By Jonathan Friedman
Associate Editor

September 26, 2014 -- Santa Monica City Attorney Marsha Moutrie on Tuesday spoke against what she called council members giving false hope to harassed tenants. She said the “economic prize” for getting rid of long-time, rent-controlled tenants was too high for landlords, and new laws would not deter them.

“I’m very concerned about the tenor this is taking if the tenor is if we just change this law, it’s going to get better,” said Moutrie after hearing more than two hours of public testimony, which often included sympathetic responses from council members.

She continued, “That’s just not true. We can fight the better fight with more resources, but it really does take a lawyer in court, and not a word on the page.”

Many lawyers will not take on tenant harassment and eviction cases, Moutrie said. She and council members gave various theories why that might be, including that the cases are difficult to win. This leads to tenants being forced to go to court alone, and victory is almost impossible.

Among the many speakers who addressed the council were people who told stories about various forms of harassment, including landlords entering units several times, landlords not cashing rent checks and later claiming the money was not paid as well as threats and other forms of intimidation to force long-time tenants living under rent control to leave.

Addressing the speakers, Moutrie said, “Your fight is not with us or not with how we allocate our resources. Your fight is in Sacramento, and we lost it when Ellis got passed,” referring to the Ellis Act, which is the 1986 State law that gave landlords the right to go out of the rental business, essentially taking rent-controlled units off the market.

She added, “It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue the good fight to the extent that we can. But it is raising false hopes if the council tells people that if you change what our harassment law says, this is going to stop.”

Moutrie told the council that the City cannot represent individual tenants against landlords, but what it can do is “notice patterns” to build cases that can go to court. As a way to assist the City’s Attorney’s Office in doing this, the council voted to hire a part-time staff person, as recommended by City staff.

This new person, who would be compensated with under $60,000 per year, according to a staff report, would work “as an investigator gathering information for attorneys possibly for a lawsuit,” Moutrie told the council.

Councilmember Gleam Davis proposed the City hold sessions to train attorneys about tenant harassment laws so they could help people probono. A vote was not taken on this proposal.