Is Anyone Else Seeing This in Their STR Area?

[James R.]

Help Us Stop the $12,000 STR Tax Show Up January 28

Dear SDSTRA Members, This is an important moment for San Diego’s short-term rental community and your presence matters. On Wednesday, January 28, the San Diego City Council Rules Committee will consider whether to advance a punitive new tax on short-term rentals, up to $12,000 per home, designed to punish responsible hosts and operators and push them out of the market. That same morning, SDSTRA is hosting an 8:00 AM rally to ensure our community is visible, informed, and respectfully represented at this critical decision point. What’s happening SDSTRA Member Rally 8:00 AM, Wednesday, January 28 City Council Rules Committee Meeting 9:00 AM City Administration Building (City Council / Rules Committee) 202 C St., San Diego, CA 92101

[Dan H.]

It was voted down yesterday before the finance(?) committee (some subcomitee). This was in spite of the originator (Socialist Sean Eli Rivera) seeing that it was not going to pass as proposed and amending it on the fly to exclude individual STR operators it failed 3-2. If it got past there, it would have gone to the whole city council. It likely would not have made it past there, but if it had it would have gone to the voters. It is my belief is it would be voted down in a general citywide election. If it had got past those hurdles, it would have faced legal challenges. This was a longways from reality.

However, Elo Rivera is claiming people against this proposal were paid to show up at the council meeting against this.   I would be interested in his evidence.    I would be more leery of believing it but a few years I encountered the same thing on a local Poway election.   To make the Poway one more egregious, the paid people were not even Poway residents.   The pro-Farm people paid interlopers to picket, etc.  Elo Rivera believes this paid support should be illegal; it appears to be one of the few things I agree with him.

I had surgery yesterday so did not make it to this council meeting (I attended the initial council meeting where this was proposed, it was proposed $5k/bedroom then).  My co-host was there yesterday.   The first meeting (the one I attended) those against this tax far out numbered those for this tax.  My co-host indicated yesterday’s meeting was more balanced which would seem to indicate if anyone paid for support to be there that in might have been those in favor of this tax.

By the way Eli Rivera voted for a trash tax implementation that so differed from the voter passed initiative that he indicated if this implementation went to the voters it would get defeated.  If he knows the implementation is contrary to voter sentiment, why vote for it?  It is because there is not a tax or fee of any type that he opposes.  Any pro Elo Rivera readers, I challenge you to find one.

Property rights are constantly under attack by anti capitalist, socialists.   I have not heard Elo Rivera refer to himself as socialist but I have heard him indicate 1) no one should profit from housing 2) that corporations should not profit from individuals.   Seems to match the definition of socialist.

By the way, this proposed tax came a few years after an STR quota that the council advertised to STR owners as something to provide STR stability. Elo Rivera was on the council then (he may have even been president of the council then) . They lied.

Stay vigilant