"At this point, the exact reason why property owners aren't paying remains a mystery, said Anky van Deursen, the city's CSFRA program manager."

Why is it a mystery? It's laxly enforced, and why would you pay money to an organization which exists to make your life as a landlord miserable, when you can get away without paying.

Marcin, I'm shocked you would imply that landlords act unethically and don't obey the law. I've heard from many people here that "housing providers" are pillars of the community! If they only obey the law under duress, what kind of community members are they?

Why doesn't the voice post the entire list of delinquent land lords? Why just the big guys? It seems they were provided with a list that is public information, so maybe they should share it.

The city doesn't enforce the illegal parking of RVs on city streets in excess of 72 hours along with numerous other ordinances. Why should enforcement of this ordinance be any different?

@Randy Guelph, in a competitive market, competition keeps people honest. If someone is a crappy landlord, and you have an alternative, you move.

Our problem here is that we have a self-made housing crisis, without competition, which makes it impossible for some people to move, and you have unscrupulous landlords who exploit them. This is a subset of landlords, and you can't lump in the good ones with the bad ones. Some people suck, landlords or not.

The law is just words on paper, it takes men with guns to enforce it. Sometimes, laws are ridiculous, and people resist, so now the question is, is it worth sending the men with guns to make sure they pay their shakedown money?

Gosh, you libertarians are so obvious sometimes. Are you honestly claiming that Mountain View is going to send some SWAT team to bust down the doors of landlords who aren't paying their tiny annual fee? Let us know when you're ready to have a reasonable discussion with the rest of us adults.

I'm not a libertarian, I think they want too much government and their main issue seems to be weed.

Anyhow, what do you think happens after all the letters to pay are sent, and ignored? How does enforcement happen? First, court order, then, police. So, the city will probably send some sternly worded letters, then we'll see what happens.

I'm personally kind of allergic to this level of government meddling, being an escapee from full communism, so I always err on the side of not forcing people to do things.

They paid up to $50 a signature to get their sneaky repeal on the ballot, but can't pay their voter approved $100 per unit?

Vanessa Honey is a piece of work. I can't believe it Council members allow this blatant affiliate of the California Apartment Owners organization to keep detailing the voters intent for this law.
They all need to go! No one is happy with the direction MV is headed right now. And it starts at the top.

Almost every other rent control city splits these fees with 50% to the owner and 50% to the tenant.

The landlords in Mtn. View got scr$wed because Measure V was entirely written by outside tenant activists, not from Mtn. View, and they wrote the law to stick the entire bill to the landlords.

The Palmetto apts. according tho this article would annual owe $8,800 to the city, just for the rent control law.

Of course, the tenant activist do not see this as being unfair, and they would never consider to offer to pay for half of the bill for the law that they wrote.

@Randy G,
Yes, everyone knows your are an activist, who like Lenny Siegel/Job Lopez, hate landlords. With everything bad you keep saying about landlords, lets just pass a law and ban all rentals in our city, no more landlords.

The only good rent control is the economy, not some newly form bureaucracy of people behind desks tell owners what to do. Shame on MT. View for bringing this commie organization into being. No one in their right mind would rent with restrictions all about them. More owners will sell and the less rental units there will be. Simple logic the commie socialist lack.

Level the playing field, time to evict them from doing business here.

Thinking of those cash only establishments, well these landlords are lower than those predatory leeches. There's a game call Monopoly, and you have been figured out since 1902.

[Portion removed due to disrespectful comment or offensive language]
The rabble: FYI "libertarian" in the sense RG used it is not necessarily referring to registered members of the California Libertarian political party. It means - generically, those who like Henry David Thoreau believe that "that government is best which governs least." I also find many who have a libertarian bent to often over use the political word "communist.' I believe our immigrant/refuge from behind the Iron Curtain could tell you how that type of system generally works (no or little private ownership of income producing property).

Is my fellow UC Berkeley alum Councilman McAlister 'a commie' just because he is trying to preserve poorer-people rental housing by public or quasi public ownership? Ha Ha / @Randy and I can sure laff at that one!

In response to Marcin Romaszewicz you said:

“@Randy Guelph, in a competitive market, competition keeps people honest. If someone is a crappy landlord, and you have an alternative, you move.”

Not when you have a manipulated shortage of housing. The market has been shorted since 1970 in California. It really doesn’t matter if there are “good” or “bad” landlords.

In response to It's not fair you said:

“Almost every other rent control city splits these fees with 50% to the owner and 50% to the tenant.

The landlords in Mtn. View got scr$wed because Measure V was entirely written by outside tenant activists, not from Mtn. View, and they wrote the law to stick the entire bill to the landlords.”

The landlords had more than a year to negotiate a better deal. They in effect ridiculed and threatened anyone who would vote for Measure V and never demonstrated any good faith efforts. That is why the vote went for Measure V. You went on to say:

“The Palmetto apts. according tho this article would annual owe $8,800 to the city, just for the rent control law.

Of course, the tenant activist do not see this as being unfair, and they would never consider to offer to pay for half of the bill for the law that they wrote.”

Again, the landlords had more than a year to negotiate a better deal, your just angry that landlords mad such a poor choice of action.

In response to Rent control is a failure:

“The only good rent control is the economy, not some newly form bureaucracy of people behind desks tell owners what to do. Shame on MT. View for bringing this commie organization into being. No one in their right mind would rent with restrictions all about them. More owners will sell and the less rental units there will be. Simple logic the commie socialist lack.”

Please provide a better alternative? Landlords attitudes are either give us what we want or leave, and we are entitled to pass the cost of bad management to their tenants and the tenants must guaranty their profits. This is not real business. That is extortion.

Finally, it appears that many apartments are not paying the fees are in fact not subject to CSFRA, thus they can pass the buck to their tenants without restriction. This seems to reduce the quality of the argument against the fee. Eairler the claim was that the tenants should contribute to the fee. The newer units built after 1995 can in fact pass the entire cost to their tenants, and they probably do.