MOUNTAIN VIEW — City leaders appointed a pro-housing candidate with a history of supporting rent control and tenant protections to the city council, a victory for the council’s progressive block.
Emily Ann Ramos, a member of the Rental Housing Committee responsible for administering rent control in the city, beat out three past council members for the vacant seat left open by Sally Lieber following her election to the state Board of Equalization in 2022.
Ramos received votes from five of six council members with only Councilmember Lisa Matichak — a voice for Mountain View’s slow-growth faction — voting for two other candidates. A member of the Rental Housing Committee since the city approved rent control in 2016, Ramos has been a key ally to tenant activists and renter protection activists, advocating for renters
Ramos will be Mountain View’s only Filipino member and is the second renter on the council along with Councilmember Lucas Ramirez. During Monday’s council meeting, she received overwhelming support from people calling to comment on the council seat appointment.
“My entire personal life I’ve worked hard to empower people, to come together and work toward improving our world,” Ramos said. “I am very honored to see the support that I’ve had so far. Mountain View is quickly becoming a true leader. My pledge is to always work hard to continue the innovative legacy of our city and be collaborative while staying firm in values.”
For years Ramos has been a member of one of the most controversial city committees in the city’s recent history. The Rental Housing Committee has remained a hotbed of debate about tenant policy, the housing market and how renters interact with the city’s landlords since rent control went into effect less than a decade ago.
Ramos plans to bring her experience on that committee — which includes managing an independent budget and weighing legal matters in closed session — to the council and continue her work advocating for renters. She called her strategy for dealing with land-use decisions the “Three Ps.”
“Production, preservation and protection,” Ramos said. “When it comes to land use decisions my criteria is to focus on producing housing at all income levels, protecting tenants from displacement and keeping the affordable housing we have.”
While she praised the current council for their recent work on their state-mandated housing targets, Ramos said there are a few decisions the previous council has made she believes should be reversed. In 2018 the city set up a voucher program for people living in RVs to safely dispose of waste in their septic tanks at designated locations. The program ran for several months and there weren’t a lot of participants so the city shut it down, but Ramos said reviving it could help RV dwellers.
“I think if we want to work on innovative programs we need to center them on the needs of the people we want to help,” Ramos said. “If we think about innovating these types of programs we should have the patience and take the time to figure out why it didn’t work out.
Ramos also said she wants to expand programs to help new homeowners and set up a parks and recreation master plan to make sure that public space is available to all who need it in Mountain View.
Mayor Alison Hicks said she’d like to work with Ramos on housing issues, particularly displacement, and other council members agreed her unique experience could serve the council well.
Councilmember Lucas Ramirez said Ramos’s experience is especially relevant now as the city continues to rezone for higher-density housing and attracts more people. He said he believes Ramos is cut out for the job given her experience on the Rental Housing Committee and in her time working as an advocate for housing and tenants.
“Emily has done a very good job making it clear she’s very aware of the issues we’re contending with and giving a sense that if we have to make tough choices we know where her priorities will be,” Ramirez said. “We want to make sure that even most of us that tend to be very sympathetic with tenant protection aren’t burdening rental property owners to the point where they are unable to do business. So Emily’s experience on the rental housing committee is unique and relevant.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com