Landlords' Tactics Questionable Homeowners Misinformed?

Citizens for Ann Arbor's Future (CAAF), an organization of landlords opposed to stabilized rents, said they would spend over $100,000 to defeat Proposal C, an ordinance designed to stabilize rents in Ann Arbor. "It shows what a few people with a lot of money can do," said Moe Fitzsimons, a leading proponent of rent stabilization. "Only a few people in Ann Arbor are landlords and only the landlords who want to wildly raise their rents will be affected and yet they are attempting to create an image that they represent Ann Arbor's future."

CAAF's direct mail campaign claims that rent stabilization has failed in other communities in the nation and that stabilized rents will result in rising property taxes for homeowners here in Ann Arbor. "Homeowners are likely to experience little, if any, impact from the passage of Proposal C," said Larry Fox of the U-M Housing Law Reform Project. "This ordinance allows landlords to pass on all property tax increases to tenants. Landlords won't have any reason to ask for tax abatements and those are the leading cause of a tax shift to homeowners."

Hunter Van Valkenburgh, an Ann Arbor homeowner and rent stabilization supporter, called the City Tax Assessor's office after receiving CAAF literature in the mail. CAAF claimed that property taxes for the average Ann Arbor homeowner would rise $350 if Proposal C passed. Van Valkenburgh spoke to an assessor who asked not to be identified. The assessor said he had also received the mailing, did not understand how CAAF arrived at those figures, and believed the claims to be simply untrue. Michael Appel also called the City Tax Assessor's office and was told by an assessor that the figures landlords were using in advertising were "absurd." When asked to go on record, the assessor said he would not because of his opposition to rent stabiliziation.

Bogus Survey

In late February, Don Shall, a 39-year old homeowner on the Old West Side, received a phone call from a representative of Marketing Resources Group, Inc., a Lansing-based company. According to Shall, the caller said they were "a public opinion research firm conducting an objective survey to solicit opinion about rent control."

Shall soon found the questions were designed to form his opinion rather than solicit it. After hearing questions which clearly called for anti-rent stabilization answers and which defamed pro-rent stabilization leaders, Shall was outraged enough to attempt to call the president of the survey company. He spoke to Fred Wszolek, an assistant to the president, who would not identify the funding source for the "survey." Shall has since called the state offices of the Attorney General and Secretary of State.

Another Ann Arbor resident, Steve Winkelman, also grew suspicious after hearing the tone of Marketing Resource Group's questions. He challenged a phone surveyor to reveal who paid for the survey. The surveyor said that CAAF sponsored the survey. Winkelman then asked which side CAAF was on. "They are not on either side," he was told. "They are just interested in the issue."

Michael Appel traveled to Marketing Resources Group's offices in Lansing and discovered boxes of "No on Proposal C," anti-rent stabilization literature in the lobby. Appel alleges that the so called independent research firm has close ties to Ann Arbor's landlords. USA Today has reported that Marketing Resources, Inc., is a GOP lobbying group that handled Jack Kemp's unsuccessful presidential campaign.

"This is hatchet activity, hack political activity under the guise of objective research," said Shall who says he intends to see if Marketing Resources Group is licensed as a lobbyist in Washtenaw County. "They're lobbying against rent control, not soliciting opinion, and they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it."