Dad to Resign From Rent Board

Santa Monica Rent Control Board member Julie Lopez Dad has announced that she will resign from the office to return to community activism.

Dad, who was appointed to the board in January, 1988, to fill an unexpired term, and elected in November, 1988, to a full four-year term, submitted her resignation to the board last week. She said she will stay until the end of the year to help implement the board’s inclusionary housing program.

It will be up to the other four members of the board to appoint someone to fill Dad’s seat until the next scheduled municipal election in November, 1990. The resignation means that four of the five seats on the board will be up for election then.

Dad, 45, a researcher for an investment firm in Westwood, said she is resigning because she believes the coming year will be a difficult year in which to accomplish anything on the board.

“I was looking at next year as being very tense,” she said. “Elected office has never been my favorite place to be.”

The coming year shapes up as a busy one. In addition to the scheduled elections, the board has several vacancies to fill on its staff as a result of resignations. The board is also involved in protracted litigation about the overall constitutionality of the rent-control program and is attempting to implement its much-criticized inclusionary housing program this fall.

The board will hold public hearings on the program, which would allow landlords to significantly raise rents on some units if they set aside an equal number of units at lower rents for poor and elderly people, this month and in September before taking a final vote.

Dad said that although she will be leaving elected office, she plans to remain active in rent control and city planning issues.

“I think people can accomplish more as community activists because of the dilution that takes place through political constraints,” she said.