On December second with six members present
a four-fifths vote of Council members present, or 4.8 council members, was required to pass the emergency ordinance.
The mayor announced that the motion carried 5 -1
1 recused..

6 present and able to participate, 1 no and 1 recused, not present and not able to participate.

The city attorney said no, four -fifths of 7 was required including the council member who was recused

So where in the code, local or state does it say that
recused members count for a vote?

Go along to get along. Conformity is the key to success within the herd. Palo Alto city council, don't you realize what a turn off your stance is to real estate investors? Rent control and it's handy maid "just cause evictions" don't exist in the real world outside of California and few other entitlement demanding states. Only a fool would invest in Palo Alto's rental market now. One must think of the future. This is why we have evolved the frontal lobes of our brains. City council: you flunk out of Palo Alto.

George Drysdale the tireless social studies teacher and initiator

Seriously? You are concerned about real estate investors who have been gouging tenants for years? Let's be clear--They aren't investing. Long-term landlords are taking advantage of Prop 13. They pay comparatively little in property taxes while they bring many new families into our schools and charge exhorbitant rents. They profit off community largess that was provided by the fools who voted for Prop 13.

I have a friend who lived with her family (with young children) in a small south PA rental condo for $3,500/month that was infested with rats, had dangerous, subgrade electrical. She and her husband solved all the problems her landlord would not (painting, electrical, vermin removal--in other words, made it marginally livable) and two years later the landlord increased her rent so much she had to move.

I'm pretty sure a special place in hell is being reserved for people who take advantage of young families and our community this way. The situation has gotten very bad. I have met several young families (who also are local workers, including two PAUSD teachers) who have been through experiences like this. I wonder how our community can maintain excellent quality of life with landlords who take advantage of community resources and their tenants this way.

Mind you...More than half of Palo Alto residents are renters. This is a non-trivial problem.

BTW...I am a senior who is done with the public schools, but I think Prop 13 needs to be gradually rolled back. It's very bad policy. There are other ways to insure that seniors can stay in their homes without giving unfair tax advantages to longer term property owners like big corporations (HP, Facebook, Google, Cisco, etc.) and predatory landlords who are worthy of central casting in a Dickens novel. Shame on them.

>> BTW...I am a senior who is done with the public schools, but I think Prop 13 needs to be gradually rolled back. It's very bad policy. There are other ways to insure that seniors can stay in their homes without giving unfair tax advantages to longer term property owners like big corporations (HP, Facebook, Google, Cisco, etc.) and predatory landlords

Well said. A simple way to fix this is to repeal Prop 13, equalize property tax rates across all owners of all properties, and then give "refundable" income tax credits to the less wealthy, seniors, and some non-profits. It would actually be quite simple to do this. The biggest problem, which we already have, is how to deal with self-serving non-profits.

It's about time this was passed!

I think Prop 13 is fine the way it is.

Actually, I would go a step further and say after 25 years of purchasing a property, said property will be exempt from property taxes unless it is being rented out or used for business purposes.

Unlucky 13 has hurt California and Californians for decade - except for a few tax winners. It stripped our schools, roads, libraries, law enforcement overnight. Repeal now.

The most important subject in school: social studies. Many commonly held assumptions are wrong. Supply and demand. How can there be "gouging" if a property owner can get a higher rent? Meanwhile because of a real estate interrupt, the great recession, we have a temporary supply problem. The problem is because of supply and demand there really isn't enough usable land to develop "affordable housing" a misstatement because somebody is finding the rental affordable. People want to live in the big tech winner cities or Paris and so they want subsidized housing and they feel they have a moral right. Fear not, there is always the fairy god mother.

George Drysdale the econ teacher and initiator

Posted by george drysdale, a resident of Professorville

>> The most important subject in school: social studies. Many commonly held assumptions are wrong. Supply and demand. How can there be "gouging" if a property owner can get a higher rent?

Of course, rentwise, "the market" is never wrong. It is always the "best of all possible worlds". Leibniz was correct, Web Link and, you are our Dr. Pangloss, bringing us the high school version of this philosophy. Which, coincidentally, endorses a situation in which the deck is stacked in favor of the plutocracy.

But, however perfect you think the rental markets are, they aren't working very well right now for people of median income, because there are too many jobs concentrated *right here*.