From the President

Optimism Runs Amuck–Well, Almost

by Eric Andresen

Quite some time has passed since I’ve felt at all good about our industry’s political position and standing in San Francisco and the state. However, some recent events seem encouraging and offer a glimmer of hope. I sense that we can now begin to feel better—relatively speaking—after a couple of legal and legislative victories, along with the defeat and/or significant re-writes of several pieces of state legislation.

The past six months or so have been relatively angst-free in San Francisco as our politicians appear busy trying to close a budget gap and, more recently, seem intent on knocking each other out of the mayoral race. Our massive showing of industry members at the hearing of the Gonzalez proposal, after it was retrieved from mothballs, clearly forced Supervisor Gonzalez to table the legislation. Yes, bits and pieces may return later on, but a few years ago the whole package would have been crammed down our throats. The mayor’s race is also shaping up to be great news for us. Supervisor Gavin Newsom continues to hold a lead in the polls, and his prospects of becoming our next mayor are good. Gavin will bring the type of reasoned and logical leadership that we need at city hall. His leadership and veto power will force our politicos to be far more thoughtful and reasonable with future proposals. Another asset we now have is a new city attorney who has promised to stop, and already has stopped, any legislation that could possibly be perceived as having illegal content.

Even with Bill Fazio not making it into the runoff election, the District Attorney’s race continues to be good news. Kamala Harris, has a good chance of unseating Terrance Hallinan. Although our Board is divided over who to support in the runoff, we would hope that whoever the winner is, we will have a District Attorney that is more interested in prosecuting criminals than creating a legislative agenda to please the Tenants Union. The District Attorney’s job is key to promoting and enforcing a quality of life that seems to be missing in San Francisco these days.

At the state level, the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governor’s post is extremely good news. We are quite excited by what our industry may garner during the tenure of Arnold. With no political ties, he has a strong desire to shake things up in the capitol. He clearly believes that the lack of adequate and affordable housing is a major reason that California continues to suffer economically. We can be assured that his intent will be to protect housing providers from further attacks, and he may even proffer some support for issues that we want to bring forward.

TheCaliforniaApartment Association has put our industry in an ideal position to take advantage of a more reasonable governor. We have generated more than a dozen solid relationships with prominent legislators who are moderate Democrats. These fair-minded representatives are going to work very well with the new governor. I am excited at our prospects for change in the coming years.

So, take heart! Things are looking up. We all need to catch the hopefully infectious good spirit that we may enjoy in the coming years. As one of your industry leaders, I will do everything in my power to provide the stimulus for a positive attitude and a need for change. I hope that I can depend on each of you to carry this feeling forward to your staffs, clients and friends.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. In addition to serving as the current President of the SFAA, Eric is also the Vice President of Political Affairs for the PPMA and is the original author of the PPMA Residential Tenancy Agreement. Mr. Andresen will serve as the Vice President of the California Apartment Association in 2004 and he is extensively involved in other industry organizations here in San Francisco and at the state level. He owns and operates West Coast Property Management and West Coast Property Maintenance Companies. He can be reached at Eric@WCPM.com.