Councilwoman Thai Phan wants to re-appoint left-wing activist Tracy La to a different position on the city’s Rental Housing Board – in a move that could make it even harder for landlords to obtain a fair hearing.
La was first appointed to the Rental Housing Board in November of 2023 by Councilman Ben Vazquez to fill one of two seats designated as “at-large, no financial interest.”
The Rental Housing Board is part of the rent control regime imposed by the progressive majority that took control of the Santa Ana City Council following the 2020 elections. It has the power to veto rent increases or even reduce rents in response to tenant petitions. It consists of 7 members appointed by city councilmembers:
- 2 “at-large” members who are neither tenants nor have ownership interest in rental housing.
- 3 tenant members (including one mobile home tenant)
- 2 rental housing owners
The city council has moved at a glacial pace in filling the Rental Housing Board spots. To date, only four of the 7 positions have been filled.
La’s 2023 appointment as an “at-large, no financial interest” raised eyebrows. The presumed purpose of the at-large seats is so at least two members of the Rental Housing Board can render decisions free of bias or interest in either side of the rent control issue.
As a consequence of Phan shifting La to one of the “tenant” seats, both of the “at-large/no financial interest” seats will be vacant. That gives the progressive-Left council majority the opportunity to fill both seats with pro-rent control activists. Their 2023 appointment of Tracy La to one of those spots demonstrates they’ll have no hesitancy in doing so – and tilting the Rental Housing Board so heavily in favor of tenant complaints that no landlord could reasonably expect a fair hearing.
La, in her capacity as head of that radical left-wing group VietRise, was an actively engaged in the political push to enact rent control in Santa Ana. Landlords could hardly expect a fair-minded hearing from La. La’s group, in fact, had lobbied for a Rental Housing Board structure that was even more heavily tilted against the property rights of landlords:
Shifting La into one of the tenant spots at least has the virtue of truth-in-advertising, given the expectation that tenant members of the board will advocate for tenant interests.
It raises the question of La’s previous status. Occupants of the “at-large/no financial interest” seats are neither tenants nor landlords, so La presumably was either a homeowner or living somewhere rent-free.
La’s advocacy group VietRise is the “Vietnamese organizing project” of the LA-based Korean Resource Center, a progressive-Left political advocacy group focused on Asian-Pacific Islander issues, as well as standard progressive issues such as rent control. In other words, it is a Vietnamese front group for the KRC.
According to her Form 700 financial disclosures, La is salaried as a project director for the KRC and for the Tides Center. The Tides Center is a “left-of-center nonprofit created to manage the fiscal sponsorship services of its “sister” organization, the Tides Foundation. Both groups are part of the Tides Nexus of pass-through and fiscal sponsorship nonprofits based in San Francisco, California,” according to InfluenceWatch.com.
The Tides Center serves as “fiscal sponsor” to hundreds of left-wing non-profits with hundreds of millions in revenue,. One of its more infamous fiscal sponsorships is The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which is led by self-described “trained Marxists.”
Interestingly, La amended her Form 700 disclosure last year to delete her reporting of between $1,001 and $10,000 in honorarium income from OC Charitable Ventures, another significant player in what a local Democrat strategist has termed the “Non-Profit-Industrial Complex.” Charitable Ventures of OC has annual revenues of more than $22 million, according to non-profit tracking service CauseIQ.com. Charitable Ventures of OC also provides funding to the Korean Resource Center, including a $55,000 grant in 2021.
La is married to Carlos Perea, who runs The Harbor Institute, which supports open borders, opposes the deportation of any illegal immigrants, and advocates for giving the vote to non-citizens (including illegal immigrants).
The Harbor Institute is a front group for the radical National Day Laborer Organizing Network ( NDLON). Perea is a salaried employee of NDLON. Tracy La is a member of The Harbor Institute Advisory Board.
