| (November 3, 2020, 8:40 a.m.) -- Will Mayor Robert Garcia use his City Charter authority to veto a "tenant anti-harassment ordinance" enacted at a specially called pre-election Council meeting by five of LB's nine Councilmembers?
At the midday Monday Nov. 2 Council meeting called by five Councilmembers (for the day before LB Council elections CDs 2, 6 and 8), Vice Mayor Dee Andrews (motion-maker seeking re-election Nov. 3) supported by Councilmembers Zendejas, Pearce, Uranga and Richardson enacted an ordinnce enabling LB tenants to sue landlords (and potentially obtain money damages) by alleging harassment without citing bad faith or landlord intent to harass (a requirement present in other cities' tenant anti-harassment ordinances.) Four Councilmembers (Price, Supernaw, Mungo, Austin) didn't attend (likely realizing the five special meeting co-agendizers had sufficient votes to prevail.) As an emergency measure, the ordinance takes effect immediately...unless vetoed in the coming days by Mayor Garcia Motion-maker Andrews, who's historically been supported by landlord and development interests and is endorsed by Garcia, shrugged pleas by property owners to amend his ordinance motion to include an "intent" provision (included in similar ordinance in other cities.) Andrews is facesg a stiff reelection challenge by Suely Saro, backed by organized labor. Mayor Garcia could veto the Council action...and (since it requires six Council votes to override) his veto would stick (unless one of the four Council non-supporters changes their stance.) But in their public testimony, no property owner reps publicly urged the Mayor to veto the ordinance if Andrews failed to amend it to include a bad faith/intent provision...which Andrews didn't do. It remains to be seen if any property owners or others in LB's "business community" will now publicly call on Garcia to use his veto authority to block the ordinance (unless amended.). [Scroll down for further.] |
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Garcia is widely speculated to be positioning himself for a possible appointment to a position in a Biden-Harris administrtion. He endorsed Harris for President (who swore him into his second Mayoral term), then (consistent with CA Dem's party leadership) switched to endorse Biden. For weeks, Garcia has filled his personal Twitter feed with Tweets highlightug his campaign efforts for Biden.. If Garcia were to exit for a position in a Biden administration, he would effectively hand LB taxpayers a roughly $1 million cost for a special election to replace him.
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