Page One

An alliance of progressive organizations sponsored a nominating convention at a packed North Berkeley Senior Center Saturday to select five candidates for the November Rent Board election. The approximately 120 pro-rent control residents in attendance selected a diverse slate that appears poised to use the rent board to further press tenants’ rights. 

Incumbent Selma Spector, U.C. Berkeley student activist Howard Chong, Housing Authority Commissioner Pinkie Payne, Green Party activist Chris Kavanagh, and tenant rights attorney Bob Evans were ultimately nominated from a pool of 10 candidates. 

The rent board has nine members, each with four-year terms staggered every two years. Five seats open this year. 

Convention rules required multiple rounds of balloting Saturday until five candidates received 60% of the vote. Spector and Chong passed the 60% threshold in the first round, as did Payne in round two. 

Due to time constraints, the convention voted that the top two candidates in the third round would join the slate. Evans and Kavanagh, were selected to round out the ticket. 

In addressing the convention each candidate affirmed their support for rent control and their disdain for the Costa-Hawkins Act, the state law passed in 1995 that ended rent control on vacant units and single-family dwellings. The eventual nominees, however, tended to more forcefully express their willingness to use the rent board to serve the interests of tenants.  

"We need tightened monitoring (of evictions) to make sure laws are meaningful," said Spector, who is considered to be a strong pro-tenant commissioner.  

Chong, a graduating senior and an appointed member of the Solid Waste Commission, stated that his chief aims would be to better inform tenants of their rights, and to provide tenants with a free legal service to fight evictions. 

"If they know their rights then they can fight," said Payne who invoked her grass roots organizing experience to call on the board to reach out to non-English speaking communities so that all tenants can better defend themselves. 

Evans touted the advantages of electing a tenant rights attorney to the board. "The purpose of rent control is to protect residents from unfair rent increases and evictions," said Evans who advocated changing the rules of the Annual General Adjustment to limit cases in which landlords may invoke annual rent increases. 

Chris Kavanagh described himself as a "rent control campaign warrior." He urged that the best way to restore full rent control in Berkeley was to organize a statewide renters movement to "tap the political power of California’s 10 million renters." 

The five nominees benefited from the organized support of progressive organizations attending the convention. The largest contingents belonged to the Peace and Freedom Party, which one official estimated had “two dozen" supporters in attendance, the Green Party, which numbered about 15, and different U.C. Berkeley student groups, which combined for approximately 18 delegates. 

The sponsoring organizations and several elected officials provided attendees with a recommendation list. The five victorious candidates were among only six that were recommended by at least two of the three largest groupings.  

One candidate who failed to win the support of these organizations was incumbent, Larry Harris. In contrast to most of the other candidates, Harris used his allotted time to send a cautionary message regarding the proper role of the rent board and the need for it to stay within its designated confines.  

Later, Harris counseled, "Some of the most rhetorically pro-tenant commissioners can threaten the existence of the board. If the rent board looks foolish and its rulings get overturned too often it makes it easier to attack the board." 

Harris didn’t think his defeat would significantly alter the board. "Once a new person gets on that person will learn what he can and can’t do," Harris said. 

It remains unclear whether the five nominees will face opposition in November. Historically, the pro-tenant slate faced off against candidates supported by property owners, who enjoyed a majority from 1990 - 1994.  

However, the board has been unanimously pro-tenant since 1998, and according to incumbent Commissioner Paul Hogarth, in the three elections held since the passage of Costa-Hawkins, pro-landlord groups have run in only one election. "Landlords have less incentive to run, and public opinion is against them," said Hogarth, who called the rent board the tenants' "only line of defense."  

Robert Englund, Vice President of the Berkeley Property Owners Association was non-committal about nominating a slate. Our experience however, is that very few reasonable people are willing to subject themselves to the biased processes of the rent board," said Englund.