HomeMy WebLinkAbout10/28/2025 Item 5a, Donnell
Dallas Donnell <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:October 28 Study Session on Tenant Protections: Agenda Item 5a
Dear Mayor, Councilmembers, and Staff:
I'm Dallas Donnell, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Thank you for
making renter protections a part of our Major City Goals, and for your commitment to ensuring safe and
stable housing for every resident of our City. I sincerely appreciate the time and effort staff have put into
engaging with stakeholders and preparing the comprehensive report accompanying the agenda for this
Tuesday's study session.
As staff have ably demonstrated, existing law does not effectively protect most renters in our City, and
existing programs do not meet the needs of many residents. The program options they have presented
are common-sense solutions to fill these gaps and ensure all rental units meet basic habitability
standards, tenants aren't evicted without cause or justification, and the City can collect basic
information on our rental housing stock that can be used to formulate effective policy. These programs
have been implemented successfully in many other cities and counties across California and the nation,
and there is no reason they cannot be successfully implemented here if we just have the courage to stay
the course.
I can understand why some interests would circulate misinformation about the effectiveness and
impacts of such programs and the City’s prior efforts to meet these goals. When the City prematurely
abandoned prior efforts, it came with a promise that new policies would be implemented to meet those
goals. Now is the time to keep that promise.
We all want a livable community with healthy and vibrant neighborhoods, where everyone has safe and
stable housing, no matter what. Please continue to move forward to achieve those goals without delay.
Respectfully,
Dallas Donnell
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