HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-12-2013 ac schmidt ss1Goodwin, Heather
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Heather,
Agenda correspondence
thanks - Kathy
Smith, Kathy
Monday, November LL,201-3 9:05 AM
Goodwin, Heather
FW: More on Airbnb/Slohosts
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Nov 12 2013
5L Ci"TY CLHLTK,
AGENDA
CORRESPONDENCE
From: rschmidt@rain.org Irschmidt@rain.org]
Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 L0:26 PM
To: Marx, Jan; dcarpen@slocitv.org; Ashbaugh, John; Smith, Kathy; Christianson, Carlyn
Subject: More on Airbnb/Slohosts
Dear Council Members,
I hope you've had a chance to look through the nightly rental material I sent you last Thursday, which was current with
the news as of Wednesday (as far as I could ascertain).
Nightly rentals in neighborhoods are a hugely divisive issue. We have a fairly stable situation here because of the ban.
But if you open a hole in that ban, what will happen? Do you want to have the sort of bullying here that the linked article
describes in LA?
There's now a competing website that caters to students and university communities, and encourages students to rent
more space than they need so they can re-rent it on the web for nightly rentals, A number of universities have joined in
with this scheme. Can you imagine the hell that will break loose in SLO neighborhoods if you allow any type of nightly
rentals and this student site gets a foothold here? (We already have students renting nightly space on Airbnb, but thus
far it appears -- at least what l've seen -- to be summer sublets rather than full-year.)
It is important for you to realize that what's happening here is part of an organized worldwide effort by big corporations
to break down laws that ¡mpede the billions at stake for those big web corporations, like Airbnb.
The arguments are the same allover, the petition stratagem the same, the boorish behavior of the lawbreakers who
presume they are above the law because the laws are a nuisance to them the same, the bullying of people who disagree
with them the same.
To see what's happening in LA, another part of this well-planned battle, take a look at this article
I also would like to relay to you that for having the temerity to speak out publicly against nightly rentals, I have over the
past several days been subjected to considerable verbal abuse from the SLOHosts group. So has Bob Shanbrom, with
whom I appeared on the Congalton show Thursday. We were called, by the SLOHost callers to the show, liars, people
who had no facts, people who made up a whole litany of nonsense. We were belittled, put down. Zero respect that we
have a legitimate point of view and a right to express it, I have received emails accusing me of just about everything
except being an honest resident legitimately expressing his concerns about a public controversy, These people don't
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care about truth, facts, the law, or anything else decent people respect; they want their way, or, as they say, the
highway for anybody who gets in their way.
They are bullies. As the adults in the room, you have a responsibility to stand up to bullies.
You also have a responsibility to protect SLO's neighborhoods from additional things that drag them down - like the
transient occupancy nightly rentals.
Thank you
Richard Schmidt
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