Adoption of Resolutions Appointing Jerome Harrison and Karin Lucas, as Members of the Rent Review Advisory Committee (RRAC), to Four Year Terms Beginning October 20, 2015, and Appointing Thuy Nguyen and David Perry, as Members of the RRAC, to Two Year Terms Beginning October 20, 2015. (RRAC)
Six B Adoption of resolutions appointing Jerome Harrison, Karen Lucas, three Nguyen and David Perry as members of the Rent Review Advisory Committee. Speakers on the site. Do we have any presentation on this or the work? I'll go ahead and. I can make a brief, brief comment if you want me to have you. Basically, the city council enacted an ordinance which put the rent review advisory committee into the municipal code and the existing four members are being recommended to continue serving tonight. So that's before you just due to the new ordinance being enacted. All right, then. We have three speakers Katherine Paul, Katherine Pauling, John Kline, and then Jason Buckley. And you may all just come up and. All right. So I'm Katherine Pauling of the Alameda Runner's Coalition. And we took part many of us took part in the stakeholder meetings between landlords and tenants last winter. And while we did agree on sort of bringing the rec into the city with the hope that it really would become the basis of a meaningful rent board, we adamantly, adamantly opposed at every turn the 10% increases. And it was the one area that was never on the table as agreement. And yet the members that are being reappointed after many years service on the rack consistently, consistently voted 10% as an acceptable mediated settlement. Now, any renter facing double digit, 20, 30, 50% is told 10%, of course. What is the option? They may accept it, but in no way is 10% acceptable. With apartments at 2000 and above, that's 200 a year and only two years. It's 400 a month increase. Someone in a modest studio, 150 a year, 165 the second year, that's 315 increase and just over 13 months, 10% is not reasonable. And the current board, the members that you're reappointing after many years on the rack, have in fact supported that. And my fear is that although they may be very well intentioned, they're looking for some settlement the landlords will buy. But consistently the landlords have wanted 10% increases and they're getting it. Bringing the rack into the city was not to have you also agree that 10% is acceptable and appointing people that are going to continue that process , it's unconscionable. The neighboring cities that have any kind of protection for renters are in the one, two and maybe two and a half percent per year area. And this is basically approving five times that number. I cannot tell you, although actually we have been trying to tell you now for a year how hard it is on everyone in the community. And with over half the island renters, you have a responsibility to to protect and represent us, too. That's your job. So putting the same people into place, they're all professionals. I'm sure they all come with the best of intentions, but they don't understand. They don't understand how vulnerable our population is, how much we have already endured over the last two years, and what is coming ahead? How many of us are being displaced? We have provided you with maps that it isn't just low and very low income that are in danger, but moderate. Thank you. Thank you. John Klein. Hi. My name's John Kline, and I'm with the Alameda Renters Coalition. And I agree 100% with what Kathryn just said. I sent you a letter today that gives a detailed month by month report on rack votes for 10%. So, everyone, your point. The three members that are currently currently there, Mr. Harrison, Nguyen and Perry have again consistently voted for 10% increases. And with Mr. Lucas, we see no reason why she's going to be any different. And so to add to that, the point the point another point is these votes are unanimous at the rack. 5040. There's no liberal line. They're slugging it out for the little guy. There's nobody there saying, hey, wait a, you know, push him back consistently. What do you mean? Why do you need 10%? You can make a profit on 3%. There's nobody there doing that. The other mention I made in my in my letter to you is that the composition of the RAC is not sufficiently diverse. It does not reflect the economic, political, social and racial diversity of Alameda. Rack membership is drawn solely from the professional class whose economic and political interests often completely adverse to poor and working class. Alameda. And by that I mean you. This year you had 3 to 2 resignation resignations. Prior to those resignations, you had three attorneys and two real estate professionals. One of those attorneys was a real estate attorney. So you're filling two one of the two vacancies tonight with an attorney. And the other applications for the vacant position are two of the three were for an attorney then using one of those. The everyday person should not have to come in and deal with a bank of attorneys and real estate professionals whose interests truly are adverse to them as working class, lower class and poor. Why don't you have any activists on the rack? Why don't you have a single mother on the rack? You had a chair a couple of years ago who advocated openly that the rack, the purpose of the rack was to stop rent control. If I were if I were, you know, that I want rent control. If I applied for the rack, you'd say, you can't be on the rack. You want rent control, but you had a chair on the rack advocating against it. What's the difference? Diversity. You have no diversity. It's a singular view. And. That's just not a best practice by any stretch of the imagination. The other thing is that you're missing a city attorney there. It's full of attorneys, but you have no city attorney. There should be a city attorney there to make sure that the process is fair. So in my letter, we said that the RAC should be disbanded immediately. It's not doing at all what it should be doing. We should have an elected rec and you should also implement a moratorium on rents and rent increases and no fault evictions. And thank you very much. Thank you. And think. Hi, folks. I'm exhausted. It's been a long day. This is the last place I want to be right now. I'm here because I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated that the city is losing its soul. And we've got this rack, this toothless body that basically is rent control for the landlords. It's setting 10% de facto. Okay. Yeah, 10% sure. No problem. Nobody's getting a 10% raise yet, you know, no problem raising the rents 10% every frickin year. So, yeah, I'm a little angry and the guys have been dragging your. Feet offering bad proposals. Well, the one proposal I've seen is kind of insulting. We got to do something. We got to do something. Now, this Iraq is not cutting it. We need a moratorium. We need a rent control. We have to do something. I just heard about another complex that just is given 60 day notices to all the. Seniors on Section eight. They're planning on evicting everyone else in 60 days or by November. Has a moratorium tonight. And stop it. Thank you. Thank you. Jason. All right. There are no other public comments on this item. Member OTI Thank you, Madam Mayor. First of all, I think we have a meeting set for November 4th to discuss all of these issues and different possible ways we could solve the crisis of affordable housing here in Alameda. So I realize that it's not today, but, you know, it's sooner than December when when it was originally planned. And I wonder what the harm might be given that there have been some suggestions both tonight and in previous meetings that we consider a elected rent board. We may not we may we may do that. We may not. It could be that we give it expanded powers. We may or we may not. And I think that, you know, these positions deserve a lot more scrutiny from the council. And I don't always agree with the mayor's appointments, but what I do respect about the way she makes them is she does a tremendous amount of due diligence and interviewing and checking with them. And my understanding is that that was not done or these reappointment is usually they come before the council and the mayor makes her suggestions from a list. And, you know, we move forward in the following meeting and then the mayor appointees are approved and we haven't had that opportunity with these appointees. And I'm not being critical of their work. It may be that we decide, you know, these are perfectly fine individuals, but I think given the gravity of the rack and the gravity of what decisions we may or may not take on November 4th, it might make sense to just put off this re reappointment at least till after November 4th, when maybe we can consider, you know, this when we when we talk about other rent issues. Remember De. Well, thank you. I think the recommendation by Council Member Oti speaks to at least the in one respect, the magnitude of the housing situation that we're in. So at least by temporarily putting this off. We can certainly send a message that, you know, we need a Iraq that understands the needs of the of the rental community here in Alameda. I appreciate the data that was provided by Mr. Kline. And. I think, though, the responsibility lies not with Iraq, though the responsibility really lies with the city council. So it's the Iraq and the city council that have to come together because, you know, the buck ultimately stops with us, not just on November, but on any day of the year. So I think in that regard, I see temporarily putting off on the the appointments. I see. At a minimum, no harm in that whatsoever. And I see a lot of benefit out of that. So I would certainly entertain if if Council Member OTI suggested that we put off the selection of the nominees tonight . So I'd like. To see me run away. So go ahead. I can wait until you're done. Well, we have BRAC meetings continuing, so these members would continue to serve as my understanding until we decide. So these members could continue to serve under the current BRAC. I think this was a response to the prior agenda item that we approved, that staff was going to just have it seamless, seamlessly continue in that respect. Did you want to respond? To clarify? So. And so I would like to respond in regards to the the this item actually has staff recommending that I nominate the existing four members. It's a five member board. We did have a resignation recently from from the committee and that someone had moved outside of the area. So this is for four of the five members. There was a comment that suggests that stated that someone that was just appointed recently would very well vote as those before. And I would submit that. This is a new person. And with all due respect to how this person would vote, I think that it would be appropriate to see how this person votes. This person actually is someone that has served our community in many different capacities over the years. Ms.. Lucas. The other three members that I was being recommended that I reappoint have served. So whether or not they would continue, I think that there is that that council does create the policy and that we can give input. And in fact, in regards to that, I have attended, I believe, every meeting since I've been mayor. And with all due respect to the members that have been serving, they. I think that they try really hard to serve and meet the needs of our community. And whether or not that's actually working, which is I think is why the council has actually made changes to Iraq. And we have there was a long a lengthy process and recently it came to council and we all weighed in on that. But I am interested in hearing so and so in regards to the due diligence of my accepting staff's recommendation. I do think in regards to at least the person I just appointed in 2015, I would hope that that person would be allowed to continue. We just appointed her. She has no prior record on this and I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt in regards to her service, in regards to the other ones. I have seen them interact with the community members. So I'm comfortable reappointing them. However, I'm also interested in hearing other council members comments. Member Ashcroft Thank you, Mayor Spencer. I am inclined to agree with my two colleagues, Councilmember Odie and Desiree. I think we are finding ourselves in some new, uncharted territory. And because we have this special meeting that is coming up on November 4th, and I know staff is going to a lot of time and effort compiling the data that we asked for. We are all looking at how other cities are tackling this. It's a very much a regional problem, but cities are coming up with their ways of addressing it. And I think we can do some of those things in Alameda when it's brought to a full discussion. I, I do understand that until we finalize these appointees, the current slate would stay in place. And I, I would like the opportunity. I think that we may decide to give the RAC a little different function after we meet on the fourth. And I would like to have the opportunity to ask questions of our newest appointee. Ms.. Lucas I, I actually put in a phone call to her today and perhaps she's out of town, but you know that I wanted to ask her about some statements she'd made back when she was on the city council, but I don't think it's fair to bring that up unless she's here to to respond that. But I do have some questions I'd like to ask and probably, you know, in light of what the some of the folks have raised, we you know, we probably should take a little closer look now. I will say I like the idea of diversity, economic, ethnic, geographic. What have you. It could be decided. I'm not sure how having an elected body accomplishes that, because it all depends on who runs and who wins, but whether those would be criteria. And of course, and I know we've got an application out now, right, because I saw a copy of the for the winners slot. At CNN. And. It sort of. Saved the rest of that. Yeah. Yeah. So all of you tenants out there, you know, I hope you've picked up an application. If not, is it online? Yes. Yeah. So we can get it. From. Oak or from the clerk's office. You can get one anywhere. I would entertain the idea of putting this decision off until after. Mr. Deaver, you say until after sometime after the November 4th special meeting. I think we could reconsider this. And November 4th, when we talk about all of the the rent issues and know if we're going to come up with a. Direction to staff and come up with an ordinance or not. You know, I think it would behoove us to talk to all four of the members of the RAC and make sure that. Given that's our authority to to to confirm then to see if if they're in line with with our direction. And I would also encourage if that's the direction of counsel, I would encourage counsel to attend the meetings where you can see see them in action. And in regards to comments that we could select council members based upon being a single parent or economic diversity of Kansas City attorney. Would you like to weigh in on that? I think we may be entered in regards to our ability to ask some of those questions. You know, I mean, maybe we don't ask, but someone tells us. Well, I think what the mayor is referring to is just issues of privacy. And so there are certain questions you can't ask people when you're looking for them to be hired for a job, those kinds of things. So that, I think, is what the mayor's concern is. And that's why the current ordinance, frankly, is drafted such that it talks about being a tenant or a property owner and being a resident of the city of Alameda. And there's you know, if you just hypothetically, if we decide we're going to do an elected rent board, we could say there's two tenant positions or there's two landlord positions or there's one at large or, you know, there's there's ways we could do this. But, you know, I'd like to defer this until that discussion and, you know, not commit to, you know, to people with four year terms and two people with two year terms when we're grappling with how to solve this crisis right now. And my understanding is that was part of that part of what we've voted on before. The makeup of the commission was included in the ordinance. So that was part of the ordinance that we approved September 15th, I believe. If I may just clarify why staff brought this forward as we didn't want to not allow the REC to continue operating. When we are hearing from the community that there are so many issues and because we adopted you just adopted these two new ordinances, one that that constituted the rack and one that talked about the duties of the rack. And they both went into effect October one. We wanted to try to give the rack as much authority and have it properly appointed and all of that as quickly as we can. But I think what you're saying, I'm hearing you and I understand what you're saying, and I think that it's certainly true that we could allow the three members who are still on the rack to continue until their successors or. More members together. Therefore, we have one to be appointed, but we have four. She's not on. Then. I thought she was appointed before. She was already of. Okay, my mistake. So you do. Have a second? Mm hmm. So they were. Seated. At the time. That was the mayor's appointment. But we have four currently serving on rack and but it would be coming up next this. On the appointment to fill the fifth seat. Member. Ashcroft did it. So quickly and the vice mayor. I I'm glad to hear that we've got the meetings coming up again, because I did do my own little survey and a lot of the meetings had been canceled this year. So, I mean, I do want to see people avail themselves of the park, something perhaps we can discuss at the meeting on November the fourth. I'm just thinking about the composition of the rack. This is the Rental Rate Advisory Committee and only a rental review review review advisory committee, but only two of the five members. So a minority are actually renters. And I wonder if that's something the Council might like to. On the fourth. One right now, because there's a vacancy. Well, but I'm saying the slots are four to. So so the composition, which I believe was part of the ordinance we just firmed, is to renters, to landlords and one person that owns a home in the community. Exactly. And I do understand that. And I'm just saying, sometimes thinking evolves and my thinking is evolving here. And it's something I don't want to go into this because it's not agenda. It's but I'm just saying, when it comes up on this, the fourth, maybe we should stop and think, I know it's in the ordinance, but maybe it's worth a discussion. Vice Mayor. Okay. And I think that point of of. Looking at the composition is is an interesting point. I think the point about whether it's an elected body or an appointed body. This body has to function. And even if we decided that it was going to be elected body, it's going to be a while before that election can happen . And this body has to be able to function. And if the body can function now. Without interruption. I see no problem with waiting until after the end of the fourth. If there's a problem if there's if there's some some disadvantage that we get from not making these affirmations tonight with the authority that we've given the rack and in the audience change, then I'm inclined to vote for it tonight so that we don't lose any advantage that we have. But I I'd like to hear that. So the ordinance was actually silent about how this transition period would happen. But because all of our other boards and commissions, pursuant to charter and municipal code, the people who are in the seats remain there until their successors are appointed. I think it's it I think legally we can allow that to happen here. It is silent in the ordinance we wanted out of an abundance of caution, to have the council make the actual appointments pursuant to the new ordinance, which is why we are here tonight. But because of the hesitation I'm hearing. For good reason. I think we. Can continue on with the four members. Who are on the board. So I'd like to speak to that. The fifth member that is. I would like to be able to appoint. Is a renter. That is the position. Correct. Correct. Correct. So that is the position. So I believe that we should continue through the process with the appointment. And if at some point counsel wants to reconsider this, that I would hope that we would do that. Then I would I. From the comments I heard this evening, I don't believe the suggestion from the speakers is to have only one renter as opposed to two. Mayor Spencer, that would be a concern, yes. Maybe just so that the council gets a better understanding and Mayor Spencer could be making her nomination at the November 3rd meeting. But, Mayor, since I think it would be okay because you would make your nomination and then that would come back for the council on November 17th, which would be after the fourth. Right. But so we're all aware that I would like to proceed with the applications coming in from the possible renters who would like to be on this seat and not all. So so I would appreciate your support with that. So we can continue the process, make the nomination, and then depending upon what happens and try to try to at least get one more renter on the committee. That Mayor, I think it's I think it's imperative that you that we have that fifth seeded. Thank you. Because there is going to be a time with this as it's the ordinance sits right now. This body has to meet. It cannot not meet and has to have a full complement. But I definitely think that has to happen. Thank you. And in regards to member Ashcroft's comments that meetings have been canceled. It's my understanding that meetings are canceled when a tenant decides not to go forward at that time, usually because negotiations have are being made and in cases are being resolved. But the tenant is the person that files and requests that it be. Proceed, proceed. And then it is the tenant that then withdraws or requests a postponement. And it's my understanding that's why the meetings are canceled. That's not arbitrary. And I'm sorry. So. And I would just add this and I have asked staff to please capture that data of what happens when someone has filed the application and withdraws it. I want to know all the particulars because, again, we're just we're trying to be as data driven as possible so that we can fashion the necessary remedies when we meet on the fourth. So we already had public comment. Did you want to add something quickly. Or. No? All right. Thank you. Do you want to add something quickly? I would entertain that. And I appreciate your patience. And sometimes when that. Happens, what you're talking about, the cancelations because negotiations are occurring is an issue that we've talked about. We think the RAC should retain jurisdiction, even though they've said they've reached an agreement, they should come in and tell what that agreement is. So the same way that a landlord must appear, the tenant must appear also. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. All right. Any. Yes. Thank you. I'd like to move to table this item until November 4th. Okay. But the I just want to clarify that I will continue the process that receipt the tenant. Correct because the that's not in this at all. And I appreciate that. All right. All of us in favor of. A. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. All right.