☆ How local Left misleads about why COPA was rejected
Nonprofit advocates and SJ Housing Department staff (oops, did we repeat ourselves?) have struggled for three years to get Council approval for their flawed proposal to privilege local nonprofits when it comes to buying up older properties (it's called COPA). Since a Council economic committee rejected the latest COPA version on 3/27, the spin machine from city staff and nonprofits has shifted into high gear in an effort to restart the broken-down concept. The Opp Now team examines their rhetorical maneuvers in this exclusive.
Let's be completely candid: We've all lost arguments. It's no fun, can even be pretty humiliating, but even-handed people know it's their duty to acknowledge when they've failed to persuade.
But not everybody is even-handed, and it's far too common to see examples in the public square of Losers' Logic—attempts by people on the wrong side of a debate to distract others via camouflage, deflection, or deception.
The recent Council committee’s rejection of the staff report on COPA provides a casebook example of this type of rhetoric. Two recent documents—a Merc op-ed cosigned by CM Peter Ortiz, and a memo from the SJHD Director & Destination: At Home board member (that's not a typo; she fulfills both roles simultaneously) Jacky Morales-Ferrand—try to bury the fact that COPA is wrong from the start. Here are three examples of their techniques.
1.) Focus attention on side issues, not the core proposal.
Ortiz, in his op-ed, suggests that people oppose COPA because it "infringes on property rights," and then focuses his pro-COPA debate there. While property rights are a legitimate argument against COPA, it's certainly not the only one. The core critique of COPA is that it does zip to solve the #1 housing problem in SJ—which is the need for new housing. By ignoring the key argument, Ortiz misleads readers and falsely frames the reasons why the economic committee rejected it on 3/27.
2.) Ignore counter-narrative facts and arguments; rely on metrics-free, feel-good soundbites.
Morales-Ferrand, in her review of public comments about COPA, acknowledges that "there are some concerns" but populates her summary in a way that hilariously privileges the pro-COPA crowd. She lists four arguments in favor of COPA with such language like COPA would "benefit lower income SJ residents... who helped build the city."
But she only acknowledges two anti-COPA arguments, and a la Ortiz, forgets to mention the key factual critiques such as: COPA constrains new housing, COPA does nothing to halt evictions, and perhaps most important, there is no data to support concerns about widespread displacement.
3.) Mischaracterize your proposal to make it sound better.
Morales-Ferrand blithely describes COPA as simply "a right to make first and final purchase offers." That sounds pretty anodyne; but in fact, a whole collection of other regulations comprises COPA, including the provision of 55-year (!) soft loans from the City of San Jose, as well as the waiving of requirements for nonprofits to put down earnest money during waiting periods.
Ortiz is even more at fault in hiding the realities of COPA, as he suggests it "empowers tenants with options and opportunities when their rental property owner decides to sell." COPA does no such thing, as it only privileges nonprofits, not renters. He is perhaps referring to TOPA, a tenants’ proposal—which may be the long term goal of COPA advocates, but they're not the same.
Like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Morales-Ferrand and Ortiz put up confident fronts. But their position has been badly weakened in the battle of ideas—and no amount of huffing and puffing can change the fact that the arguments against COPA won the day on 3/27, resulting in the Council committee's rejection.
For more on COPA, read here, here, and here.
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