Thu, 15 May 2008 00:20:42 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Props. 98 and 99
(NOTE THERE IS NO RENT CONTROL IN GRAND TERRACE)
Below is an article from the Orange Co. Register regarding Props 98 and99. When you get around to discussing these propositions I ask that you consider the backer of 99. The main backer is the League of Ca. Cities. This is a private organization that cities join for a fee. Their"Gold" and "Platinum" sponsors are Utilities, Labor Unions and Developers.
The League of Ca. Cities hold seminars for cities on how to use and takeprivate property by using Eminent Domain. The later is the largest lobbying group in Sacramento.
If "Arnie" wants to save money for the State he should eliminate State and local Redevelopment Agencies. They cost taxpayers over a billion a year and is nothing more than free money for developers. Our property taxes go to pay off redevelopment agencies debt instead of going for what it is intended like schools, police and fire protection and infrastructure.
Both this propositions are being advertised on KFI at present. Please read this article below and help inform the voters as to how the developers and the League of Ca. Cities are trying to scam the voters once again. They were successful in our last election. Please don't let these crooks do it
ArticleMay 12, 2008
Difference between Props. 98, 99
Orange County Register
By GARY M. GALLES
The June ballot is bringing the issue of rent control back into the political spotlight in California.
Proposition 98 would protect all Californians from abuses of eminent domain, government's power to take private property, and phase outrent control.
Prop. 99 is a decoy measure that would override Prop.98 if it attracts more votes, was written by beneficiaries of eminent-domain abuse, and that the state's Legislative Analyst's Office concluded involved so little reform that it "is not likely to significantly alter current land-acquisition practices.
"Prop. 99 offers precious little protection. It wouldn't protect farmland, churches, businesses or rental properties from eminent-domain abuse. It wouldn't restrict the almost unlimited purposes for which governments can take private property, provided they provide some compensation. It leaves a gaping loophole for "blight," which includes anything government decides it doesn't like. It does notcompensate owners for fighting abuses.
So, Prop. 99's backers are trying to reframe the real reforms of Prop. 98 as an attack on renters. Renters and renters' advocates offer horror-story scenarios if rent controls were ended.
However, they omit the fact that Prop. 98 would only end rent controls after current residents leave a rental property. It also ignores the fact that rent control is simply a majority of voters (current renters) in a jurisdiction taking the property of a minority (landlords), which is why Prop. 98 includes it with other forms of government theft. Rent control is theft because it removes landlords' rights to accept better rental offers and takes away a large portion of their property's value (as shown in plummeting market values wherever controls are enacted) and gives the "savings" to current tenants (which why those tenants almost never leave).
However, tenants voting themselves $500 monthly rent reductions is no different than each of them robbing their landlords of $500 a month. But while robbery is a felony, the beneficiaries call rent control "democracyin action," as though a majority vote legitimizes theft. This can be seen by analogy to the labor market, where renters are sellers rather than buyers. Since a rent cap limits what landlordscan earn as well as what tenants must pay, the labor-marketequivalent would be a law prohibiting employers from paying workers more than, say, $10 an hour.
Renters would recognize a maximum-wagelaw as theft, even though it does the same thing rent control does to their landlords. The arguments made against ending rent control also demonstrate that it is theft.
Worries that rents would rise sharply without controls make senseonly if rents are being held below what apartments are worth (whatothers would be willing to pay). And Prop. 98 does nothing to change rents as long as tenants remain where they are, stopping only subsequent theft. Claims that landlords would evict tenants to gethigher rents or that rent control would reduce low-income housing reveal the same thing, because both scenarios assume that rents are now forcibly underpriced (they also ignore the fact that any government assistance should be financed by Californians, not forced on landlords).
Mobile-home owners complain that ending rent control would lower their home values. But that is only because rent control has transferred much of the value of the park's owners to the tenants. Prop. 98 would only undo that theft.
