Recently, the City Council called a special meeting to rescind an ordinance they had just passed at their previous meeting. This isn’t the first time this year they’ve held a special meeting to do damage control or walk back previous votes, which is making them resemble the gang that can’t shoot straight, except they’re more like the gang that shoots first and asks questions later.
The latest blunder was over a charter amendment, intended to protect rent control tenants, particularly elderly tenants with loved ones (such as siblings) caretaking for them. Such caretakers can be denied permission to cohabitate in rent control apartments, or worse, they can be evicted when the lease holder dies, potentially leaving them homeless.
The Council wanted to mitigate these risks, and their goal was laudable. Their method was unlawful.
They passed a ballot measure on July 14 giving tenants the right to have family members live with them regardless of lease rules, and since the government doesn’t want to be in the position of deciding who constitutes a “family,” the Council determined that anyone, related by blood or not, could be considered members of the tenant’s “household.” (Current law only permits spouses, partners and children.)
Then the Council went a step further, granting any member of a household the right to take over a lease after the original tenant departs, whether the departure is from this mortal coil or just from the neighborhood.
This is where they got out over their skis. If a rent control lease can be traded at any time to anyone, related or not, then there’s nothing to stop it from being passed from person to person, in perpetuity, removing the property permanently from its owner’s possession.
If we were living in Cuba, this wouldn’t be of particular concern, but since we’re not, it violates the law.
The City Manager assured the public two weeks later that this infraction was discovered “subsequent to the voting.” But that’s not accurate. Councilmember Lana Negrete repeatedly addressed the issue before the Council voted, warning of the negative consequences.
“The intent comes from a really good place,” said Councilmember Natalya Zernitskaya, referring to the motivation for the ballot measure, “but intent and outcome are not always the same.”
That’s the kind of forthright assessment we want from our council members. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t offered prior to the vote but only after being faced with the ramifications.
It was in fact good intentions that trumped all other considerations for most of the council members. These are the same council members that are digging themselves out from the $230 million (and growing) hole created by equally virtuous legislators, oblivious to the repercussions of their actions.
If this were the first time something like this had happened, I’d say give the Council credit for fixing their mistake. But it’s become a pattern.
In May, there was a special meeting to propose collaborating with the Coastal Commission after several council members had previously endorsed a bill threatening it. And in March, there was a special meeting to rectify a regulation unconstitutionally restricting the actions of neighborhood associations.
Michael Jenkins, a former president of the City Attorneys Department of the League of California Cities, expressed misgivings. “It’s not a desirable way to do business, to constantly have to have special meetings,“ said Jenkins, who is also a lecturer of local government law at USC. “It suggests things are being rushed and not being given proper consideration.”
In February, there wasn’t a special meeting, but there probably should have been, because the Council pushed through a flawed ordinance supposedly intended to protect workers’ jobs on the Santa Monica Pier but more likely intended to placate a powerful union in an election year.
If the council members hadn’t been embarrassed by their gambit, they would likely have allowed for the normal statutory review process by the Pier board. Instead, they rushed to vote (6-1) for something with critical typographical errors that negate its meaning. I’ve asked the city attorney repeatedly for the past three months why the ordinance wasn’t fixed, and she has refused to answer.
“It’s an odd situation,” said Jenkins. “Why wouldn’t you want to fix it?” He explained that errors can potentially invalidate an ordinance or lead to costly lawsuits. “The ordinance has to be clear, explicit and unambiguous to be enforceable.”
The most obvious reason for not fixing the errors is that there are far bigger problems with the ordinance. Accusations have been made that it violates state privacy laws and possibly federal labor management laws, and even if those accusations are proved wrong, its primary mechanism for assisting workers is so vague that it’s doubtful it could pass judicial scrutiny.
Let me be clear, the issue isn’t that the Council makes mistakes. The council members are human, and they have an immense workload. I can barely keep up with all the municipal documentation for the small number of items I choose to write about. Errors are unavoidable. It’s the unforced errors, borne too often of hubris, that are shameful and wasteful.
When I was a kid, my grandmother had a motivational plaque over her office desk; it said “If you don’t have time to do things right, you don’t have time to do them twice.”
Devan Sipher can be reached at Devan@smdp.com.