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May 27th, 2008
02:10 pm - No on 98 ( a continuing series until June 3)
It’s only one week until the June 3 election so here is one of my last pleas to vote No on 98. Please tell your California family, friends, co-workers and neighbors to go out and vote against this deceptive proposition.
From the Tenant Times:
Vote June 3--NO on 98 To Save Rent Control & Just Cause Eviction Protections
State Proposition 98 on the June 3 ballot will change your life and change our city forever if it passes. This dangerous measure would end all rent control in California. Worse, it would also end just-cause eviction protections.
If it passes, landlords will be able to raise evict tenants for no reason other than that they want to raise the rent.
The wealthy landlords backing the measure have tried to portray Prop 98 as a measure reforming eminent domain laws. Rather, it is a highly deceptive measure which actually puts forth an extreme right-wing property rights agenda that will give property owners an un-fettered right to make as much money as they want off of any property they own. Besides attacking tenants and rent control, Prop 98 will also end a number of environmental regulations as well as zoning and land use laws. Under Prop 98, developers will be able to ignore height limits in residential neighborhoods, build on environmentally sensitive areas and bring chain stores into neighborhoods where they are now prohibited. Prop 98 will also end requirements that developers build a certain number of units which are affordable to people with low and moderate incomes.
As noted, whether it's through raising rents on seniors or building 6 story condos in single family home neighborhoods or building on wetlands, Prop 98 will end all laws and regulations which place the good of he community above the profits of developers and landlords. Given how dangerous Prop 98 is, the coalition against it is huge: Besides every tenant and affordable housing organization in the state, those recommending No on 98 also include League of Women Voters, AARP, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, League of Conservation Voters, SF & California Democratic Party. Indicative of the broad damage which Prop 98 would do, the opponents of Prop 98 also include Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mayor Gavin Newsom, San Francisco Chronicle, California Chamber of Commerce, and SPUR (San Francisco Urban Planning & Research).
Despite this huge coalition, Prop 98 will pass if renters do not get out and vote! The backers of Prop 98 chose this June election--sandwiched between two high profile Presidential elections--knowing it will be a very low turnout election. In a low turnout election, renters tend to stay home, as do younger voters. If the renters in Los Angeles and San Francisco do not get out and vote, older, conservative property owners (who are the typical voters in a low-turnout election) will vote Prop 98 into law. Massachusetts lost its rent control several years ago thanks to an identical scenario: a statewide measure ending rent control was passed because voters in rural and suburban areas came out vote while renters in Boston and Cambridge largely stayed home.
While Prop 98 explicitly ends all rent control on June 4, the bulk of the damage of Prop 98 will be done by its Section 3, which prohibits transferring an "economic benefit" in property from one party to another. Balancing and transferring economic benefits is what underlies every regulation designed to protect tenants, workers, the environment or neighborhood character. A minimum wage law, for example, transfers an economic benefit from the employer to employee. The same is true with just-cause eviction protections: limiting a landlord's ability to evict transfers an economic benefit in the property from the landlord to the tenant; the same is true with limits on condo conversions (which Prop 98 will also end). Also likely to be ended by this language will be laws requiring landlords to give 60 day notices for large rent increases or no-fault evictions, as well as laws requiring relocation benefits for no-fault evictions. Laws limiting the amount of security deposits or limiting when a landlord can hold on to a security deposit will also end. Prop 98 is a constitutional amendment so its provisions will override all other local and state laws (and make challenging it in court especially difficult).
To get involved in last minute campaigning in San Francisco or Oakland click those links. In San Francisco, from Saturday-Election Day there will be a staffed storefront for election information and materials at 2797 16th St. (at Folsom).
I don’t know about the rest of the state, but there are resources for campaigning in your own neighborhood here at the No on 98 Yes on 99 website.
You can read all the anti-98 editorials here and watch the AARP ad here There’s also a video with a couple of melonheads that I wouldn't link except that one is named “Gordo”.
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Comments:
You are welcome! Sorry i never got a shirt for you.
I love your anti-98 fighting spirit.
go download a sign and stick it on your door!
Someone will just piss on it. Also, most people in my neighborhood can't vote.
You obviously have not been to my house.
But never fear, I will vote on June 3. No on 98!
that youtube video is ridiculous. too bad i agree with them, otherwise i'd smash those melon heads and do the Gallagher victory dance.
yes on 99. if it gets more votes, 98 won't go into effect. |
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