“With this, I believe we’re trading one problem for another problem. I think we can do a lot better and I think we should,” Simon said. “If this doesn’t pass, I really will help try to create something, if it doesn’t (pass), that gets rent control.”

Fellow panelist Craig Castellanet, an attorney for the Oakland-based Public Interest Law Project, challenged Simon’s interpretation of the proposed ordinance, saying for new construction, there would be no previous rent for an elected rent board to use to set the first tenants’ rent. Castellanet was part of a three-member legal team assisting the four primary authors write the rent control ballot initiative, according to one of the authors, Cynthia Berger.

Read the full story by Jessica York in the Santa Cruz Sentinel here.

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