City of Sacramento asks judge to allow it to keep rent control initiative off ballot

The city of Sacramento has asked a judge to allow it to keep a rent control initiative off the Nov. 3 ballot.

The lawsuit, which the city filed Monday in Sacramento County Superior Court, names Michelle Pariset as a defendant.

Pariset is one of three women who were listed as “proponents” when their 2018 ballot initiative gathered more than 44,000 signatures, enough to qualify it for the city ballot.

Then last year, the city passed a rent control ordinance led by City Councilman Steve Hansen. Two of the proponents, Margarita Maldonado and Omega Brewer, signed a letter saying the city could remove the measure from the ballot as a result of the new ordinance. But the third woman, Pariset, did not sign it.

Pariset said in a November news release that she would not remove the initiative from the ballot.

That could mean the council is still obligated to vote by this summer to place it on the Nov. 3 ballot.

“... The City Council has the putative obligation to place this improper initiative on the ballot, which would result in unnecessary voter confusion and frustration, as well as denigration of the legitimate use of the initiative process,” the complaint states.

In the lawsuit, the city asks the judge to declare the initiative is invalid, is too vague to be implemented and has been withdrawn by its proponents.

It also claims that the ballot initiative is technically an attempt to revise the city charter, rather than a charter amendment, which a ballot initiative cannot legally do under the state Constitution and elections code.

Tenant advocates say the ballot initiative would protect renters more effectively than the city ordinance, which took effect in September, or the state rent control law, effective Jan. 1. The ballot initiative would prohibit landlords from raising rents more than 5 percent annually. That’s compared to 6 percent plus inflation, allowed in the city ordinance and 5 percent plus inflation in the state law. Inflation is currently at 0.8 percent, due to the coronavirus pandemic, but last year it fluctuated between 2 and 3 percent. The initiative would also be permanent, while the ordinance will be reevaluated after five years.

The ballot initiative would also create an independent rent board modeled partly after one in San Francisco, comprised of elected members and one appointed by the mayor. The board would be able to set the allowable rent annual rent adjustment, hear individual rent adjustment petitions from tenants and landlords seeking exceptions, and go to court to enforce the measure, the ballot language said. The board would also be able to set its own budget, have access to staff, intervene as an interested party in legal actions, and have subpoena power.

The lawsuit alleges the rent board would create a “radically new dynamic in city government.”

“(The board is) so vague, uncertain and inconsistent with the remainder of the Charter and so logistically flawed as to be incapable of effective implementation,” the complaint states.

Instead of an elected rent board, the city rent control ordinance uses hearing officers who are city employees.

Pariset declined comment due to the pending litigation.

Councilwoman-elect Katie Valenzuela, who supports Pariset, blasted the city for filing the lawsuit.

“I cannot believe the city is spending resources on this,” said Valenzuela, who will represent midtown, downtown and Land Park starting in December. “In the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of social unrest calling for change, the city is spending time and money suing someone to try to suppress the rights of voters to decide on rent control? This is outrageous.”

Rent for the average apartment in Sacramento increased 45 percent in the last seven years, adjusting for inflation, a Sacramento Bee analysis found.