Committee neutral on just-cause

Joshua Pelzer

The Rental Housing Issues Working Committee will not recommend

repealing the just-cause eviction ordinance -- the city’s law

protecting tenants from retaliatory evictions by their landlords --

following a subcommittee report.

Despite a 6-4 vote to repeal the ordinance with 10 of its 14

voting members in attendance, the committee will not take a position

on the law.

“The bottom line is there is no recommendation from our committee

to the City Council to repeal the ordinance because we didn’t speak

with a three-fourths majority voice,” said Frank H. Whitehead III,

committee chairman and landlord attorney. “We decided, unless we

could come to some kind of consensus that was something more than

[around] 50-50, we would not make a recommendation.”

The vote followed a subcommittee report proposing amendments to

improve a law many tenants and landlords have complained is flawed.

The report is one of four submitted by subcommittees to address

rental-housing affordability, habitability, outreach and the

ordinance. The reports will be included in a comprehensive report to

the City Council sometime in September.

After nearly three hours of deliberation at its meeting Thursday,

nearly all the subcommittee’s recommendations were adopted, including

more exemptions for landlords and relocation assistance for tenants

under special circumstances. Greater measures to notify tenants of

their rights and increases in penalties for ordinance violations were

also adopted.

Proposals not meeting the three-fourths vote requirement,

including ordinance repeal, will be included in the report, with

arguments for both sides.

Ken Carlson, president of the Glendale Tenant Assn. and a

committee member, dismissed the repeal vote. Carlson voted against

repeal.

“This is an appointed group and it is stacked two or three to one

against tenants, so if a majority of this selected group favors a

course of action, it’s really just along party lines and not

reflecting the voice of the community,” he said.

Patrick Liddell, landlord attorney and the committee member who

made the motion to repeal, said the three-fourths requirement was

adopted to address Carlson’s concerns with the imbalance.

“Obviously, we want to make sure there is at least an appearance

of fairness on this, so I think it’s clear that, unless there is a

true consensus of the committee, there will be no recommendation to

the City Council,” he said.

Whitehead defended landlord and tenant advocates who have used the

committee to advance their positions.

“There has been some posturing and speechmaking, but that’s a

necessary part of the process,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons

we were brought into being -- to go through that process on behalf of

the City Council so they wouldn’t have to take the time to do so.”