Dear Editor: On April 4, 2000, the Hoboken city clerk reported to the City Council that the petition protesting the March 1, 2000 amendments to Hoboken’s Rent Control (RC) Ordinance had sufficient signatures to stop those amendments from going into effect. According to NJ state law, the Council had 20 days (until May 9, 2000) to repeal the amendments or the clerk would be required to put the amendments to the voters in a Referendum Election. Contrary to the headline in the May 7, 2000 Hoboken Reporter, while the council introduced the repeal of the amendments, it failed to finalize the repeal withing the 20 days required by law. So unless, we the Committee of Petitioners who circulated the petition withdraw the petition by May 19, 2000, the amendments must go on the ballot at a special election somewhere between June 28, 2000 and July 18, 2000. It doesn’t look like we will withdraw the petition, so there will be a referendum. You might wonder as long as we petitioners are getting what we asked for, i.e. the repeal of the amendments, why should a referendum take place? The answer is that at the same May 3 meeting that the repeal was introduced, the council also introduced a new set of RC amendments, which are up for a final vote this Wednesday, May 17, 2000, which contains much of the content of the amendments we petitioned against. It is thus obvious that unless we establish with a referendum vote that the voters do not want the mayor and council to destroy RC, the council will continue to introduce new amendments every few weeks until the citizens give up, thus undermining democracy. While Vacancy Decontrol does not appear in the May 3 amendments, the amendments do create two new exemptions to RC: housing financed or subsidized by state or federal governmental agencies (GAs). While the mayor and council majority claim that they are helping thousands of tenants in such housing by putting them under the protection of RC, in fact, the amendments make this housing exempt from RC. If the purpose of these May 4 amendments is to help tenants, why are their units being exempted from RC? Why not just say, “When pre-emptive federal or state controls end, the housing comes under Hoboken RC?” It is important to note that the existing version of RC does not exempt GA financed or subsidized housing, so when pre-emptive GA rent regulation ends, the housing would then automatically be subject to RC. Therefore, the May 3 amendments do not give any additional protections to the tenants. It is also important to note that the May 3 amendments allow the base rent under Hoboken RC to be set to the GA levels, which may far exceed the base rents which would be allowed under the present RC law. Thus, these amendments allow landlords to act in concert with state agencies to decontrol rents. The original purpose of state and federal financing and rent subsidies was to provide affordable housing. Ironically, the amendments proposed by the mayor and council actually eliminate affordable housing. Recently Mayor Russo and his six council members circulated a flyer at Applied Housing, Marineview, Church Towers, and Clock Towers which said, “On your behalf, we have introduced an Ordinance to the Hoboken City Council to protect you from significant rent increases in your rental unit.” This is a blatant lie. When rents in these buildings are no longer controlled by pre-emptive GAs, they automatically fall under RC with no amendments necessary. When the landlord and a pre-emptive GA make an agreement to raise your rent, RC cannot protect you. The May 3 amendments do not stop your landlord from making agreements with the State of NJ which raise your rent 50 percent or up to 30 percent of your income, which has happened in nine Applied Housing projects. The May 3 amendments do encourage such agreements to be made, however, because they exempt landlords from local RC and specifically allow such huge rent increases to become part of the base rent when RC regulation kicks in. The May 3 amendments also contain what at first appears to be a “bone” for the tenants. The tax and water/sewer surcharges are reduced. However, since RC must allow these expenses to be recouped by the landlord, they will merely be shifted via a hardship rental increase into the base rent. Thus, no bone, just hype. The mayor and council majority are also trying to get around their obligation to the 1863 voters who signed our petition to put March 1, 2000 RC amendments on the ballot — they are attempting to repeal them, simultaneously replacing them with something just as bad. They are jerking us around. Not only are they trying to kill Rent Control, they are trying to kill direct democracy — all citizens, tenants or not, are having their rights violated. Please come to the meeting on May 17 and tell the council what you think. Arrive a little before 7 p.m and sign up to speak on RC on the list at the front of the room. Dan Tumpson and Annette Illing