Property rights are not more important than ‘people’ rights

I would like to comment on Ms. Parker’s letter.

Ms. Parker, now that you no longer live in a city sodomized by

rent control, are we to assume that you are still a renter? Or are

you now a homeowner from all that money you managed to save paying

nominal rents in East Palo Alto? I find it very difficult to believe

that anyone who has lived under such strict rent control as East Palo

Alto has would tolerate a non-rent-controlled city such as Glendale.

I also find it ironic that so many who have lived such comfortable

lives under the protection of strong rent controls for so long would

so hypocritically turn against it once their name is on the deed.

I agree that East Palo Alto is a slum, but is rent control the

problem, or is it those greedy landlords who could afford to maintain

their buildings with the city’s reasonable rate of return guarantee,

but choose not to do so? Do landlords have to be making a killing in

order to maintain their properties?

As to the high crime rate, rent control has built-in methods for

eliminating problem tenants. But are all tenants problems? If a young

man who still lives in his full-time working parents’ apartment

chooses to sell drugs or participate in gang activity, is it

politically correct to evict the entire family? No, it is not. The

responsibility is on the police to curb such activities, not try to

remove the entire family.

Yes, Ms. Parker, we will have rent control, and the City Council

agenda will be dominated by tenant politics. Is there something wrong

with that?

We, the tenants, are a two-thirds majority in the city of

Glendale. We, the tenant voters, will eventually vote in a pro-tenant

City Council and a pro-tenant mayor. The council agenda will include

tenant issues at every meeting. We are the city, more so than the

property owners.

There would be no conflict if homeowners and other property owners

would spend more time considering tenants instead of trying to

constantly worry about property values. These homeowner groups who

manage to get their presidents voted onto the City Council have done

nothing but try to raise property values in the city, which in turn

has destroyed affordable housing. Are property values more important

than people? Isn’t landlording a people business?

These pro-homeowner politicians have zoned down former properties

used for apartments. They have increased the size requirements for

apartments so fewer can be built. They have flooded the city books

with ordinances designed to make every neighborhood look like a park.

For Glendale, urban renewal has meant removal of the poor.

With tenants numbering 130,000 and homeowners numbering 70,000, it

seems to me that tenants are Glendale and Glendale is tenants.

Homeowners are pretty much a special-interest group. The organization

Property Owners for the Preservation of Property Rights is composed

of the Foothill Apartment Assn., the Glendale Realtors Assn. and the

Glendale Chamber of Commerce. This (group is) striving to preserve

homeowner and landlord domination over tenants. They are supported by

a number of greedy homeowner organizations, such as the Homeowners’

Coordinating Council, the Mountain-Rossmoyne Assn., the Northwest

Homeowners’ Assn. and the Rancho Homeowners’ Assn.

Are property rights more important than people rights? How many

people have to starve so that houses can be sold at three times what

they have been bought for?

Every so often, someone comes along who fights for the rights of

the innocent and vulnerable. Every so often, someone comes along who

is willing to make sacrifices for social justice. People like Mother

Theresa, Abraham Lincoln, Ken Carlson, Martin Luther King. I urge

everyone who cares more about people than property rights to go to

www.glendaletenant.com/text2.htm and seriously consider this divine

instrument that will promote social justice and protect innocent

people.

MARLENE RYDER

Glendale