Three UC Berkeley graduates — John Nguyen, Stefanie Rawlings and Alejandro Soto-Vigil — will run for positions as commissioners on the city of Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board.
According to rent board commissioner Katherine Harr, the board “administers Berkeley’s laws that control rents and ensure safe and clean living conditions, including overseeing the city staff at the board as well as deciding appeals from landlords and tenants who come to the Board to settle disputes.”
Currently, there are nine candidates running for four open commissioner positions on the board.
Nguyen, a 2012 graduate, said that he is running to advocate for safe and affordable housing in Berkeley. He said he hopes to do so by talking to Berkeley residents and using their opinions, especially students’, to figure out practical solutions for current problems in the city.
“I have been involved with several commissions and boards here in Berkeley that focus on housing and homelessness, and by being around so many involved people, I feel that these issues are too important to not be addressed,” Nguyen said.
Rawlings, who graduated in 2010, wants to be a commissioner on the rent board to continue fighting for tenants’ rights, to watch out for the disabled, students and low-income residents and to emphasize outdoor gardening spaces.
“Currently, there are people who want to garden outdoors but can’t,” Rawlings said. “As a student of urban gardening, I plan to make the city better through sustainability gardening.”
Rawlings was involved in the recent Occupy the Farm protest during which protesters set up an encampment on and farmed UC-owned research land in Albany.
Soto-Vigil, a 2004 graduate, has fought for tenants’ rights as a commissioner and vice chair of Housing Advisory Committee. He is also a legislative aide for Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington.
“One issue I plan to focus on is the soft story buildings in UC Berkeley,” Soto-Vigil said. “The buildings are not safe for major earthquakes.”
According to Worthington, incumbents Igor Tregub, Asa Dodsworth and Judy Shelton will run for re-election as commissioners. Tregub is also a 2008 UC Berkeley graduate. New candidates besides the UC Berkeley graduates include Mills College graduate Audra Caravas, Berkeley Planning Commissioner Patti Dacey and city Commission on the Status of Women chair Yelda Bartlett.
According to rent board commissioner Jesse Townley, a tenant convention will be held on July 8 at the main branch of the Berkeley Public Library for city residents to vote on four candidates to endorse as a pro-tenant slate for the November election. Townley said those who are not chosen for the slate must take a pledge not to run against the slate.
The filing period for candidates seeking election in November ends Aug. 10.
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Look, you have the demand level of a mini-Tokyo being suppressed by restrictive zoning and rent control. Mini-Tokyo is what it would look like without all the restrictions. Some people didn’t want that and got their preferences written into law. Of course they could not anticipate or control all the consequences of their hubris in doing that.
In the meantime you get to live with those consequences (and there are many) until it all blows up in the next quake (estado de emergencia!) or until the demand level coalesces into a political force and removes the restrictions. Trying to play God in the meantime and get things “perfect” through the RCB or planning or any other means is just equally stupid, hubristic, and ignorant of the existing reality. Your only other hope is that demand declines so much that there is a literal exodus a la Blade Runner or The Road.
Current student: if you currently live in a rent-controlled apartment, the Berkeley Rent Board is the reason you’re not paying more than you are. In either case, it works to ensure that your landlord can’t evict you just because they can make more money off another tenant. The ED’s salary is consistent with comparable salaries in other jurisdictions. Read the full story and the Rent Board’s response before making an assumption.
it is not true that berkeley rent control keeps student rents down: students are recent tenants, who typically change residences every year or two. under state law the rent on new tenancies is at market rates.
Berkeley rent control protects only long term tenants, older folks who often have more than adequate incomes.
as for the ED’s salary: it’s reported to be more than $180,000, PLUS benefits which in Berkeley add more than 50% to the base amount. a quarter of a million is a big number, especially when the number of controlled units has gone down, the number of landlord tenant disputes has declined, and the RB employee base is said to be only half of what it once was. these are the factors that causes the RB to look around for alternative reasons for being, like “poetry slams” and subsidies for outside lawyers.
Pablopoint: actually, if a student stays at the same residence for a period longer than a year, then the Rent Ordinance is the only thing in the way of the landlord’s ability to raise the rate to market. In addition, any tenants – even those not living in rent-controlled units – are protected by the Eviction for Good Cause Ordinance. The landlord is unable to evict a rent-paying, responsible tenant simply so that they can get higher rents off of someone else. The Rent Board enforces this ordinance as well. I would be happy to provide you some additional links if you don’t believe this factual information, which is well-established through the 32 years in which the Rent Board has operated. Despite the protections tenants have, students who recently join the Berkeley community need to be educated on their rights and responsibilities. The Rent Board has not conducted poetry slams in a number of years (when it did, it was a way to cater to a younger audience), but what it has done is worked with the ASUC, RLA, and other student organizations to create a series of workshops for students over the current year. One of the reasons formal landlord-tenant disputes are down is that more of our clients have a successful resolution process through mediation, a new service that the Rent Board now provides, as well as the ability to receive good advice from our housing counselors, which is often vetted with legal staff. I invite you to come in for a visit to the Rent Board office. We can arrange a tour for you, show you exactly how we have experienced an increasing demand on our services during a difficult economic period, and how we are actually doing more with less. We have fewer staff FTE’s than there were 5 years ago. Please contact me at [email protected], and I would be happy to set up a tour for you and provide you additional data that you can look at. Igor Tregub Commissioner, Berkeley Rent Board
wow! a tenant-slate with the candidates who are not selected for this “unbiased” slate swearing not to run against the others. And the Board is sworn to be an “impartial” judge of tenant/landlord disputes. So much for democracy in Berkeley. And these same folks complain that the grand jury, which just exposed the flagrant salaries etc of the Rent Stabilization Board, is composed of “biased” property owners.
What am I missing?
Rent Stabilization Board is a corrupt waste of money. The executive director makes over $180,000. Total gravy train.