Editor:
Based upon your article, Santa Monica housing providers should be congratulated for keeping their Santa Monica apartment buildings well maintained (“City Hall estimates 3,000 units may need major upgrades,” Jan. 9). If the city’s rent control agency only heard 29 complaints from tenants last year in a city with over 30,000 rental units, then housing providers are doing a great job.
Of course, the same rent control agency had to increase the annual fee to fund the agency, which has been paid by tenants in Santa Monica, in order to cover the agency’s $4,620,000 budget, 86 percent of which, or $3,970,000, goes to cover the salaries, benefits and retirement obligations at a bureaucracy with roughly 25 employees.
With that budget, it works out to about $159,310 for each complaint heard last year. Very efficient, right?
Virginia Isaacs
Santa Monica