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Who will be Arcata’s next city councilperson? That will be up to you to decide, Arcata voters! During a special meeting on Wednesday night the Arcata City Council voted to hold a special election during the June primary to fill the council seat being vacated by Vice-Mayor Emily Goldstein, who announced her resignation last week.

With Goldstein, who was elected in 2020, stepping down part way through her term, the four remaining councilmembers had three options to fill her position: they could appoint a new councilmember to serve until this November – at which point the seat would be filled by way of election, hold a special election in June to fill the position, or leave the seat open until the November election. The the vote was unanimous to fill the seat by way of a special election, although there was some debate about whether it would be better to hold the election during the primary on June 7 or during the general election on Nov. 8.

Councilmember Watson was initially in favor of placing the item on the November ballot, mainly because general elections tend to have a higher voter turnout than primary elections and Watson wanted to encourage the most public involvement possible. But the other councilmembers felt that it was important to have a full council sooner than November.

Goldstein | File photo from the City of Arcata

Several councilmembers also felt that placing the seat on the June ballot would be less confusing for voters than it would be to place it on the November ballot. Because both Councilmembers Watson and Meredith Matthews have terms expiring this year, the November ballot will already include the election of two new councilmembers for four-year terms. If a third seat was added, voters would be asked to elect one councilmember for two years and two councilmembers for four years.

Arcata City Manager Karen Diemer said that the special election will cost the City about $7,500. But all the councilmembers felt that it was important to let Arcata voters choose the new councilmember, rather than appoint someone.

“Especially for a council that has really, really been trying to focus on public engagement, I think appointing someone would probably not be the best thing to do,” Councilmember Matthews said during the meeting. “I think putting it out to the public would probably be the best thing.”

Goldstein will vacate the seat on March 1. Whomever is elected in June will fill out the remainder of Goldstein’s term, ending in December 2024. If you are interested in running for the council, you can pick up nomination papers at Arcata City Hall starting on Monday, Feb. 14. The deadline to file is 5 p.m. on Friday, March 11.

Here is more information on how to run from a City of Arcata press release sent this morning:

At a special meeting on Wednesday, February 9, the Arcata City Council voted to hold a special election on Tuesday, June 7, 2022 to fill Vice-Mayor Emily Goldstein’s vacant seat.

Goldstein will be stepping down from her position on the Arcata City Council on Tuesday, March 1 in order to support her family’s medical needs. Once elected, Goldstein’s replacement will serve her remaining term, which expires in November of 2024.

The Arcata City Council adopts laws and sets policies to guide the City Manager and City staff in City operations. City Council members attend two regular City Council meetings each month in addition to other special meetings and study sessions, and other monthly meetings of various regional agency partners.

Qualifications for individuals who wish to run for a seat on the Arcata City Council include that they must be at least 18 years old, must live within Arcata city limits, and are registered to vote at their Arcata residence address. Nominees must also obtain at least 20, but no more than 30, signatures of registered voters who reside within Arcata city limits and are registered to vote at their Arcata residence.

Nomination papers for the open City Council seat will be available to be picked up beginning at 9 a.m. on Monday, February 14 and must be filed by 5 p.m. on Friday, March 11 at the City Manager’s Office in City Hall, located at 736 F Street.

For more information, please visit cityofarcata.org or contact the City Clerk by email at bdory@cityofarcata.org or by calling (707) 825-2103.

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CORRECTION: This post has been changed to indicate the correct deadline for filing nomination papers — Friday, Mar. 11.

Sorry! No dumping today! From Humboldt Waste Management Authority:

Due to an unforeseen staffing issue the Hawthorne Street Transfer Station will be closed for solid waste disposal for the remainder of Thursday February 10th , 2022.

HWMA and its staff apologizes for this temporary interruption and we anticipate bweing open for regular business Friday February 11th . Staff will continue to work as quickly as possible to ensure these services are restored.

Jurors in the trial of double-murder suspect Ulisses Rodriguez began deliberating yesterday afternoon on whether Rodriguez is guilty of murdering a Southern Humboldt couple who were shot dead and set on fire.

The jury began discussing the case shortly after 3 p.m. after hearing closing arguments from Deputy District Attorney Luke Bernthal and defense attorney Andrea Sullivan. Deliberations will continue this morning.

Bernthal called the evidence against Rodriguez “overwhelming” and the killings a cold-blooded execution. Sullivan pointed the finger at other workers at the marijuana grow in the China Creek area and said this case is not about a few pot plants but about methamphetamine.

The victims, 32-year-old Jeremy Kuemmel and 31-year-old Tiffany Ellebrecht, had been working on the property while living in Kuemmel’s Ford Expedition. Their charred bodies were found inside the Expedition, which was parked in a turnout on Briceland Road, doused with gasoline and set on fire.

One of the main issues is the credibility of witnesses John Doe and Chano Sanchez, who testified Rodriguez told them “I killed (Kuemmel and Ellebrecht )” and he needed help dealing with the bodies. Bernthal described Doe and Sanchez as giving truthful accounts of the slayings, backed up by abundant physical evidence.

Sullivan, however, laid out a scenario in which Doe was selling meth to the couple, who were destitute. Doe and others conspired, killed the couple and left the burning Expedition on a main road “to send a message,” possibly that meth buyers need to pay for the product.

Although Doe believed Rodriguez shot the couple because they returned to the property after he ran them off for stealing plants, Bernthal suggested a different motive: Rodriguez, already so broke he couldn’t buy food for his workers, and plotting to rob his own grow, didn’t want to pay the couple for their labor.

The day of the killings — Aug. 14, 2018 — Rodriguez got a text from a property co-owner who said she and her brother were “done” with the operation. That meant no money at harvest time, and no money to pay employees.

“She was going to shut down the defendant’s grow site,” Bernthal told the jury. He also referred to a text from Rodriguez — after the homicides — saying “We’ll see if they give me 25 to leave.”

Rodriguez decided Kuemmel’s and Ellebrecht’s lives weren’t worth a couple of pounds of marijuana or a few thousand dollars, Bernthal said.

“That’s just about as cold-blooded as it gets. This was more of an execution than a homicide.”

Kuemmel, standing at the driver’s side door of the Expedition, was shot several times in the back. Ellebrecht was sitting in the driver’s seat, and at least one of the bullets passed through Kuemmel and entered Ellebrecht’s arm and chest.

“He finished her off with a shot to the temple,” the prosecutor said.

The physical evidence recovered during the investigation included seven .357-caliber bullets found in a burn barrel at the grow site. On Rodriguez’s cellphone was a photo of him holding a .357 revolver with a seven-round chamber.

One of the prosecution witnesses testified that after driving by and seeing the burning SUV, he noticed a Hispanic-looking bearded man wearing a black T-shirt and khaki shorts. He was standing by a car parked in a space too narrow for parking. The witness later saw Rodriguez’s mugshot and believed he was the man he saw.

Video surveillance footage shows Rodriguez at the Shell service station in Redway, pumping gas into a gas can. He is wearing a black T-shirt and khaki shorts.

Sullivan said the man on the side of the road “could have been anybody.”

Her theory of the case is that Doe was selling methamphetamine to Kuemmel and Ellebrecht. Both had ingested a large amount of meth before they died. With help from other workers at the grow, Doe killed the couple and left the Expedition on a road where a car passes by “every 16 seconds.”

Sullivan said the loss of a few marijuana plants does not warrant this level of violence. When she saw a photo of the burning Expedition, Sullivan said, “It screamed meth.”

It would have taken three people to accomplish the crime, she argued. One to drive the Expedition, one to drive the getaway car and one to be the lookout. For Rodriguez to do it alone “Is not factually possible.”

There was one man with Rodriguez: David Kane, who had just arrived from Hawaii and was there when the shootings occurred. Black latex gloves on the property contained DNA from both Rodriguez and Kane.

The video of Rodriguez pumping gas into a can shows he pumped for 30 seconds, Sullivan said. To create the inferno that destroyed the Expedition would have taken “can after can after can” of gas.

She questioned why Doe and Sanchez didn’t go immediately to the police after the couple were killed. Instead they went to the home of Randy Reese, who suggested they speak to a lawyer.

“Voila!” Sullivan said. “Suspects become witnesses.”

She also questioned why, if Rodriguez had just cold-bloodedly murdered two people, he allowed two witnesses to leave the property. Doe and Sanchez testified Rodriguez told them to go buy gasoline and be back in an hour. They didn’t go back.

“His plan was to burn them,” Doe testified.

As to Doe and meth, he admitted he used the drug for a time because he was so traumatized by the killings and being forced to chain up the bodies. Also, about a year after the incident, he was arrested in Humboldt on a meth-related offense.

Sullivan said Doe displayed classic symptoms of methamphetamine abuse, such as suffering hallucinations. Doe said he had mental health issues because of what he had seen and experienced.

Rodriguez is charged with two counts of murder, making criminal threats (to Doe) and arson. He also is accused of personal use of a firearm and the special circumstance of having multiple victims.

Judge Gregory Elvine-Kreis instructed the jury on the definitions of first-degree murder, second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

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It is with great sadness to announce the passing of Linda L. Mowrey, at her home in Fortuna on February 3, 2022. She had a year-long battle with diffuse B cell lymphoma.

Born in San Jose in April 1954, Linda was a lifelong resident of California, living mostly in Northern Mendocino and Humboldt Counties. Linda was raised by her grandparents Jim and Madeline Breedlove in the “house on the hill” between Leggett and Laytonville. She spent hours playing with her cousins in the woods and meadows around their home. Linda attended Leggett Valley School first grade through high school, she was one of 13 graduates in the Class of 1972.

While in high school, Linda met the love of her life, Mark. They were married in September 1974 after three years of dating. Linda became a military wife when Mark joined the US Coast Guard in 1975 and the adventure really began. Linda and Mark had two sons while in the Coast Guard, Don in 1976 and Jim in 1978. They eventually returned to Humboldt County where they made their home in Fortuna.

When not involved with the boys’ activities, Linda enjoyed cooking and baking (that she learned from her grandmother), sewing, needle crafts, stenciling, gardening and genealogy. For a time she made and sold candles as a business. Linda was a 14-year volunteer and committee member for the Eureka Relay for Life. Linda worked a variety of jobs beginning with the Leggett Drive-thru-Tree, Redwood Memorial Hospital, Gingerbread Mansion as the Inn-Sitter, C. Crane Company, American Cancer Society and finally retired from the Humboldt County District Attorney’s office.

Linda loved spending time with her family and friends at the Island Mountain, Dogwood Ranch. A favorite activity there was playing rummy with her mother-in-law Betty, sister in-law Georgie and friend Carrie. She enjoyed other outdoor activities, like backpacking in the Marble Mountains and camping in Yosemite. She made a gallant attempt at climbing Half Dome, it was just too much for her.

For their 25th wedding anniversary, Linda and Mark traveled by train to Washington, D.C. There they spent a week sightseeing, then for two weeks traveled by car into New England and Nantucket seeing the fall colors and local lighthouses. Her very favorite vacation spot, though, was Hawaii and Kauai.

Several years ago, Linda started the Mowrey Family Breakfast that was held annually on Christmas Eve morning at the Samoa Cookhouse. This gathering will be part of her legacy.

In 2005, Linda’s sister-in-law Georgie passed away, Linda was devastated. Linda told us that she had a dream about Georgie. In it, they had a conversation, Linda asked Georgie, “do you hear me when I talk to you? Georgie replied, “No, but I feel it when you think of me.” So hug your loved ones often and if you can’t hug them, think of them, maybe they’ll feel it.

Linda was preceded in death by her grand parents, Jim and Madeline Breedlove, her mother Peggy Thompson, aunt Betty Harris, Father Dennis Lankford, Sister-in-law Georgie Mowrey, in-laws Don and Betty Mowrey and cousin Jim Stickney. Linda is survived by her husband of 47 years, Mark Mowrey, son’s Don (Mary), Jim (Angela), Grand children, Mariah Miller, Meghan Mowrey, Greg Mowrey, Kyler Hill, Kalebh Hill, Caleb Mowrey and Jackson Mowrey. Brother-in-Law Dan Mowrey (Debo), Cousins Jerry Stickney (Sheila), Judy Thode (Carl). Father in-law Bill Barton. Nieces and Nephews, Madeline Thode, Megan Thode Weston Stickney, Josh Talbot. Half brother Dennis Lankford.

The family would like to thank Dr. Kate Estlin, her staff and other physicians at Ikigai Physician Group in Fortuna for the excellent and very personal care given to Linda during her illness.

Per Linda’s request she has been cremated and her ashes will be spread. Donations in her memory can be made to Hospice of Humboldt 3327 Timber Fall Ct, Eureka 95503, (707) 445-8443.

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Press release from Redwood Coast Gymnastics:

Five local gymnasts qualified to the 2021 State Gymnastics Championships. The Redwood Coast Gymnastics Team (training at Flips for Kids in Eureka) took 5 athletes to the Level 3, 4, and 5 State Championships.

It’s been a difficult year and half for all sports, and the sport of gymnastics fared no better than many others. These young ladies have had to deal with extensive gym closures, remote classes, outdoor trainings, etc. to continue to work in the sport that they love. Their accomplishments listed below are a testament to their hard work and drive.

Level 3 Results

Elliot on the beam!

Elliot Banducci (11, Eureka) had a barnstormer of a meet, bringing home two State Championships medals. Elliot earned the crown of Gold Medal champion on the Balance Beam (9.625), and danced her way to a bronze medal on the Floor Exercise (9.425). Elliot ended her impressive day in 7th place in the All-Around with a team leading 36.675.

Elliot on the floor!

Rori vaults!

Rori Copeland (12, Eureka) had an outstanding meet, bringing home the State Gold Medal on the Vault (9.50). She also placed Ninth on the Balance Beam (9.125), as she strode to a solid 5th place finish in the All-Around (36.45) tying with teammate Scarlett.

Scarlett Zerlang (12, Eureka) had a excellent meet (as she always does), with her best finish coming with a Silver Medal on the Balance Beam (9.675). She also placed 6th on both the Vault (9.075) and the Floor (9.30). Her final score was 36.45 (5th place) in her final meet of the season. Scarlett was promoted onto Team in the middle of the pandemic, and has done an admirable job in getting up to speed and maintaining her focus and drive.

Scarlett balances!

Kora Cox (14, Eureka) had a strong State Championship meet, just missing the podium on Vault (4th place, 9.30). She also placed 5th on the Floor Exercise (9.325). Kora finished with her highest All-Around score this year (36.325), placing 6th overall.

Kora soars!

Level 4 Results

Caroline Taylor (11, Eureka) had a very good competition at the State Championships, as she captured a Bronze Medal on the Balance Beam (9.50). She also placed 5th on the Floor Exercise (8.975) as a part of her strong competition. She finished the day in 10th place (34.70) in the All-Around, managing her highest score of the season.

How does Caroline do that?

Rose Harper (12, Eureka) had a great meet, bringing home 3 separate podium medals. Strong performances on all events allowed her to take home the Silver Medal in the All-Around (36.375). Strong events got to that achievement, as she earned Silver medal accolades on the Balance Beam (9.375) and the Vault (8.95).

Rose runs, flies, flips, sticks!

Eva Cox (14, Eureka) had a strong State Championship meet as our lone Level 5 athlete. Eva just missed the podium on Vault (4th place, 9.35). She also placed 8th on the Balance Beam (9.325) and 9th on the Uneven Bars (8.225). Eva finished her day with a 10th place in the All-Around (35.00).

There goes Eva!

Overall, the coaches were exceptionally pleased with how these athletes performed at this culminating meet; they were able to maintain their focus and display their best skills in high level competition. These athletes train 8-12 hours per week in Eureka and are very dedicated to their sport. The Head Coach is Brian Van Pelt; he is assisted by Rina Kondo.

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Unable to persuade California voters to do away with capital punishment altogether, the movement to abolish the death penalty is quietly shifting its strategy to shrinking the nation’s largest Death Row.

With the possibility of executions off the table for the foreseeable future under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2019 moratorium, advocates are focusing instead on narrowing the scope of when death sentences can be sought by prosecutors, plus other policies to make them a less normal part of the criminal justice system. The changes, advocates hope, will lay the groundwork to ultimately convince a majority of Californians that the death penalty is no longer necessary.

“The less it is used, the more likely it is that voters and elected leaders will be ready to get rid of it forever,” said Natasha Minsker, a longtime political consultant with the abolition movement.

But recent backlash to an unrelated plan by the Newsom administration to dismantle the historic Death Row facility at San Quentin State Prison underscores how elusive that goal remains and why the Democrats who control state government may be reluctant to embrace even modest proposals.

Though the San Quentin move has no practical effect on executions, Republicans quickly seized on it as another example of Democrats watering down punishments and favoring criminals over victims, a key message in the 2022 election as polling shows rising anxiety among Californians about public safety.

Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham, a San Luis Obispo Republican and former prosecutor, said Newsom and other lawmakers pushing to end the death penalty are disrespecting the will of California voters, who upheld capital punishment three times in the past decade. He predicted the “giant political disconnect” would eventually backfire.

“It just seems so out of touch to me,” Cunningham said. “It’s insulting to the memories of the victims and the families of those victims.”

Executions paused, but death sentences continue

Capital punishment exists in a strange limbo in California, the result of decades of pitched political battles.

The California Supreme Court, for example, was the first court in the country to declare the death penalty unconstitutional. Its decision, issued Feb. 18, 1972, was overturned by voters just nine months later through a constitutional amendment sponsored by then-state Sen. George Deukmejian.

Local district attorneys continue to seek death sentences and, each year, California juries send another handful of people to Death Row. There are nearly 700 condemned inmates in the state — 673 men and 21 women.

Prosecutors argue that it’s important to maintain death as a punishment for the most heinous crimes and as a tool to help secure plea bargains in other serious cases. Voters narrowly rejected an initiative to abolish the death penalty in 2012 and again in 2016. That year, they also passed a competing measure intended to expedite executions, which contains a provision about rehousing inmates that Newsom cited as the basis for his plan to repurpose the Death Row facility.

No one in California has been executed since 2006, however, after a federal court ruled the state’s lethal injection procedure unconstitutional. In addition to suspending capital punishment, Newsom in March 2019, just two months after he became governor, closed the death chamber at San Quentin and withdrew from a regulatory process to develop execution protocols that could pass legal muster.

“The steps he took right when he entered office were so significant and so dramatic,” Minsker said. “He is the most effective spokesperson in educating people about the flaws of the death penalty.”

Related:

The conflict, driven by deeply divided public sentiment, is unlikely to be resolved any time soon.

A poll conducted last May by the Los Angeles Times and the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found declining support for capital punishment among California voters. But while more respondents favored repealing the death penalty than allowing executions, it was still fewer than half.

Death penalty supporters have already written another initiative to get the system back on track — by limiting the governor’s ability to grant a blanket reprieve for executions and move appeals from the California Supreme Court, where they are bottlenecked, to state appellate courts — but are withholding it from the ballot until they sense a more favorable political environment.

Opponents of capital punishment do not currently have plans to put the abolition back on the ballot, an increasingly expensive undertaking.

A November report by the state Committee on Revision of the Penal Code, which unanimously recommended repealing the death penalty, laid out another path: While working toward that “difficult goal,” officials could take other steps to reduce the size of Death Row, such as granting clemency, recalling capital sentences and removing people who are permanently mentally incompenent.

Legislation to chip away at capital punishment

Three of the report’s recommendations are already in a pair of bills moving through the legislative process.

Assembly Bill 256 by Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San Jose Democrat, would extend a 2020 law that makes it easier to challenge convictions and sentences as racially biased. The measure would apply retroactively, potentially opening a door for inmates seeking to overturn their death sentences by pointing out that people of color disproportionately receive capital punishment in California. AB 256 passed the Assembly last year, but was held in a Senate committee, where it could be revived this session.

Senate Bill 300 by Sen. Dave Cortese, a Campbell Democrat, would limit punishment for people who are convicted as an accomplice in a homicide. Under current law, someone who commits a felony that results in a death can be charged with murder, even if they are not the actual killer, and receive the death penalty or life without the possibility of parole, if a prosecutor determines they were a “major participant” in the underlying crime and acted with “reckless indifference to human life.”

The measure would also give judges discretion to dismiss the special circumstances that qualify cases for capital punishment and instead hand down a sentence of 25 years to life, which would make the defendant eligible for parole.

“It’s important for the Legislature to make a declaration like other governing bodies have done that this is just not something we’re going to do,” Cortese said. “Moratoriums can be reversed.”

Tough votes for vulnerable lawmakers

Though it would affect only a handful of people on Death Row — Minsker called it “a modest reform to address a very extreme injustice” — SB 300 could be a major test of the appetite at the Capitol to take on the death penalty.

Because it would amend an initiative approved by voters in 1990, the bill requires a two-thirds majority vote in both the Assembly and Senate to pass. That likely means the measure would need support from nearly every member of the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority.

While it squeaked through the Senate last session, SB 300 has not yet come up in the Assembly, where bills to reduce criminal sentences typically face greater resistance and where five Democratic seats are vacant until a series of special elections that could last until June. Groups representing district attorneys, police chiefs and law enforcement officers are opposed.

This year’s election has further raised the stakes for members. All 80 seats in the Assembly and half of the 40 seats in the Senate are up for grabs in newly redrawn districts as the national political mood appears to be turning against Democrats. Cortese said many of his colleagues worry about being seen as too soft on crime by voters.

“Their world view, on even the case of the death penalty, ultimately come down to 100 feet in front of and to both sides of their front door,” Cortese said. “Tomorrow morning, something could go down in any one of these neighborhoods that becomes a punching bag for the opposition.”

In recent elections, California voters have supported a series of ballot initiatives to roll back the state’s legacy of harsh criminal sentencing policy, but Republicans are betting this will be the year when the pendulum swings back in the other direction. They plan to make it a central part of their messaging as they seek to flip enough legislative and congressional seats to deny Democrats another supermajority in Sacramento and help the GOP regain control of Congress.

“People are fed up,” said Cunningham, the Republican Assemblymember.

He said a bill such as SB 300 could easily become a liability in a competitive race, fodder for a mailer slamming a legislator for voting to water down sentences for murderers. He predicted that Democrats would try to prevent it and other potentially controversial measures from coming up at all this year.

“Even if you think those are the right policies, those are tough votes to take,” he said.

The end of California’s Death Row?

Those dynamics were previewed last week when the Associated Press reported that Newsom wants to clear out Death Row at San Quentin and transform it into a space for rehabilitation programs. The news drew massive public attention and some expected ridicule from Republicans, though experts on both sides agree that the significance of the proposal was overblown.

Prison officials plan to transfer California’s condemned inmates into the general population over the next two years, making it easier for them to work and pay restitution as required by Proposition 66, the pro-death penalty initiative approved by voters in 2016. The men could move from San Quentin to other maximum-security prisons, while female inmates, who are housed at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, would live in less restrictive units in the same prison. None will be resentenced.

“We preach justice. But as a nation, we don’t practice it on Death Row.”
— Gov. Gavin Newsom

The program, which has not yet been finalized, would extend a two-year experiment that ended in January and rehoused more than 120 people. A $1.5 million funding request to pay for a consultant to repurpose Death Row was a blip in Newsom’s nearly $300 billion budget proposal last month.

“It’s not a dramatic moment in the history of the death penalty,” Minsker said.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director and general counsel for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation and one of the authors of Prop. 66, said the governor was following through on the initiative’s intent. Because of the small cells at San Quentin, inmates must be held in single units on Death Row, he said, driving up the cost of supervising them and providing opponents a frequent argument against capital punishment.

“Governor Newsom has removed one of the arrows from the quiver of the people arguing for repeal,” Scheidegger said in an email. “That is the only thing he has done right in criminal justice since taking office.”

The change, like any involving the death penalty, nevertheless carries symbolic weight for many Californians.

Advocates for capital punishment said his actions were another slap in the face of the families of murder victims who have been denied closure for decades.

Matthew Rushford, president and CEO of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which has also defended California’s death penalty procedures in court, said he regretted the transfer and restitution provisions in Prop. 66.

Though they were included to make the initiative more appealing to voters, they were largely ignored during the campaign. Rushford said he does not believe they were ultimately necessary and lamented that they are now being used to move inmates to better living conditions with more access to benefits such as rehabilitative programming.

“We’ve learned from this governor that you leave any wiggle room and he’ll use it,” Rushford said.

During an appearance in Los Angeles last week, Newsom defended the plan as a natural outcome of the requirements in Prop. 66, before engaging in his usual long-view philosophizing. The governor said he looked forward to “advancing more leadership on reforming the death penalty,” a practice he has long opposed and referred to as “government-sponsored premeditated murder.”

“We talk about justice. We preach justice,” Newsom said. “But as a nation, we don’t practice it on Death Row.”

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CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Tenant advocates, racial equity groups, YIMBYs and even some of their usual opponents wanted to see the bill pass.

The cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles — which rarely see eye to eye on housing issues — as well as every Democrat on the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee had signed on.

So why did Assembly Bill 854, which would have curbed an owner’s ability to evict their tenants using the Ellis Act in rent-controlled jurisdictions, die without even a floor vote in the Democratic-supermajority Assembly?

Proponents of the longtime progressive priority — which promised to preserve the stock of affordable apartments amid a historic shortage — point to an aggressive campaign mounted by the deep-pocketed real estate industry.

“It’s insane to see so many groups working really hard on this and then still for it to not be enough because the opposition’s influence on our legislature is so immense,” said Sarah Abdeshahian, an advocate at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which co-sponsored the bill.

But just as a diverse group of advocates coalesced to support the bill, thousands of property owners — even those outside unincorporated Los Angeles County and 20 rent-stabilized cities directly affected — opposed it, united by a sense that the state is chipping away at their rights, just as COVID-19 has decimated their business.

“‘It may not be in my area, but it could be, next time,’” Sanjay Wangle, senior vice president of governmental affairs at the California Association of Realtors, said his members told him. “I think there’s a growing sense of sort of commonality of interest, which may not have existed before, between the Fresno property owner and the San Francisco property owner.”

Assemblymember Alex Lee, the Democrat from San Jose who authored the bill, says the legislation would have passed out of the Assembly and over to the state Senate but for the recent departures of four Democrats: Lorena Gonzalez from San Diego, Ed Chau from Monterey Park, David Chiu from San Francisco and Jim Frazier from Fairfield.

Lee is still weighing whether to reintroduce “substantially the same bill” next year or this legislative cycle — an option left on the table by having avoided a losing floor vote. Similar bills have been introduced, unsuccessfully, at least three times before.

“All those things are on the table luckily, and that’s something we’re still working out with our coalition, given the volatility of resignations,” Lee said. “That’s always our wild card.”

“This issue has been around for years and I understand the vote got very close, with significant new support for many corners,” said Chiu, former chairperson of the Assembly Housing and Community Development Community, who co-authored the bill last year and is now San Francisco city attorney. “And so I’m hopeful that there will be a real conversation about this in the coming months.”

Protecting small landlords — or big business?

The bill took aim at the Ellis Act, a 1985 state law that allows owners of rent-controlled properties to evict their tenants if they take all the units of a building off the rental market – a path that could otherwise be blocked by local governments guarding the precious stock of affordable units. Once off the market, those apartments can be sold as condos or demolished to make way for new homes.

More than 27,000 rent-controlled units have been removed in Los Angeles since 2001 using the Ellis Act, while San Francisco has lost about 5,000 units since then. And they’re sorely needed: the California Housing Partnership estimates 1.2 million low-income renter households don’t have access to an affordable home, and building a new government-subsidized unit costs an average of $500,000.

Related:

Lee’s bill mandated a five-year holding period before evicting tenants — an attempt to allow struggling property owners to go out of business, as had been the law’s original intent, while preventing speculators from buying up cheap properties and flipping them overnight. The bill also restricted the use of such evictions to one building per owner per decade.

That would significantly curb Ellis Act evictions, as three-quarters of evictions in Los Angeles between 2016 and 2019 occurred within five years of purchase, according to a recent analysis by Alexander Ferrer, policy and research analyst at SAJE in Los Angeles. But because of a glaring lack of transparency around who owns buildings in California, the effect on mom-and-pop landlords — a group the Legislature holds dearly — is difficult to determine.

In an opposition letter to lawmakers, the California Association of Realtors asserted that the bill would devastate “Struggling Small Property Owners Who Are Seniors or Individuals of Color.”

“I think it’s concern-mongering for a problem that we don’t know exists,” Ferrer said, citing the lack of demographic data on property owners. Wangle cited anecdotal evidence from their members.

“I think there’s a growing sense of sort of commonality of interest, which may not have existed before, between the Fresno property owner and the San Francisco property owner.”
— Sanjay Wangle, senior vice president of governmental affairs, california association of realtors

Ferrer’s analysis found that owners who had a property registered under their own name evicted tenants, on average, eight years after purchase — while limited liability companies, responsible for more than half of those evictions, did so in an average of just three years. But in California, it’s not uncommon for individual property owners to put even a single rental into an LLC.

That means a bid to win more votes — an amendment that carved out an exemption for “natural persons” who own no more than four residential units — is “not logical,” according to Debra Carlton, executive vice president and chief lobbyist for the California Apartment Association.

Ferrer found 45% of Ellis Act evictions during that time period in Los Angeles were filed by owners who held five properties or less – L.A. ‘s definition of a mom and pop landlord – a percentage Wangle, from the California Association of Realtors, says is not insignificant. Besides, he argued, the impact of the pandemic on small property owners should not be understated. Some landlords, he said, have gone nearly two years without rent payments, thanks to eviction bans, while still having to upkeep their properties.

“Among small rental property owners there’s this sense of, ‘Wait a minute. We’re enduring all these problems right now and again, more burdens are being placed,’” he said.

Tenant attorney Sean Chandra, from Public Counsel in Los Angeles, said the threat of an Ellis Act eviction remains a crucial tool for landlords, even if the court process isn’t completed. Instead of going through the Ellis Act, which mandates relocation costs between $8,650 and $22,350 depending on a renter’s age, income and tenure in the building, some owners pay tenants to leave by their own choice in “cash for keys” arrangements.

Chandra’s client, who declined to be interviewed, is facing an Ellis Act eviction at 416 South Catalina Street in Koreatown. The elderly woman and her adult son are paying $975 a month for their two-bedroom in the six-unit building, where they moved in 1996. The stucco-clad, L-shaped two-story, originally commissioned by a L.A. Times advertising executive in 1940, was deemed historic by the city, which means it can’t be demolished. The owner is hoping to mount it on a truck and move it elsewhere – and renting isn’t in the picture.

The owner plans to erect a luxury tower in its place — following in the footsteps of a 61-unit tower next door, where a 576-foot studio rents for $2,654 a month and where, according to the building’s website, “living your best life has never been easier.”

“You tear down an old building, you want to build something that’s going to maximize your income,” said John Greenwood, the developer’s attorney. “So it’s hard to incentivize building low-income property. And these Ellis Act evictions do displace poorer people, that’s understood. But, you know, that’s also the definition of progress – making things better.”

According to Greenwood, the tenant will be able to rent an affordable unit in the new building, provided she qualifies. Ellis Act restrictions in L.A. stipulate that if a developer builds market-rate units, a portion of them must be affordable, or all the units must be rent-controlled after the initial rent is set. But in contrast to rent-controlled units, affordable housing usually comes with income and immigration status restrictions, and sometimes, a long waitlist.

Demolishing rent-stabilized housing to make way for exponentially more housing is taking place across Los Angeles, according to Moira O’Neill, senior research fellow at the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment at UC Berkeley, who recently co-authored a report for the California Air Resources Board about social equity in housing development patterns.

O’Neill and her colleagues found that the demolition of at least 2,400 housing units in L.A. between 2014 and 2017 gave way to at least 12,000 new units. But the demolition of 1,600 units that were rent stabilized gave way to only about 1,300 affordable units on those same sites. Their geographic distribution was particularly troubling.

While every neighborhood type saw a loss of rent-stabilized units, most were lost in more affluent areas of L.A. like Westwood and Brentwood. Only 241 affordable units replaced the 1,092 rent-stabilized units lost in those same neighborhoods. About half of the rent-stabilized units demolished in moderate income areas, like parts of Koreatown, were replaced with affordable housing.

“It makes sense that people are trying to prevent that,” O’Neill said.

Policy and politics at the Capitol

California YIMBY, which often supports housing production efforts, backed the bill because production alone isn’t enough, said legislative director Louis Mirante.

“I think California YIMBY is a great example of an organization that endeavors to find the three P solutions: The production solutions, the tenant protection solutions and the affordable housing preservation solutions,” he said. ‘We’re not eager to pit those solutions against each other.”

The California Apartment Association, however, dubbed the bill the “Stay in Business Forever Act,” arguing that it restricted landlords’ freedoms. Carlton said while a property owner could still sell their building, without the option of turning below-market apartments into more profitable condos or market-rate units, the universe of buyers shrinks considerably. The powerful California Chamber of Commerce opposed the measure for the same reason, as did the California Building Industry Association.

Carlton also argued the bill would block “tenancies in common,” in which several families buy a duplex or fourplex together — the only way for some families to enter homeownership as median home prices top $700,000 in California.

“I support homeownership, but the question is: ‘How are you getting there?’” said Joan Ling, an urban planning professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. “Are you going to get there by dislocating renter families that most likely are going to have to move out of the area where they are living? There’s a big public policy question here.”

“It became just like an annoying screaming match where the Apartment Association will be saying one thing, we’d be saying another.”
— Sarah Abdeshahian, advocate at Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco

Abdeshahian, from the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, said that during the two weeks leading up to the vote, the legislators who had originally demonstrated their support for the bill began parroting the talking points they read in opposition letters by the Realtors and the Apartment Association, which spent $1.6 million and $1.3 million, respectively, in total lobbying efforts in 2021.

“That’s what killed this bill,” she said. “It became just like an annoying screaming match where the Apartment Association will be saying one thing, we’d be saying another, and why would they listen to us when we don’t give them any money for their re-election, but the Apartment Association is the reason that they’re in office?”

“I just don’t buy that,” Carlton responded, describing a clear division between the organization’s lobbying and campaign efforts. “This has just been a consistent policy that legislators haven’t agreed with.”

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