A Message from AAGLA Board President
Earlier this month, our Association held its Annual Membership meeting at our offices when our Board of Directors and I, as your President, were voted on and approved by our members who were in attendance. We are so very pleased that after conducting our Annual Membership meeting virtually during these past two years due to COVID-19, we are now finally able to bring everyone together in person and hold this meeting and others like it in person.
I have had both the challenge and privilege of serving as the President of the Association’s Board of Directors during the past two years. I am again honored and privileged to be re-elected by you and the our Board of Directors to serve a third term as the board President during 2023. I am also pleased to again be serving with a wonderful group of individuals serving on our Board of Directors. They are truly a wonderful Board working tirelessly by contributing their time, energy, passion, experience and the highest level of professionalism in our industry while advocating for the protection of your rental housing provider property rights.
No Board President, and none of our Board Members would be effective and willing to serve without the strong support of our members. I have had the great pleasure of meeting so many of our members not only these past two years as your President, but throughout my tenure on the Board of Directors. “We,” the members of the Apartment Association are a diverse group covering all demographics, ethnicities, religious affiliations, political spectrums and backgrounds. As I consider the make-up of our membership, I am in awe of the diversity that is reflected within it. Despite the diversity in ethnicity, color, creed, income levels and political beliefs, we all share a common bond as rental housing providers.
Each of us have been facing the challenges of keeping our rental income flowing so that we can maintain our buildings to ensure our tenants remain housed in a clean and safe environment with not only the hope but the expectation that we will receive a reasonable return on our investment. Our diversity is our strength and I thank each of you who have been brave enough to step forward to serve as plaintiffs in our legal cases, shared your stories with the media, and have spoken at city hall or the board of supervisors and with elected officials so that they will know who we are--owners and managers of rental property representing everyone from all walks of life. We must continue to work together and we will be calling upon you to help us in all our advocacy efforts.
Despite the challenges we have experienced of the past almost three years to our health, the economy, and our income while we kept our tenants housed during the moratoria, we can all now focus on enforcing the end dates for the local moratoria. Rest assured, we will continue to fight this issue through our government advocacy efforts, housing provider mobilization, and through the court system.
Let’s take a look at some of the things we have accomplished through our Association during this past year despite COVID-19. We finally obtained a federal court ruling determining that the County of Los Angeles moratorium is unconstitutional. Both the County of Los Angeles and the City of Los Angeles have finally voted upon specific end dates of the rent/eviction moratoria.
As many of you know, I have been involved, and our Association has been involved in elections wherever your properties are located in Southern California. While we may not all share the exact same political beliefs, we continue to identify and support candidates who understand and support the concerns of housing providers.
During this past year, we have also continued to offer so many educational webinar opportunities to you at no charge with the help of our sponsors to you to keep you educated on rental housing issues and to answer your questions. During these challenging times of having to work with overlapping rent re-payment rules and eviction moratoria end dates from both local and state government, we have continued to use our best efforts to provide you with up-to-date forms for your rental property businesses.
Our board leadership continues to team-up with other like-minded business organizations on issues that impact our members. Instead of competing against each other, we are joining forces to protect your property rights and investments. We have continue to expand our membership base into new territories throughout Southern California which will build us into a far stronger organization. Our board now consists of new, thoughtful and experienced members along with those board members who have provided years of dedicated service and have bestowed upon our Association their institutional knowledge and business acumen which makes us a more effective Board.
We have accomplished so much together, but there is so much more that we must do to regain and protect our rights. Some of the issues that we intend to focus on in 2023, are to continue staying abreast of proposals that cause unnecessary over-regulation and costs in the management and sale of our properties, forging relationships with newly elected officials at all levels of government, assisting with the funding of capital improvements such as earthquake retrofitting and EV charging systems, and we will be working to assist you in the recovery of the past due rents that are owed to you.
Again, I am so honored to be re-elected by you to serve as President of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles’ Board of Directors for 2023. Thank you to the Directors of our Board, Dan Yukelson, our Executive Director, the entire Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles staff, and also to all of you for your anticipated support.
In closing, I am always available to you if you have any issues or concerns or if you have suggestions for new laws that will help our industry. So, please do not hesitate to contact me, or Dan Yukelson. Until next year, let me wish you, your families and friends, a very Happy Holidays and Happy New year.