|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Mountain View’s City Council appointed two incumbents and a newcomer to the Rental Housing Committee Tuesday evening, showing a preference for candidates with a breadth of experience on housing issues.
Out of a pool of six applicants, incumbent Kevin Ma, a software engineer, picked up six votes from council members. Incumbent Alex Brown, a software engineer, and Emily Hislop, a housing administrator for the city of San Jose, were close behind, each receiving five votes at the March 18 meeting. Their terms begin next month.
Other candidates for the three available seats included incumbent Guadalupe Rosas, a SEIU organizer, who picked up two votes; Christopher Chiang, a former Mountain View Whisman trustee; and David Grimm, an engineer.
Council members expressed a desire for continuity on the committee, with a few making the case to round out the slate with candidates who have different perspectives and qualifications.
“I think at this stage of the RHC, I’m looking less for advocates and more for folks who are really focused on what is good policy,” said Council member Chris Clark.
The Rental Housing Committee is tasked with administering the city’s rent control programs for apartments and mobile homes, as well as adjudicating disputes between tenants and landlords.
The applicants drew attention to the importance of these functions in the interview process, emphasizing the role of the committee to help interpret the city’s rent control ordinances – the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act and Mobile Home Rent Stabilization Ordinance.
“The purpose of the RHC is to fill in the blanks,” Kevin Ma said. “The CSFRA and MHRSO are written at a high level, which means there’s a lot of situations that do need clarifications.”
In recent years, the committee has focused on phasing out a controversial utility billing system, known as RUBS, often used by landlords. Tenants had been experiencing fluctuating utility fees, making their rents unpredictable, which the RHC determined was out of step with the CSFRA.
Ma noted that the committee was still ironing out the process to get landlords on board and making sure there were no further CSFRA violations.
Ma, a condo owner, also remarked that he has an open mind and was willing to talk with people on all kinds of housing issues, as he serves as a legislative analyst for the California League of Women Voters.
Emily Hislop highlighted the issue of RUBS as well, drawing on her legal and administrative experiences. She previously worked as a volunteer mediator in Mountain View, and also helped develop and implement Project Sentinel, the city’s rental housing dispute resolution program prior to the passage of the CSFRA.
“I think transparency and everybody understanding what’s going on is key to help both sides,” Hislop said, noting that landlords could supply data, like utility information, to help committees make informed decisions. “Like any process, there needs to be some conformity and some predictability,” she added.
In her application, Hislop disclosed that she and her husband owned and rented out a condo in Sunnyvale.
Applicants also addressed the issue of retaliation, with suggestions to implement more outreach and work closely with the City Council on a potential anti-harassment resolution.
“We’ve had several appeals and petitions where people have expressed fear of exercising their rights until after they’ve moved out already because they are afraid of retaliation,” Alex Brown said. “That’s something that I think harms both the tenants and the landlords because it delays any kind of fact finding or understanding of what the situation is, or a resolution.”
Brown is a mobile home owner and has long been an advocate for strengthening rent control protections for mobile home tenants.
Council member Clark focused on the importance of the appeals process as part of the committee’s work, expressing concerns that people may view it as a way to game the system. “If 50% of the applicants know that their appeal is likely to come down on one side or the other, then it incentivizes the appeals process,” he said.
For these reasons, Clark said he was backing candidates for stability as well as their handling of appeals.
Mayor Ellen Kamei similarly remarked on a preference for stability and the importance of having different perspectives on the committee.
“I’m glad to see such a swath and such a diversity of our applicants,” Kamei said, expressing appreciation for applicants’ willingness to work collaboratively with the council.
The newly appointed committee members will serve a four-year term, joining Robert Cox and Edie Keating, as well as the committee alternate Mark Balch.
Did anyone else do a double take when they saw Chris Chiang’s name in this article? The guy resigned (for his second time) from our school board facing multiple issues, because he was moving to Redwood City, leaving the Board short a vote for an extended period of time. And not even a year passes and he’s moved back to Mountain View and is trying to get on a city committee. I’m sure things happen in life, but that was a big life change that we had to swallow on his behalf!
How can I trust his word on anything any more? I pulled his committee application and he couldn’t even be bothered to spellcheck it. In this day and age!
SMH