RENT-HIKE ANXIETY TENANTS FEAR VALLEY CITY MEANS LOSS OF CONTROLS.

Byline: Harrison Sheppard Staff Writer

To Judith Battles, creation of an independent San Fernando Valley poses a lot of uncertainty.

The 66-year-old retiree has lived in the same apartment in Sherman Oaks for 27 years, paying below-market rent now at $875 a month on a two-bedroom apartment thanks to the city of Los Angeles' rent-control ordinance.

But Battles is one of many senior citizens and other tenants across the San Fernando Valley who fear they will lose their apartments if the Valley becomes its own city. They and organizations that represent them on tenant and senior citizen issues, fear that the new Valley city would choose to eliminate rent control, leading to stiff rent increases and evictions throughout the Valley.

``I think that there's no question that I wouldn't be able to live in this area,'' said Battles, who estimates that her rent would increase to at least $1,500 without rent control. ``I would have to live in a much smaller space and still pay more money.''

It is senior citizens like Battles who opponents of secession are expected to use as part of their campaign to generate uncertainty and suspicion of the cityhood effort.

``I think it's very fair to say there are a lot of people living in the San Fernando Valley who are concerned that they will lose the current Los Angeles city rent control protections,'' said Samantha Stevens, a co- founder of the Valley-based anti-secession group One Los Angeles. ``There certainly could be rent control existing again, but it comes back to an uncertainty. We know what we have right now. What will the rent control rules, or nonrules, be in a new city? That makes people very nervous.''

Assuring tenants

Valley secession advocates will seek to assure tenants during the upcoming campaign that rent control will remain. The new Valley city council and mayor, some secessionists predict, would keep rent control - in fact, they would have to in order to get elected and stay in office.

Jeff Brain, president of Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment, said his group plans to transform itself after the election into a good- government lobbying organization, and he predicted that rent control will be one of the issues it will support. The group plans to put out a more comprehensive platform in a few weeks, he said.

``It's a legitimate concern and we're trying to put those concerns to rest by letting them know Valley VOTE will strongly push for keeping rent control,'' Brain said.

The Los Angeles rent control ordinance, first enacted in 1979, currently caps residential rent increases at 3 percent a year and restricts the ability of landlords to evict tenants. There are approximately 600,000 rental units in Los Angeles, according to a tenants group, although it did not have a figure for the Valley.

Legally, rent control must continue in the new Valley city - for a short time.

As part of the Local Agency Formation Commission's approved plan for Valley cityhood, the new Valley city council would be required as its first action to adopt all of the ordinances of the city of Los Angeles, including rent control. But that requirement only lasts a maximum of 120 days. So, if the Valley council fails to act, rent control would disappear four months after the July 1, 2003, incorporation.

Which means the issue depends entirely on the 14 council members and mayor that Valley voters will pick Nov. 5, at the same time they decide whether the Valley should become a city.

So far about two dozen people have expressed interest in running for Valley council seats or for mayor, but the official filing period does not begin until July.

``If people are concerned about rent control, if they're concerned about union issues, they need to elect city council members and a mayor who represent their point of view,'' said Valley VOTE chairman Richard Close. ``If they're concerned about it, they need to get candidates out there running on those platforms.''

But advocates and tenants remain fearful and suspicious of secessionists' motives.

Real-estate interests

Critics and rent-control advocates say real-estate interests seem to be driving the secession movement. For example, the two heads of Valley VOTE - Brain and Close - have both worked in the real-estate field, as have others in the group's leadership.

Close helped lead the unsuccessful fight against Los Angeles city rent control in the 1970s. He is a real estate attorney and acknowledges having a small share of several partnerships that own rental properties in the Valley. His shares are less than 5 percent, he said, and the total value is less than $100,000.

Brain was a leasing broker for commercial property along Ventura Boulevard before he became involved with Valley VOTE full time. Similarly, Paula Boland, the former assemblywoman who launched the secession movement in 1996, was a real estate agent, and Richard Leyner, who is a prominent Valley VOTE board member and a former chairman of the Valley's United Chamber of Commerce, is a senior vice president of a commercial real estate firm.

``Looking at the cast of characters who are behind Valley secession, there's no friends of tenants or rent control amongst them,'' said Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, a countywide tenant-rights group. ``In fact, they have histories of being anti-rent control.''

When Brain ran for a Los Angeles City Council seat in the mid-1990s, Gross said, his group gave him an ``F'' grade on a tenants rights report card. The same applied to former assemblyman and secession campaign leader Richard Katz when he ran for mayor in 1993.

But Close said he has not been involved in the rent control issue since it was first enacted - he has not, for example, said anything when the council has looked at revising the ordinance several times. He also said he would not get involved with that issue in a new Valley city.

He added that neither he nor Brain is running for city council or mayor, so they would not have a vote on the issue.

``I don't know who the mayor (will be),'' Close said. ``That (argument from critics) assumes that I end up endorsing candidates for mayor and that candidate wins. I may end up endorsing the candidate who loses, and therefore that argument will have no merit.''

Conservative Valley

Political analysts note that the Valley has traditionally been more conservative politically, and therefore less receptive to rent control - and also note that real estate professionals dominate Valley VOTE's leadership.

But at the same time, analysts, as well as those within Valley VOTE, say politically it wouldn't make sense for a new council to end rent control.

``Senior citizens, when organized, are a powerful political force,'' said political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the University of Southern California. ``If they get organized on this issue and stay organized on this issue, politicians will have to respond to them.''

She added that this will be one of the issues opponents will exploit to create fear and uncertainty.

``Creating doubt, creating fear - that's what the no side has to do,'' she said. ``There is uncertainty there. I've always said voters may want change, but they will not accept risk.''

Already, opponents of secession have begun to use the rent control issue to their advantage. A handful of women with the Gray Panthers - a senior citizens lobbying group - showed up at a Valley VOTE press conference last week to heckle the speakers, citing rent control as one of their main concerns.

Valley secessionists have taken to calling opponents' tactics ``FUD'' or fear, uncertainty and doubt.

``The opponents will use all scare tactics necessary to protect their empire and their power,'' Close said.

``And they're going to scare any group they can. But the decision on rent control and union rights and all the other issues is in the hands of those people who are concerned about these issues. If they're concerned about it, they have to get their supporters elected mayor and city council members.''