link

In fact ambient monitoring is required by the CARB if you read this document (Web Link

The known health problems are discussed in this article (Web Link

There appears to be a requirement on behalf of the CARB, and this appears to be in fact not happening in Mountain View where it is a known toxin. I am going to contact them to see what monitoring information they have regarding the City of Mountain View. From what I can tell, they are not monitoring Mountain View site at all.( Web Link This means that the CARB is not getting an accurate measure of health risk in Mountain View.

The EPA is in fact not monitoring the ambient air quality if you look at the site reports on the EPA website.

I am very confused, if vapors are getting inside homes and businesses, it must be penetrating from the outside air. Thus the outside air quality must be significantly poor if venting and pumping the TCE vapors from inside the buildings back out of them is required. The only source it can come from is the outside air regarding vapors. Why, because the foundations of buildings should operate as a vapor blocking structure.

The pumps are simply filtering out the ambient TCE vapors before pumping the clean air inside to displace the TCE vapors. So there must be a significant amount of ambient TCE pollution in Mountain View. Measurements are being avoided to prevent the real story from being discovered.

This is very disconcerting.

Shame,

Thank you for your comment. The parcel is in Mountain View and is one of the 15,000 units that are under rent control. There is nothing unique or different than most other properties of this size.
The costs I state for construction are real from demo to final completion of new homes in this area. I know, I've done it before.

I think you'r scared that this is possible and profitable and could be done with at least 50% of the apartments in Mountain View because they meet the zoning requirements for redevelopment.

Also, the real estate market is on fire because of all the high paid workers that can't find homes now. This trend will continue for some time making it easy at the back end of this deal.

Now's the time to redevelop and tear down these rental units and 1031 exchange tax free into another non rent controlled market. I just wanted to inform other landlords of the profitability. Is that O.K?

What? The government is moving slowly? Say it aint so.

I love the people who say "We need to pass another law forcing the city council to do blah blah blah!"

You need to vote for a new city council if you don't like the one you have.

It's like we've forgotten who is in charge anymore. We elect people to REPRESENT us, not lead us. If they stop representing you to your satisfaction VOTE FOR SOMEONE else.

The last thing we need are more laws. God please no more laws.

C'mon, Bob, give us a parcel number or it's clear you're just blowing smoke on the Internet to spread anti-rent control FUD.

Nah, Bob has provided more than enough fact and information. It's the rent control advocates who blow smoke. But thanks for the laugh, that's a pretty good one.

In response to Bob and others regarding TCE problem:

Please read this information? It appears there is scientific evidence already that the ambient air is polluted very badly in Mountain View

If there is significant concentrations of TCE being measured inside a building, it only is logical that a greater concentration must exist outside the structure. The law of gaseous diffusion means that concentrations attempt to equalize or establish an equilibrium. As defined as:

“LAW OF GASEOUS DIFFUSION

THE LAW OF GASEOUS DIFFUSION STATES THAT A GAS WILL DIFFUSE ACROSS A SEMI PERMEABLE MEMBRANE FROM AN AREA OF A HIGHER CONCENTRATION (PRESSURE) TO AN AREA OF LOWER CONCENTRATION (PRESSURE).1 “

The relevance is that a structure can be considered a semi-permeable membrane and thus TCE will want to penetrate a structure where the structure has less concentration of the TCE. The amount of positive air pressure needed to prevent TCE from entering the structure is needed to be higher the concentration differential to the outside.

In other words one could say that if the atmospheric pressure inside a building is 1.25 pressure, so that outside gases are propelled away from the building. The vapors are prevented from “intruding” the structures.

By the way, the above NBC report stated:

“IT IS IN SOME OF THESE BUILDINGS WHERE EPA INVESTIGATORS FOUND LEVELS OF TCE VAPORS IN THE INTERIOR AIR THAT WERE AS MUCH AS 26 TIMES HIGHER THAN ACCEPTABLE SAFE LEVELS WITH AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEMS OFF.”

This would indicate to me that it is highly likely that the ambient air levels outside the building is in fact 26 times higher than acceptable exposure. Given that the vapor intrusion systems failed and the gases were allowed to equalize. Meaning the gaseous diffusion established equilibrium with the outside levels.

I am surprised that no one caught the implications of this on the public. Now it may be that bad “NEAR” the polluted site, but gases travel and attempt to equalize, if this is working correctly, the air outside the site air space can be very close to the same levels.

To me, unless there is any public records disclosing the actual measurements of indoor samples, which I have not seen any, or trends of TCE ambient outdoor measurement, I can only assume that this has not in fact occurred. This is very troubling.

The EPA cannot make any claims or promises that the public atmosphere in Mountain View is in fact safe. In fact, there is scientific evidence that implies that it is not safe. Only when scientific studies are published can we be assured of public safety, otherwise the only prudent assumption given the pollution that exists here, is that it is unsafe, until proven otherwise.

If only there had been a group of MV residents who had cautioned against V for this and many other reasons........

@True,

There was a group that predicted that the City Council would appoint an ideologue and two other landlord-favoring committee members (plus an alternate) in a transparent attempt to undermine the city charter? That's quite impressive!

Recall Matichak, McAlister, and Abe-Koga!

Well, actually, yes.

Those of us who opposed V put forth a myriad of reasons as to it's folly. Among them the mechanism for appointing board members and the inability to hold those board members accountable to the community once appointed.

This and a number of other negative consequences of V are now coming to pass.

Hate to say we told ya so but.....

Oh, neat, so you can point me to an MV Voice post or some literature from the group prior to the election which will contain that criticism?

Recall Matichak, Abe-Koga and McAlister!

There were multiple threads and discussions stating explicitly the concerns mentioned by True. Go look it up Shame, it's all in previous countless discussions.

Wow, if there were multiple occurrences prior to the election, it should be really easy to link to an example. I'm excited to see the post talking about the City Council would appointing an ideologue and two other landlord-favoring committee members (plus an alternate) in a transparent attempt to undermine the city charter. Thanks in advance, mvresident2003!

Recall Matichak, Abe-Koga, and McAlister!

Like I said, feel free to go look for them, not worth my time and not a crusade for me, have at it!

So frankly I am not clear about the current standards adopted by the pro-landlord majority on the Rent Committee. In general, an affected person has 60 days to file a lawsuit challenging an enactment. Is anyone going to sue? Is there going to be a lawsuit in connection with the the City Attorney's stipulation to a court order (TRO) delaying implementation of the measure? Landlords received an extra $15 million from tenants off of the delay.

In response to Gary you said: “So frankly I am not clear about the current standards adopted by the pro-landlord majority on the Rent Committee. In general, an affected person has 60 days to file a lawsuit challenging an enactment. Is anyone going to sue? Is there going to be a lawsuit in connection with the City Attorney's stipulation to a court order (TRO) delaying implementation of the measure? Landlords received an extra $15 million from tenants off of the delay.”

The CAA did file a challenge, and it failed miserably and it dismissed the case. So a lawsuit did occur and it was in effect litigated and found insufficient as a complaint.

As we now know the effective date is now confirmed as December 23rd, 2016, and that for a VEGA rent adjustment, if the rents paid are at or near the FMR standards set by the Housing and Urban Development department, there is no significant adjustments to be made regarding rent. Especially when the average rent in Mountain View is significantly higher than the HUD FMR.

From what we saw regarding the CAA challenge in December, there appears on its face that no constitutional or legal cause can be entertained at this time.