Oakland Councilmember Annie Campbell Washington Pulls Tenant Relocation Ordinance At City Council

Oakland Councilmember Annie Campbell Washington Pulls Tenant Relocation Ordinance At City Council In Sneaky Way

Oakland District 4 Vice Mayor And Councilmember Annie Campbell Washington just pulled from the Oakland City Council Agenda tonight an ordinance that, if passed, would have made any landlord seeking to remove tenants just to put in a family member or in-law have to pay a relocation cost to that tenant.

Moreover, the act was done in a sneaky way: the Oakland City Council item that was the Tenant Relocation Ordinance had originally come from Councilmember Campbell Washington’s own committee: the Life Enrichment Committee of which she is chairperson. Annie had time to make changes to it there, and before her own collegues.

What she did, instead, was waited until the last minute and then pulled it without telling authors of the ordinance that she asked for changes to it. Well, author: Councilmember At-Large Rebecca Kaplan.

The reason for the action was the Oakland Board of Realtors wrote a letter saying that the way the proposed law was written, it lacked a tenancy time period – they suggested three years in the letter to the City Council.

Reached a moment ago, Councilmember Kaplan had this to say: “I continue to believe we must act to protect tenants in Oakland from displacement and I will keep working on these issues.”

As a note, Annie Campbell Washington is running for reelection in 2018. via IFTTT