Monterey Rental Registry 2

“Monterey Rental Registry 2” – Monterey Herald – Sept. 13, 2023

The 35 or so who attended the Monterey City Council meeting last week opposed the rental registry. They were mainly upset over the collective annual cost of $400,000 per year to operate the registry, including the policing power to arrest and penalize anyone who refused to participate in this useless program.

This is not a voluntary program. Every landlord has to fill out paperwork and pay an annual fee. But landlords can recapture some of this fee by passing it on to renters. How is this going to help the situation? How is this mandatory informational program going to assist renters? City officials could not answer that question.

You can now see why everyone at the meeting objected to it. This is why some in the audience referred to this coercive registry as “socialist” and “fascist.”

Furthermore, this program will not lower rents. Seattle created a similar rent control registry system. They lost over 10,000 rental units in one year because landlords sold their rental property. With fewer units available, prices for rents skyrocketed. The Monterey City Council members need to retake Econ 101.

–– Lawrence Samuels, owner of rental units in Monterey