Numerous LA organizations including LA CAN, CES, Bus Riders Union, Vecinos Unidos, South Asian Network, SAJE, and others (please add in comments) marched to Councilmember Eric Garcetti's home to send him a message about his "flip-flop" vote on a 4-month freeze on rent increases at larger rent-controlled apartments on May 21.

During the city council meeting, the discussion and vote on the freeze was delayed, and the period for comments was cut very short. Consequently, activists, who had waited some five hours to speak, were frustrated in their appeal; protesters staged a sit-in, and police came in, used small scale "riot squad" techniques to attack protesters, and arrested three people.

Eric Garcetti had originally been in favor of a rent freeze, but changed his vote. The rent freeze proposed was for four months, and would prevent a scheduled increase in rent on rent-controlled properties with more than four rental units. 4-plexes and smaller were exempted and could increase rents a scheduled 3%.

Problematic for Garcetti is the fact that he's considered the most visibly "liberal" member of the City Council. Members who voted for the freeze were Alarcon, Hahn, Huizar, Krekorian and Wesson. Notably, members who voted against a freeze and are representing other low-income tenant-dominated districts were Parks, Perry, and Reyes.

References
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2010/05/239243.php http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/22/local/la-me-0522-council-rent-20100522 http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=7455676

A larger, higher quality Ogg Theora version is attached. This is viewable with Firefox or can be downloaded and viewed with VLC.

Attached is a bittorrent file tracked at onebigtorrent.org

[please right click to download the torrent, then open it in your torrent program. the website mistakenly tries to send the file as a video instead of as a torrent.]