A class action lawsuit was filed this week, on behalf of numerous property owners victimized by the capricious enforcement of our city's rent control ordinance. Our city routinely wastes taxpayer dollars defending this antiquated law. Instead, we should take action to prevent costly lawsuits in the first place. At a minimum, we need to amend our city's rent control ordinance, and make sure that it's consistently enforced in a fair manner.

In our view, however, it's time to scrap rent control entirely. Not only would this allow the rental market to function properly (allocating housing more efficiently), it would save taxpayers money. We'd save all the money we're currently spending on rent control administration and enforcement. And, of course, we'd protect the taxpayer from these kinds of lawsuits in the future.