A judge rules one provision of Salinas’ renter protection ordinances is preempted by state law.

As Salinas City Council revisits four tenant protection ordinances tonight, May 13, the testimony from the public is likely to present two emotionally packed accounts of the impact the suite of four ordinances have. In broad terms, tenants have maintained they are keeping them housed, just barely; landlords say they cannot earn enough money to run a business and keep their rental units maintained. 

Some of the issues though are less about broad strokes and are about the line-by-line provisions in the ordinances. 

One Monterey County Superior Court judge recently ruled in the course of an unlawful detainer case—filed by a property manager seeking a court order to evict a tenant—that state law preempts Salinas’ ordinance. 

The arguments by C&C Property Management against a tenant is not known—such as how much rent was owed—because the case is confidential, as is standard protocol in unlawful detainer cases. But in an audio recording provided to the Weekly, Judge Julie Culver can be heard deliberating about one specific issue in Salinas’ Tenant Protection and Just Cause Eviction Ordinance, which gives a 10-day window for tenants who have not paid the rent to pay up, or “cure” the violation. That is a longer time frame than state law, which gives a three-day window.  

“I would say that the legislature has preempted, in this particular area, the notice provisions,” Culver can be heard saying, pertaining to a notice issued on March 12, 2025 to the tenant. “With regard to the issue related to the [city] ordinance, I do find, as a result of this being a procedural issue, and the Legislature really taking charge of this area of the law, that the state has preempted this notice issue.”

That reasoning led Culver to deny a motion for a demurrer, filed on behalf of the tenant, seeking to get C&C Property Management Company’s case thrown out. Now that the defendant's demurrer has been denied, it means the core of the case—seeking to evict the tenant—can proceed. 

If C&C prevails, the confidential case will become a matter of public record, viewable in full to the Weekly and any other members of the public.  

Culver’s ruling addresses one provision of one of four ordinances that Salinas City Council is set to consider rescinding on May 13, after voting 5-2 to proceed in that direction in April.

Three took effect on Jan. 1, 2025: the just cause eviction ordinance described above also requires landlords to provide three months' relocation assistance in the event of a no-fault eviction; a tenant anti-harassment ordinance; and rent stabilization, capping annual rent increases at 2.75 percent for units in buildings built before 1995. The fourth was a residential rental registry approved by council in 2022, that took effect May 4, 2023.