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I thought the ballot was short last time but this is even shorter. Someone wasn't thinking about the cost of holding two primary elections...ah, politics.
Proposition 98 - Rent Control and Eminent Domain - No (somewhat reluctantly)
Seems like these are two different subjects so they should be two different initiatives. But I'm not a lawyer and here it is.
On the rent control issues: I'm both a landlord and a tenant, just to make sure I get the maximum amount of abuse. People who own property think it belongs to them, and so do people who rent. Hence, unending conflict. There are nutcase landlords and nutcase tenants, neither side has any monopoly on righteousness.
Basic supply and demand pushes rents sky high in places like San Francisco, where lots of people want to live and work. The demand side problem is overpopulation. There is no greater global issue, we have been breeding like lemmings and the competition for resources on our finite planet is likely to get much worse before it gets better. Drill down, and this is the root cause of nearly all other hot topic issues, global warming, energy consumption, etc., etc.
So that's a longer discussion (and immigration doesn't have anything to do with it). The supply side in SF keeps shrinking since only TIC conversion makes any economic sense as a strategy for an actively involved property owner. What you get is an intensely adversarial and dysfunctional situation. I can't find the reference at the moment, but I read there are 15,000 units sitting vacant, their owners finding this cheaper than dealing with the city's grossly unfair and unreasonable rent laws.
The lawyers and bureaucrats are the real winners. If you have a longterm rent controlled apartment in SF you may think you've won the lottery - until you realize you are also a prisoner, locked in and unable to make positive life changes when it's time. If you're just moving to town and looking for a place, good luck. Your exhorbitant new rent subsidizes the obstinate. And if you're an SF landlord, eventually you'll start channelling Tony Soprano.
This article is a bit outdated but does a good job of explaining the underlying economics.
Like most economic regulatory schemes, there are individual winners and losers. By definition, a really good government program or regulation is one I don't have to pay for that gives me great benefits, and a bad one the opposite. Usually it's the wealthy screwing the less wealthy, so rent control is in fact an exception to the norm. Clearly poor, elderly and disabled people need economic safety nets - no one with a shred of humanity can argue against that. Yet rent controlled tenants aren't all poor, and landlords aren't all rich. Income disparity is another big problem, but this is a haphazard and strange way to deal with it.
So why am I voting no, then? Well, there's the eminent domain thing. Sometimes government needs to use it for the public good. This proposition goes too far in limiting that. It would be a disaster environmentaly, and I like trees.
Proposition 99 - Eminent Domain - Yes
But that's not to say there haven't been abuses of eminent domain, which this proposition addresses. There was a horrible Supreme Court decision (four words that go together all the time) allowing government to use it to help private shopping center development. This sets things straight, which is good.
Other people who sometimes agree with me but not this time:
More information resources:
Ballotpedia discussion - of this
Smart Voter - lots o'links
Project Vote Smart - even smarter?
Around the Capitol - lots o'information here
Fundrace - find out who your neighbors gave money to in 2004
Open Secrets - another place to follow the money, which is really the only way to understand politics in Amerika...