Marin IJ Readers’ Forum for July 19, 2023
State’s renter protections will never work for Marin
As a board member for the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative, I would like to say that our group takes issue with IJ political columnist Dick Spotswood’s conclusion in his recently published commentary (“Marin communities should be careful with renter protections, rent control,” July 9). We disagree that the state tenant-protection law “creates a reasonable uniform cap” on rent increases. Contrary to Spotswood, we suggest it is “good public policy” for communities to enact “their own and differing rent limits.”
The state’s “uniform cap” is just that. Annual rent increases cannot exceed the lower of 5% plus the cost-of-living increase or 10%. But the law expressly permits local governments to impose different limits, so long as they allow rent increases no higher than the state cap.
We believe that the state cap is simply too high, particularly in Marin where rents are already unaffordable for too many of us. It is hard to justify a landlord’s ability under state law to increase already high rents 5% beyond any increase in the cost of living.
For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s fair market monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Marin was $3,188 last year. If the cost of living were to increase 5% per year through 2027, a landlord could increase the monthly rent for the same apartment to $5,134 in 2028, a 61% increase over the 2023 rent. Even without any inflation over the same period, the same rent could go up almost 28%, or $900, under the state’s generous cap.
This is simply too high a burden on renters in a county like Marin. Our citizens often decry state regulations which limit local control over housing. Yet, Spotswood criticizes local tinkering with our state rent protection law, even though in this case it is expressly allowed.
Our cities and towns that address or are considering this issue, like Fairfax, Larkspur and San Anselmo, should be commended for examining whether the state limits are too high for their neighborhoods.
— Steven Saxe, Novato
Numbers did not account for state population drop
The California Department of Finance Demographic Research Unit (DRU) collects historical population data for the census and forecasts California’s population out to 2060. It generates forecasts for the state and all California counties.
By 2023, only three years into their forecast, it is already proving to be way too high. It projected that between 2020 and 2023, California’s population would increase by 1.4%. Instead, it decreased by 2.1%. As a result, it overestimated California’s population by 3.6% or 1.4 million.
The DRU population overstatement includes wider discrepancies at the county level. The DRU overstated Los Angeles County’s population by 4.7%, Santa Clara County by 6.1%, and San Francisco County by 8.5%. On a relative basis, the DRU overstated Marin County’s population by a lesser amount (1.8%).
As time goes by, the DRU forecast is likely to further overstate California’s population for two reasons. First, as shown above, it missed the work-from-home phenomenon that has caused many to leave California. Second, throughout its forecast, the DRU assumes that positive migration will rebound at near record level for the majority of the years out to 2060. This is not a realistic migration assumption given the long-term impact of remote working.
I think the DRU’s obsolete population forecasts resulted in flawed housing mandates policies.
— Gaetan Lion, Mill Valley
Corporate cannabis is ruining the industry
The Bay Area News Group editorial published in the IJ on July 11 with the headline “Stop cannabis industry efforts to target children” is both provocative and spot-on. I also think this issue was inevitable, due to the way that the legalization of recreational cannabis was enacted.
When California decided to over-regulate and hyper-tax this emerging industry, it froze out many of the artisan producers that built it when medicinal cannabis was legalized. The only ones left were ultra-funded corporate entities, who, like all corporations, focus on creating larger markets and establishing their brand.
Future profits depend on building brand loyalty, starting with the younger ages, much like Big Tobacco created brand loyalty by getting young smokers to choose their brand and keep it for a lifetime.
Why should we be surprised? We gave “Corporate Cannabis” the keys to the car, and now they are driving it to their best advantage, for as long as they are allowed to do so.
— Mark Silowitz, Novato
Bridges’ toll system can’t keep up with rising costs
Recent IJ articles about bridge tolls have me thinking about income from tolls and the cost of keeping our bridges in good repair.
In 1974, the toll on the Golden Gate Bridge was 75 cents. 2023 inflation adjusts that amount to $5.23. However, actual 2023 tolls range from a low of $6.75 to a maximum of $9.75. If the average toll in 2023 was about $8.25, it would represent an increase of more than $3 (or 57%) from 1974. Meanwhile, the 1974 tolls for all other bridges in the Bay Area varied between zero for the Antioch Bridge to $1 for the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. In 2023, all state-run Bay Area bridges charge between $3.50 and $7. The average toll is $5.25.
That rise is not much, especially since the price for one gallon of gasoline went from 50 cents in 1974 ($3.49 in today’s dollars) to about $5 today. Thus, the price of gas increased by 30%, quite a bit less than the Golden Gate Bridge toll. Almost all drivers spend more money on gas than on bridge tolls. That means consumers benefited a lot from lower gas prices and suffered less from higher tolls.
At the same time, studies show that construction and repair costs increased almost 7% every year during the same period of time. Consequently, I believe that the real costs of maintaining the bridges have risen much faster than the price of the tolls.
A modern society like the U.S. can no longer use the model of paying for building and repairing infrastructure by relying on tolls alone. Funding must come from every citizen, not just the direct users. After all, everyone benefits from the infrastructure, either directly (by using it) or indirectly, by others in their network, such as supermarkets, employees of their businesses or tourists that spend money in their communities.
— Immo Gunzerodt, Stinson Beach
Critique of behavioral health services on target
After reading the article about the Marin County Civil Grand Jury critique of the county’s behavioral health services (“Marin grand jury calls for better coordination of crisis services,” June 28), I am concerned that county officials are not only failing in terms of immediate crisis response, but in providing care during critical transitionary periods between the crisis-stabilization unit, MarinHealth Medical Center’s inpatient unit and patients’ homes.
The grand jury report points out that “62% of the phone calls to the access team in calendar year 2022 went to voicemail.” Our family’s emergency call went unanswered. That led us to call 911, which resulted in law enforcement coming to our home and furthermore, a poor allocation of emergency dispatch services.
Many of the crisis calls to that access team rely on it to help de-escalate situations with the help of psychiatric and behavioral health professionals. There is no question that Marin County needs to fund a “988 Lifeline Call Navigation Center,” formerly the National Suicide Prevention Line.
Marin’s Behavioral Health and Recovery Services division also needs to make sure that transition services are in place after each patient’s discharge to ensure their full recovery. A social worker should oversee outpatient psychiatric care and therapist access. Having a right to these services was never explicitly addressed to us. The service was not performed. It resulted in no liaison between our family and the hospital.
The level of communication between these facilities and patients’ families needs to drastically improve to guarantee quality care.
— Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş, Mill Valley