Letter to the Editor:
On 7/20/24 the Postal Service dutifully delivered a postcard from the Issues PAC of Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles. Its unbridled assertion that the will of Burbankers expressed by a 2020 Election partly about “Rent Control” is being ignored is a boldy, even over-dramatic, statement because it says, literally, the current elected City Council is usurping voter political power, negating the alredy expressed “public will”! Amazing strategic misstep by the gladhanders of AAGLA.
AAGLA’s wannabe generals have overlooked more than a few facts: namely, the vastly altered circumstances of the Nation’s and Burbank economies from nearly five years ago; The now obvious overshadowing of voters by tightly interconnected institutions such as out-of-Burbank major corporations; the growing despair of tenants cheated of habitable rental residences by depredacious alien LLCs even before tenants are summarily ejected via “Renovation Evictions”. loopholes.
AAGLA has flourished, mainly in Los Angeles, because it claimed to be effectively fighting “Rent Control” in that decaying city. Yet, a costly “Rent Control” exists in Los Angeles and other places after DECADES! “Mon & Pop” rental property owners are milked for the AAGLA dues year after year and, basically, are only funding a political organization that cooperates with big housing provider corporations.
Want proof? Compare the 2-story 1920s wood house AAGLA tenanted before “Rent Control” was passed in Los Angeles with their fancy HQ at 621 South Westmoreland Avenue in Los Angeles.
Richard B. Cathcart
Burbank
