A tenant advocacy group is calling for the East Palo Alto City Council to not renew the contract of City Manager Magda Gonzalez.
The group contends that emails obtained through a public records request show she is working against enforcement of the city's rent control law.
Gonzalez came under fire from residents, rent board members and at least one council member for commissioning an audit of the rent control office. The office's program administrator resigned in May following the review, which concluded the two-person staff was not keeping up with its workload and that landlords perceived a bias against them.
San Francisco-based Tenants Together claims that emails to and from Gonzalez related to the rent control program reveal she is the one who is biased -- toward the city's largest landlord, Equity Residential.
"She's clearly not someone who can be trusted to supervise and basically control the program administrator for the rent stabilization ordinance," the organization's director, Dean Preston, said in an interview Thursday. "Even viewed in the best light possible, she exhibited such poor judgment on when and how to intervene."
Asked to respond to Tenants Together's critique, Gonzalez said the group "cherry-picked" emails to support inaccurate assumptions about her. The city manager said that as an attorney, she served as a housing advocate for La Raza Centro Legal and has worked over the years to provide legal aid and other services to low-income residents. Her decision to review the rent control office was to ensure it was as effective as possible, she said.
"Let me be clear -- I understand and fully support East Palo Alto's Rent Stabilization Ordinance. I am committed to doing all I can to preserve the ordinance and continue to protect tenants' rights and affordable housing in our community," Gonzalez wrote in an email Thursday.
The documents produced by Tenants Together show that Gonzalez met regularly with representatives of Equity Residential, which owns about 70 percent of the 2,325 apartments regulated under the city's rent control law. In one August 2013 email, Christopher Peter, managing director of Equity's East Palo Alto apartments, references concerns about rent board office delays and ends with, "Thank you for your continued support, and I eagerly await your direction on this matter."
The group also pointed to an August 2013 email from Nadine Levin, who did the review, that acknowledges how "technical the issues are" related to the ordinance. A response from Gonzalez states, "You may want to say they are very complex as compared to others, which makes it difficult to manage."
Councilman Ruben Abrica said he was troubled by the documents he read.
"Elected officials or management, we have to talk to everybody and try to work with everybody, but it does seem to have a certain slant that Equity Residential had a lot of access," he said.
Kimberly Macy, a spokeswoman for Equity Residential, said in an email that the company feels a responsibility "to be in communication with the administration of the City of East Palo Alto regarding the program," and that Equity operates "in complete compliance with all of the regulations set in place" by the city's rent control law.
Gonzalez also found herself in the line of fire earlier this year when she suggested the council consider outsourcing the city's police department.
Her two-year contract with the city expires in October and the council has been conducting her performance review in recent weeks in closed session. Another is scheduled for Tuesday.
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