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# Greed is not good
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/greed-is-not-good/
- Published: 2008-05-23T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:04:55.000Z
- Author: Jack Neworth
- Tags: Opinion, Ocean Park, #archive-import

IN A FEW WEEKS WE’LL ALL BE GOING TO the polls. Well, actually about 25 percent of us. June primaries, especially with no presidential or gubernatorial races, attract a low voter turnout. And this year there’s so much at stake. Proposition 98 would put an end to rent control. As a renter, this isn’t exactly heartwarming news.

It’s a little ironic that the initiative movement in California that began in 1912 by reformers is now dominated by special interests. Approximately 87 percent of Prop. 98’s $7 million campaign comes from apartment building and mobile park owners. You can’t get much more “special” than that. With the specter of losing my apartment, I’m packing up my sea shell collection, taking a wistful look back on my “hometown.”

When I first moved here in 1975, Ocean Park was hardly an upscale neighborhood. My apartment complex was built with low-income, HUD financing. Rents started at $245\. Today they start at $3,000 and go up to $5,800 (giving new meaning to “low-income”).

Soon everybody it seemed wanted to live in Santa Monica and rents skyrocketed. Each month waiting in the mailbox, was another rent raise. Residents, especially poor and the elderly, panicked. At the time I was neither, but I still panicked. In 1978 a rent-control initiative went on the ballot, but, guess what, it failed.

Dodging a bullet, some landlords preached moderation but they were ignored by their greedy brethren who felt that, in a capitalist system, supply and demand should always prevail (except for Chrysler or sub prime mortgage companies). The landlords figured they ought to gouge while the gouging was still good. As a result, the next year rent control passed. Ever since the landlords have been trying, by hook or crook, to overturn it. Prop. 98 may employ both hook and crook. When Prop. 13 passed in 1978 the landlords promised renters would share in the savings (and something about the tooth fairy, as I recall). Then in 1999 statewide vacancy de-control went into effect. You’d think they’d have been satisfied, but, unfortunately, greed is insatiable. It is, after all, one of the seven deadly sins, along with lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy, pride and not getting my jokes. OK, the last one I made up.

In 2003 Santa Monica landlords saw to it that No. 3304 was added to Rent Control regulations (saying either give us this or we’ll pass a state law that’ll be worse). The landlords reclaimed approximately 100 units through No. 3304 and since then things have been relatively quiet. But, just when you thought your rent-controlled apartment was safe, (like the monster in a bad horror movie) “The Landlords Are Back.” On June 3, Prop. 98 will be playing at polling booths near you. I’m giving it two thumbs down.

You have to hand it to the landlords, they’re like rust, they never sleep. Lest you think I’m being partisan, the big backer of 98, the Apartment Owners Association USA, in their March newsletter refers to rent control advocates as “terrorist bombers.” Whose style does that remind me of? Actually Bush/Cheney/Rove and the proponents of 98 have a lot in common. The neo-cons used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq and AOA is using “eminent domain” to end rent control.

The backers of 98 assure rent control residents they’ll be allowed to stay. Gee, thanks milord. Frankly, after 7 years of WMD’s and “we’ll be greeted as liberators,” such assurances are as comforting as “the check’s in the mail.”

In addition to ending rent control, 98 would stop cities from zoning to limit height and density, and would end the state’s environmental protections on the use of land (just what we need in the era of global warming). Don’t rich people have to breathe the same air? Or, maybe they’ve got something up their sleeve?

In my opinion, Prop. 98 is so onerous that it’s no wonder there’s a long list of thumbs down: The League of Women Voters, AARP, environmental and tenant groups, labor unions, League of Cities, the California Chamber of Commerce and even Gov. Schwarzenegger, who issued a statement, “While eminent domain is an issue worth addressing, Proposition 98 would undermine California’s ability to improve our infrastructure, including our water delivery and storage.”

Fortunately there is an initiative that does address eminent domain abuses, Prop. 99\. If 99 passes and gets more votes than 98, it will go into effect. The editorial boards of 85 percent of the newspapers in California have come out against 98, and most are in favor of 99 (so is Fran Pavley, who’s running for the Democratic nomination for state Senate from our district).

I’ll be honest. I don’t have a sea shell collection. With only 10 days until the election, maybe I’d better hurry up and start one.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 23, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/052308.pdf?ref=smdp.com)