UPDATED 11/14/25 with the reason for La’s resignation.
With the departure of member Tracy La, Santa Ana’s Rental Housing Board lacks enough members to conduct businesses.
The seven-member Rental Housing Board was established by the radical rent control and “just eviction” ordinances adopted by the city council in 2021 and 2022 – which limits annual rent increases to 3% or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.
Under the ordinance, three of the members must be tenants and two members are apartment owners (or their representatives). The remaining two members are “at-large” and cannot have a financial interest either way.
The Board needs at least four members present at a meeting in order to conduct business. It is now paralyzed with four of the seven seats standing vacant.
La submitted a letter of resignation on October 10, citing “the health of a close family member.”
La was a controversial appointee. She is head of VietRise, a radical-Left political action group that was active in pushing the council to adopt the rent control ordinance. VietRise is an arm of The Tides Center, a giant, San Francisco-based NGO that spends millions funding far-left advocacy groups across the nation.
La’s hostility toward apartment owners was public and pronounced.
She was initially appointed in late 2023 by Mayor Pro Tem Ben Vazquez to one of the at-large/no financial interest seats on the Rental Housing Board – despite being a renter and having an obvious and direct financial interest in the rent control ordinance.
While sitting as a member of the Rental Housing Board, La was also actively agitating to the city against the owners of the Kona Kai Mobile Home estates in Santa Ana.
That inherent conflict-of-interest proved unsustainable, given that the Apartment Association of Orange County had filed a lawsuit charging – among other things – that the composition of the Rental Housing Board violated apartment owners due process rights under the 4th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
READ: Lawsuit Alleges Santa Ana Rent Control Law Violates Federal, State Constitutions
The Rental Housing Board hears appeals from tenants who object to rent increases, and has the power to force landlords to rescind those increases. It also hears appeals from apartment owners who need to raise rents beyond the ordinances draconian limits.
Early in 2025, La was re-appointed to one of the renter seats by Councilmember Thai Viet Phan.
Last month, the Orange County Superior Court ruled the composition of the Rental Housing Board “is intentionally unbalanced in favor of tenants” and was indeed unconstitutional.
READ: BREAKING: Santa Ana’s Rent Control Board Ruled Unconstitutional
The Rental Housing Board has been dysfunctional from the beginning, plagued by the inability to muster quorums and repeatedly continuing items due to lack of quorum or staff unpreparedness. According to sources, at least one property owner is preparing legal action due to inability to get a board ruling one way or another an a rent increase petition.
While La’s departure somewhat lessens the Rental Housing Board’s intrinsic bias against property owners, it renders it even more dysfunctional.
