http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/us/california-today-rent-control.html 2016-10-14 15:34:57 California Today: Why Rent Control Groups Are Taking the Fight to Silicon Valley Friday: New real estate battles in the Bay Area, a Central Valley highway’s deadly reputation, and fall colors put on a show. === Good morning. (Want to get California Today by email? Let’s turn it over to Conor Dougherty, a technology reporter based in the Bay Area. When tenants started collecting signatures to On Thursday, tenant activists gathered outside the Hayward regional office of the California Apartment Association, a trade group for landlords, to protest what they describe as a deceptive mailer that the association sent out to urge voters to reject the various rent control measures on the state’s November ballot. The mailer in question was emblazoned with the logo of California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, causing groups favoring rent control to charge the C.A.A. with “impersonating” a government agency. Organizers said they plan to file complaints with the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Tom Bannon, chief executive of the association, said, “We stand by the mail piece that we put out.” Jason Sisney, chief deputy legislative analyst at the Legislative Analyst’s Office, said voters had contacted his office about the mailers but had no other comment. “Our office does not take positions on local ballot measures,” he said in an email. Whatever comes of the complaint, tenants are at a significant disadvantage. Landlords have raised just over $1 million to defeat rent control measures that are now on the ballot in a half-dozen cities including Mountain View, Burlingame, San Mateo, Richmond and Alameda. “The California Apartment Association is spending between five and 10 times what the tenants groups are spending,” said Rob Pyers, research director for the California Target Book, which tracks elections in the state. Even if these rent control drives are defeated, the growing furor over housing costs is unlikely to go away. The Bay Area may have the dubious distinction of being California’s most unaffordable rental market, but Los Angeles and San Diego are not far behind, Aimee Inglis, acting director of Tenants Together, a statewide group helping coordinate the various rent control drives, said the November election would go a long way toward determining if the movement starts spreading around the state. “People are kind of watching, and waiting to see what happens, and I don’t think it’s necessary for all of these measures to win,” she said. “If we get one or two, and I think that’s entirely likely, we will be able to build from that.” See reporting in The Times on the Nov. 8 ballot initiatives: And dig into analyses of all 17 statewide measures by the • Highway 99 in the Central Valley is the • • • Clayton Kershaw, the greatest pitcher of his generation, earned the first save of his career and sent • If something isn’t done to stop its collapse, • After burning for nearly three months, • Efforts to • • A drone video captured a It’s an often heard lament: “ It’s also wrong. Just as they do every year, California trees have been breaking out in spectacular hues of crimson and gold since September. If they aren’t noticed, it’s because more of the state’s residents tend to live near the temperate coastline, said John Poimiroo, a travel writer who runs the website It doesn’t happen there,” he said. “It happens in the mountains.” In contrast to New England, where the shades of autumn roll like a wave from north to south, California’s colors begin at about 10,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and In the last few days, the fall foliage line has been between about 7,000 and 8,000 feet, Mr. Poimiroo said. Even if the yearslong drought has caused trees to put on less vivid displays in some places, leaf spotters have been reporting color across the state. “Everything, everywhere” is peaking in Mono County on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, Alicia Vennos, the county’s economic development director, Asked to name his favorite autumn destination, Mr. Poimiroo hesitated, then called it a nearly impossible question. He mentioned That’s California’s big difference, he said. “New England has architectural charm and the color, and we have grand landscapes and the color.” For the latest updates on the fall foliage, check out California Today goes live at 6 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a third-generation Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended U.C. Berkeley.