The landlords' initiative charter amendment, if it becones law, would completely eliminate the rent control and "just cause" eviction measure approved by voters just 18 months ago. The claim that the initiative would just make some little amendments or improvements to the law is the FRAUD. No one should sign the landlords' petition.

THREE CHEERS for Dave Fork's common-sense comments. He has pointed out real-world grotesqueries in residential rent control that its advocates don't want people to know about. Their rhetoric is always dogmatic and demagogic: name-calling and rationalizing, instead of dispassionate analysis.

The comment posted above by "Tomi" illustrates this. The new proposal isn't a "landlords's" charter initiative, diverse citizens drafted it and support it. I've never been a landlord. I have rented under rent control, seen its full effects, and I don't want my town wrecked. Yes, we have a serious problem in Mountain View with recent demand raising the market price of rent. It hurts many people. But rent control hurts many people too, it's a seriously flawed response. Like when medicine relied on crude cures -- mercury and arsenic will treat some diseases, but at the cost of creating other serious problems for the patient. Why well-meaning middle-class people like Showalter, Rosenberg, and Siegel (themselves all personally, comfortably, insulated from the problems either of rising rents or of rent control) do not see this, when millions of other people do, baffling. Rent control is illegal in most of the US because of its well-established side effects; those who understand can only hope that something sensible, like a future nationwide Supreme-Court decision, will protect California too from the seductive trap that is rent control.

In response to Humble Observer I just want make sure the public is aware of this:

We are not loud, but we will call misinformation and deception for what it is. Dave Fork based his opinion on the propaganda provided by the false information used on the Measure V Too Costly Website Videos. I will go into a review of those videos:

Mike Kasperzak criticizes Measure V for not addressing homeless in Mountain View, it was not voted on to provide homes to the homeless. It was a rent stabilization policy, and it is working great. What are you doing Mr. Kasperzak for the homeless?

Margareta Abe-Koga makes numerous errors and false claims regarding the City General Fund. Claiming that the RHC budget is funded by the City Taxpayers, IT IS NOT. It is funded by fees paid by the landlords. So why should the electorate take her word?

Bryan Danforth makes the argument that the CSFRA caused problems between tenants and their landlords. Those problems existed for as much as two years before the voters took control of the situation because the City did nothing to create any improvements. This video simply doesn’t make sense.

Shari’s video simply is completely false because no homeowner that dollars are used in the CSFRA, even the loaned money paid to start it has been returned. Any cost of litigation will come from the CSFRA fund, which is funded only by Landlord fees. So this video simply is not true.

Dr. Ken Rosen simply makes conclusions where there is no economics research performed that has proven it is performed without a conflict of interest. The recent updated Conflict of Interest disclosure requirements found here (Web Link), are being ignored by these “researchers” because disclosure would invalidate their findings as a whole.

John Inks makes the claim that CSFRA is removing money from the city. What proof does he have of this? His major criticism is that the City Council has no control over it. That was done because the City Council refused to get involved to establish a resolution to the problem. They have no right to control any solution proposed by the voters.

Heather Sirk makes a false statement, CSFRA does not control the tenants screening process. It is not impossible to remove a “Problem Tenant”. Of course what is the “definition” of a problem tenant in her eyes is the most important question.

Todd Rothbard makes the argument that CSFRA will not allow landlords to remove dangerous, or offensive tenants. There is nothing in the CSFRA that does this. The fact is this video is designed to inspire fear and anger by those viewing it that is all.

Jim Claus complains that he cannot maintain or improve his property under CSFRA. That is simply untrue, except if you as a property owner depend on your tenants to make up for poor management skills. There has been ample studies that prove that rent control improves property management efficiency and as a result provides adequate returns on investments.

It would appear that these videos are simply making any argument possible to punish the citizens of Mountain View for taking the appropriate measures to correct for a serious crisis. That’s all it is.

NO ONE should support this initiative based on the above

Costa Hawkins was a Trojan horse with devastating results, please read the following opinion (Web Link

The fact was twenty plus years ago, however, Sacramento legislators took away the rights of local California governments to regulate the cost of rental housing. Passed by one vote in 1994, the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act froze or undid California's municipal rent-control laws. Ratifying the Affordable Housing Act would repeal Costa-Hawkins and give those rights back.

Republicans and the landlord lobby, which spent $50 million to push Costa-Hawkins, claimed the law would incentivize developers to build more housing, which would cause rents to fall. Yet rents are soaring, and affordable housing is scarce. When Boston lost its rent control laws in 1994, both median rent and the homeless population doubled.

The facts are Costa Hawkins set the state up for the following problems:

Instead of a building spree beneficial to California renters, Costa-Hawkins accomplished four things, each devastating to the affordability of housing in the state.

Costa-Hawkins exempted single-family homes from rent control, encouraging Wall Street speculation.

Before 1995, most municipal rent control laws applied to buildings of all types and sizes, protecting all renters from market whims. Costa-Hawkins mandated that rent control could no longer apply to single-family homes. The law's designers claimed the exemption would help mom and pop landlords maintain an investment property. Instead, it made the single-family market a playground for corporate gambling.

Invitation Homes — managed by Blackstone, one of the world's biggest financial firms with $450 billion in assets — is now L.A.'s primary landlord of single-family homes. Because of Costa-Hawkins, every one of these homes is exempt from rent protections. Tenants have no options but to pay up or leave when faced with rent increases or run-down conditions.

Meanwhile, Blackstone can spend $100 million a week acquiring foreclosed homes — it once bought 3,000 California homes in a day. It even invented a financial instrument to profit from all its rental income: rent-backed securities. Instead of protecting "mom and pops," Costa-Hawkins has lined the pockets of the biggest corporations in housing.

Costa-Hawkins removed all vacancy controls, making once affordable homes expensive.

According to the law, when Californians move out of a rent-controlled apartment, landlords can reset the rent at whatever they want for the next tenant. As rents soar, a target grows on the backs of long-term tenants, whom landlords are incentivized to evict. Harassment, deportation threats and "buyout" scams are some of the means by which landlords accomplish this goal.

Before Costa-Hawkins, Santa Monica had what's called vacancy control – there were limits on how much of an increase the next tenant would get. As a study by Santa Monica's Rent Board has shown, before Costa Hawkins, 82% of that city's rent-stabilized apartments were affordable to low-income households. A decade after Costa-Hawkins, only 14% remained affordable.

Costa-Hawkins legalized price-gouging.

Municipal rent control on apartments still exists in many cities, but Costa-Hawkins froze these laws at the year of their passage. For L.A., this is 1978. If you live in a building built after 1978, your landlord can raise your rent however much he wants, and at any time. A notification is all that's required for a rent increase: 30 days for a 10% increase, 60 days for more.

Extreme rent hikes have become commonplace. Last fall, Boyle Heights residents were hit with rent increases up to 80%, or $800 a month. Two-hundred families in Westlake recently saw increases of as much as 40%, or $475 a month — to name just two examples.

Costa-Hawkins supersedes local democracy.

The state law makes it illegal for Los Angeles and every other California municipality to step in and stop such rent hikes in their own backyards.

But the relative success of L.A.'s limited rent control shows the promise of its expansion.

L.A.'s 1978 ordinance limits rent increases to around 3%-5% a year — this is why even without vacancy controls, Mayor Eric Garcetti compared having a rent-controlled apartment to winning the lottery. As a 2009 report by L.A.'s Housing Department made clear, the ordinance protects tenants from being priced out of their homes when "hot" markets boil. It also gives landlords reasonable returns on their investments as well as allowances to pass on renovation costs.

As rents spike and the unhoused population swells, we can return to local governments the right to deter price-gouging and speculating, by repealing the 20-year-old, landlord-lobby Costa-Hawkins law.

Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal is a member of the L.A. Tenants Union. She tweets @xxexegesis.

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