Beverly Hills Renters’ Group Backs 2 Council Candidates

Concern for Tenants Rights of Beverly Hills, a renters’ group, announced this week that it is endorsing Ellen Stern Harris and Vicki Reynolds for two of the three at-large City Council seats up for grabs in the April 12 municipal election.

The group, which claims a membership of 2,000, could not reach a consensus on a third candidate, according to Herm Schultz, president. Schultz said the group hopes to reach agreement on a third candidate by this weekend.

‘Highly Supportive’

Schultz said the board of directors did not want to endorse just those candidates who would blindly support renters’ proposals.

“Both Harris and Reynolds are highly supportive of the issues of Concern for Tenants Rights,” Schultz said. “They have the greatest concern for the issues and the future of this city. We were looking for those candidates that would be most willing to listen to us and then try to deal with the problems.”

It is unclear what effect the endorsement will have on the election, in which 13 candidates are vying for three seats. Both Reynolds and Harris said the endorsement is welcomed, but they were quick to add that they are seeking broad community support.

“I’m delighted with the endorsement,” Reynolds said Wednesday morning, “but I hope to be elected by all aspects of the community. I am not a single-issue candidate. There are many issues that face the city, and rent control is simply one of them.”

“I’m very pleased, and I am hopeful that I will also receive the endorsement of the Beverly Hill Realtors, because I feel my policy of fairness and trying for consensus will be for the benefit of all in the community,” Harris said Wednesday. “Reasonable accommodations can forestall unreasonable inappropriate regulations for this unique community.”

Concern for Tenants Rights is 10 years old and has endorsed candidates since 1980--with mixed results. In the four municipal elections since 1980, five of the 10 candidates endorsed by the group have been elected.

Candidates endorsed by the organization have done better when three council seats were up. In both 1980 and 1984, candidates the group endorsed won two of the three seats.

Renters make up about 60% of the city’s population. It is not known what percentage of the city’s nearly 20,000 registered voters are renters, according to City Clerk Jean M. Ushijima. But of the 6,000 to 7,000 voters who actually cast votes in recent city elections, only about 15% have come from precincts where most of the apartments are located.

Potential Force

“Concern for Tenants Rights has not been that strong a political force in the past, but it has the potential to be so,” said one political observer who asked not to be identified.

Other observers said renters might come out in larger numbers for this election because of growing unhappiness with the city’s 10-year-old rent control ordinance.

At a candidates forum sponsored by Concern for Tenants Rights on Saturday, 10 of the 13 candidates showed up. There were about 150 people in the audience, but it was unclear how many of them were renters.

Several of the candidates said they favored or would consider most of the changes in the current rent control law backed by the group, including one that would merge the two categories of renters under the current law so that all annual rent increases would be limited to 8% or a formula tied to the consumer price index, whichever is less.

Currently, tenants who were paying $600 or less a month as of May, 1978, are covered by Title XI of the rent control ordinance, adopted in October, 1978. Annual rent increases for Title XI tenants are limited to 8% or the price index formula, whichever is less, and which recently has meant an annual increase of up to 4%.

There were no limits on the amount or the frequency of rent increases for all other tenants until 1976, when Title XII was adopted by the City Council to limit increases to once a year and a maximum of 10%.

Before the forum, a questionnaire was sent to all of the candidates and included the question: Do you favor merging the two categories of renters into one that would limit annual increases to the lesser of 8% or the consumer price index?

And, at Saturday’s forum, the candidates were asked the same question by a member of the audience.

Of the 10 candidates at the forum, three--including Harris and Reynolds--said they favored it, three said they needed more information before deciding, two said the categories should not be merged but perhaps the 10% maximum should be lowered, one said no changes should be made and one said he could not commit himself to any position at that time.

Sheldon Sacks, Concern for Tenants Rights attorney, said eight of the 13 candidates returned questionnaires before the forum. He added that copies of the candidates’ responses would not be available until later this week.

The one candidate opposing any changes was Robert M. Magid, a businessman who is also an apartment owner. He said any effort to strengthen the current law would hurt renters in the long run.

“I am not advocating the ending of Title XI or XII,” Magid said, “but if you make changes in the current ordinance it will become stronger than Santa Monica and West Hollywood, and that would not be constructive for the community.”

Magid was booed by a small group of renters in the audience.

The Beverly Hills Property Owners Assn. issued a statement after the forum saying that they counted only about 75 renters at the forum. Shirley Robin, the group’s president, said that the turnout of renters was an indication that “the existing Beverly Hills rent control ordinances meet the need of the tenants so that rent control is no longer an issue to the tenants themselves.”