New SF Tenant Issues

There are two more urgent issues concerning tenants pending in San Francisco. One is the reversal and remand for trial by the Court of Appeal of a lower court\'s ruling in favor of Proposition G of November 1998 on the San Francisco ballot limiting owner move-in evictions to stop the epidemic of phony owner move-in evictions, whereby the owner never did move in, but rather took advantage of the California law prohibiting vacancy control and rented the apartment at a much higher rate. Prop G put a stop to that outrageous racket. This pro-landlord ruling, Keli Cwynar v. City and County of San Francisco, filed July 10, 2001, can be found at
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/
Then to:
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A089841.DOC
or
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A089841.PDF


The landlord-plaintiff\'s attorneys are the notorious Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Nayor. This reactionary law firm is best known as defenders of (1) landlords, (2) the Republican Party, and (3) the San Francisco 49er football team. The former owner of the 49ers, Eddie DeBartolo, was a staunch Republican and proud friend of Willie Brown, a good Democrat. More information on this outfit can be found either by searching for them at the lawyer/law firm locator site: http://www.martindale-hubbell.com/xp/Martindale/home.xml or by going directly to their website: http://www.nmgovlaw.com.

In case anyone is unaware, professional football teams have absolutely nothing to do with \"sport\" but are gambling rackets, as are professional baseball, basketball, boxing and soccer. If it were not for the gambling, they would not exist. That is why a profit-making law firm is very happy to defend them as they are a business. In a capitalist society, the name of the game is always money, and the primary law is maximization of profit. To that end, most capitalist laws put property rights before human rights. Only when the workingclass fights back do we have any tenant legislation and other pro-workingclass legislation, putting human rights before property rights. All housing laws that protect tenants are based on the premise that human need must come before private greed and that housing is a public responsibility.

The San Francisco Tenants Union will keep us apprised as to the outcome of Prop G in the courts, which could take months or years. Meanwhile, Prop G remains in effect. It is also true that McGoldrick\'s Tenants-in-Common legislation passed for a third time by the Board of Supervisors on July 9, 2001, overriding Willie Brown\'s veto, addresses some of the issues of Prop G. See: http://www.sftu.org/

The other urgent issue is the pending landlord legislation to repeal rent control that may be on the Spring 2002 San Francisco ballot, commonly known as HOPE, or as the Tenants Union calls it: No Help for Homebuyers, Huge Profits for Real Estate Speculators and Rent Control Repeal for Tenants. It is being promoted by Democratic Supervisor Tony Hall and of course that good Democrat Willie Brown. Since it is not likely Hall will obtain enough supervisor signatures to put it on the ballot, either Willie Brown can put it on as mayor or Hall can obtain 50,000-plus signatures to put it on the ballot. Willie Brown may be in trouble with his Democratic Party if he puts it on as mayor as the Democratic Party always officially opposes landlord initiatives and supports tenant initiatives so as to obtain tenant votes. If Brown does put it on the ballot, it will mean that the Democratic Party has finally decided to dispense with tenant votes. It is long overdue that tenants dispense with the Democratic Party as it is a capitalist, and therefore a landlord\'s party.

All landlord legislation on the ballot is always defeated as the tenants have the numbers and we always mobilize tenants to defeat the landlords and support the tenant initiatives. Thus, if this landlord legislation \"passes,\" we will know that Willie Brown has committed election fraud once again. His history of election fraud can be found at http://www.brasscheck.com/stadium

As to this legislation, more fully described on the Tenant Union website at
http://www.sftu.org/hopescam.html, The newest feature of this attack on tenants is that it includes large buildings. Previous attacks were confined to the 2-6 units buildings. If this vicious piece of trash is on the ballot, such a broad attack will create a broad base of unity to oppose it. Meanwhile, DO NOT SIGN ANY PETITION FOR THIS INITIATIVE. The tenants are not circulating any petition and thus anyone who claims to have a tenant petition is lying; it is a landlord\'s petition.

If you have had it with these anti-tenant Democrat-Republicans, consider joining a pro-tenant party, which always supports rent control and human needs, namely Peace & Freedom Party. For more information, see http://www.peaceandfreedom.org