40 States ban rent control? Sure. But this isn’t one. California is the 4th largest economy in the world and we owe it to our citizens to not gentrify their communities.

Property values? You want property values to go back up? Why? The market is already overvalued and people are losing their homes and rental properties due to the credit crunch.

Sure everyone’s hurting, but you hurt a lot less if you own a thousand units rather than a 3-family home, few of which can be found south of Los Angeles.

SMS

Yes or No, Up or Down, Black or White, Good or Bad, Democrat or Republican.

There more than Two (2) choices in voting.

While you are voting at the polls, early voting or mail in ballot, it is your choice not to vote at all for 98 or 99. The Blank or Blank vote.

My personal choice is the No or No vote, and there is nothing stopping anyone from voting the Yes or Yes vote too.

98 and 99 both change the California Constitution, is that really a good idea when both are being criticized? Being asked to take the bad with the good, because the good is needed is not a good idea.

So before you check the box YES on either 98 or 99, you need to ask yourself one question. “Do you feel lucky?”

Aside from the fact that 40 or more states in our nation ban rent control, which is akin to the state telling us how much we can sell our homes for, let me be a broken record. If you have a complex within a rent controlled area and ONE family deicdes to depart for whatever reason the remaining units are not impacted. The provision ONLY applies to that SINGLE location. Therefore current renters will continue to have the same protections they now enjoy.
Perhaps you prefer the socialist system of the former east block where the government provided the housing and a job.

If I owned property in a rent controlled city what incentive would I have to upgrade and modernize that unit or home if I was limited in the yearly or monthly increase of rent for said location? Please show me the text of Prop 98 that throws out the current occupant or the power to engage in a hostile eviction once our measure passes. You can’t because it isn’t there. You have bought into the notion that the ugly property owner, who has invested his or her money in rental properties has a team of agents ready to swoop down with eviction notices on June 4th. Simply another bogus allegation by our opposition.

How do we charge anyone rent? Can we at least agree that first you must own the property in question? As such this is a private property right no matter how many times and ways you try to convince others on this issue.

Stay tuned. I will continue with answering this concern after we return to southern CA. Larry G on the road but not out of contact with the Juice.

Once again, we agree on the eminent domain issue. What we don’t agree on is whether or not THESE initiatives are the best we can do.

SMS

How about buying me a dinner at the Five Crowns restaurant in Carona Del
Mar if I can prove that more Democrats and minorites suffer from eminent domain takings.
Ten years ago, while attending an Assembly hearing on redevleopment, I met Ronzel Cato, a fifth generation African American, the first in his family to be able to buy a piece of the American Dream, a home in the city of Fresno. The city’s redeveopment agency decided to take his land and offered 10 cents on the dollar of local comp’s as they turned his propoerty over to Roxbury Farms as a turkey or chicken processing plant.

At the Institute for Justice conference held in the DC area two years ago I met 140 victims, many of which are black and poor families from Riviera Beach Florida, Atlantic City & Jersey City, NJ, Brooklyn, NY and others from TX, Ohio and CA.

Please let me know the first (or last time) a property was “taken” in the city of Beverly Hills or Brentwood. I grew up in Newark NJ and saw the tenements which were government housing for those who could not afford to move out of those drug infested areas.While they were displaced form older areas, the government solution was terrible.

Senator Tom Mc Clintock had it right when he defined redevelopment agency activity as a system designed by Democrats to make Republicans rich.

Who do you think own the big box stores, auto dealerships and sports stadiums in CA. Republicans or Democrats?

From what is being told at the “pole worker training” (and what is not being said) I rechecked the number of voters who voted and the number of final votes counted in the Feb. election and only 75.7 percent of the ballots cast were included in the final count. (one poling place) (but from what others have said and the change in ROV procedures, I guess tossed ballots were high throughout the county)

One of the qualifications to vote is to be registered 15 days before an election. There is NO same day registration and voting. Anyone who votes “white provisional” to change their party (like what happened in Feb.) to vote, is re-registering and no longer a qualified voter in any election for a period of 15 days.

The registration deadline for June 3rd primary election is May 19th. (For changes and new registrations)

My response? I don’t care what the League of Cities’ intentions are. It’s not about politics for me, it’s about logic, removed from who is involved. It’s illogical and unethical to corrupt the ballot initiative process like the legislative process by offering the voters take-it-or-leave-it package deals.

I could be wrong. but your argument seems to have had a partisan tone. I love the scare tactics and anecdotes. Do you have any eminent domain statistics? Let’s look at the big picture of both what these bills do and how the passage of a loaded up referendum like 98 may lead to more of this kind of thing in the future.

I’m sorry but it keeps coming back to the rent control issue for me too. I actually don’t like EITHER of these bills, but by abstaining from voting for 99, I’d be voting for 98 by default and so I still say we need to approve 99 and improve it later.

Who cares about the poison pill? In my case, if I’m for 99, I see no problem with its passage killing 98. In fact, the League of Cities beat you guys at the bill-writing game and now ‘Yes on 98′ actually looks kind of petty and jealous.

Maybe someday we’ll get an initiative on eminent domain that Californians can feel proud voting for, but that someday is not today.

Damn Supremes! They got Kelo WAY wrong.

SMS

As a spokesperson for Prop 98 I am amused that the League of Cities supporters of Prop 99 have nothing to say about their ballot measure whenever we compete for endorsements. Their entire “strategy and tactics” are very transparent. They simply want to block our property rights protection while protecting developers. They claim support for Kelo type takings. Perhaps the Fifth Amendment was changed since I went to school and it now only protects single family owner occupied homes. That’s not what I read. If they truly care about protecting our private property from non public use eminent domain takings for developers perhaps you can help all of us out. If both measures pass on June 3rd why did they include a “poison pill” that would block the votes of Californians that support our initiative? Even if both are approved by the voters, should they get one more vote than our side our protections of small businesses, houses of worship, family farms and investment properties will be denied. Perhaps you can ask them why their failed legislation efforts, aka ACA-8 and AB 887 by LA Assemblyman (D) De La Torre, which had included protection for small business and houses of worship were not included in Prop 99 that followed that defeat? They could have worded their measure with specific protections knowing that our submission and approval of title, summary and text preceded theirs. And to argue that they are defending you and I with their measure is disengenuous?

As I am not in my office I need to end the discussion until I return. In the meantime think about the 200 homeowners and 300 business owners in Baldwin Park about to lose their properties. Around 30 years ago the city told one family that their facility was being taken and recommended a new location that would be safe from future eminent domain actions. So they took out a $125,000 loan on their home to facilitate that relocation only to have the city notify them that their current location, which the city suggested, was about to be taken. How does that true story sit with you? Why does Prop 99 reject our protection of that family business?
Silence. All I hear is silence. Have a great day.