From: Shelby S
To: City Clerk
Subject: [EXTERNAL] 7C: CITY OF ALAMEDA IS CITY"S BIGGEST SLUMLORD Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2024 3:37:19 PM
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This Comment is for tonights item 7-C 2024-3827 Amending the Rent Control Ordinance.
I support changing the law to be consistent with state law, but I object to the fact the the City of Alameda itself will not follow the law no matter what it says.
This law does not protect the renters in City of Alameda owned market rate housing on the former navy base because the City of Alameda does not follow the law.
The City owns 67 rentals (including the 18 Big Whites) on the Navy Base and is currently illegally charging rent in substandard housing.
City staff are prohibited from conducting Code inspections, and in the only 2 cases where tenants managed to get an inspector to perform an inspection in July and September 2023, City Manager Ott and City Attorney Yibin Shen have prevented them from following up and still have not fixed the Dangerous Conditions
(https://alameda.buildingeye.com/enforcement
).
Despite only 2 rentals being Violated, ALL the rentals have substandard conditions, and the City is knowingly concealing these and still illegally collecting rent.
The City Prosecutor will not investigate our complaints, and they are depriving us of the protections of the very law that is being amended tonight, denying our civil rights and rights to fair treatment under the law.
(How does a landlord not get fined for ongoing substandard conditions in a rental? When the landlord is the City and the City controls the Building Dept, that's how)
Despite these violations of the law and breaches of ethics, your City Council is is knowingly and willfully proceeding in bad faith pursuing an illegal eviction against me in retaliation for whistleblowing and so they don't have to fix the historic Big Whites.
The City has so far spent over $500,000 of (YOUR) public money on the lawsuit(s) against me (see PRA23-558 for a list of filings and see PRA 23-423 for records regarding the NOV at the Premises--there are others as well)
https://cityofalamedaca.nextrequest.com/requests/23-558 https://cityofalamedaca.nextrequest.com/requests/23-423 see also: https://cityofalamedaca.nextrequest.com/requests/23-369 ...and others
All the Big Whites suffer from the same deteriorating conditions, and the City has known for years that hey need to fix the roofs and the wood rot, but the intent is to let them degrade to such an extent that they can demolish them--there is even a name for it: "Demolish by neglect".
Hooray for the rent Ordinance, good luck getting any justice for City tenants--this will not hold corrupt City Officials accountable on their own properties.
Lets see what they say about this tonight!
--
Shelby
510-435-9263