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procedures and remedies for the enforcement of the State Housing Law, tt is currently "under submission" with no action on it expected this year . The Manager recommended that the San Mateo County HRC (or a Redwood City Consumer Affairs ) function could be developed to handle complaints regarding eviction, changes in rent , non-return of rental deposit , etc . , but that this should be considered a long-range program . He suggested that intensive publicity given to fair housing surveys , legal research, litigation , and the like "will give owners and managers who are discriminating second thoughts . " He suggested that MCFH could play "an important role as an intercity broker of information , " eliminating redundant research . MCFH could provide a summary of Federal and State laws on fair housing, including information on bills currently before Congress or the State Legislature , as well as a summary of the fair housing programs and legal activities of other cities . Concerning the overturning of the Rumford Act pre-emption of local fair housing legislation , Manager Fales said that perhaps the HCC would like to recommend to the City Council that it get together with other Peninsula cities to "author our own bill" to be put in the legislative hopper in Sacramento by one of our local legislators . He said that his office was involved in researching the whole area of consumer affairs , with inquiries out to a number of counties , among them Los Angeles , Sacramento, and Santa Clara, and that Redwood City was requesting that the League of Cities investigate the possible role of cities in consumer affairs , particularly in housing . DISCUSSION OF RECOMMENDATIONS • Gene Moriguchi commented that , in his experience , the County HRC refers fair housing complaints to the Fair Employment Practices Commission , which takes ninety days to get to the case , by which time the interviewers they sent out find everything "has been covered up . " This is the procedure followed under the Rumford Act , he said , but under the Unruh Civil Rights Act an immediate suit can be brought . Gene Gutierrez , summer intern in the Manager ' s office , said that the most direct method was to get some kind of injunction against an apartment owner, but that that cost $300 a shot for a lawyer . It would put an economic incentive on the apartment owner to do something, he said , but the funding was a problem. Gene Moriguchi said that the FEPC process was mainly investigative and that it was long and arduous . Even in fields of discrimination in employment, he said, lawyers have found it easier to go to court under the 1968 Civil Rights act directly with a civil damage suit . Gene Gutierrez said that the HRC does still confront apartment owners and that the worst they can do is to "intimidate the guy . " They have no legal bite , he said . Gene Moriguchi said that the HRC meets the owner or manager on a one-to- one basis , in which the manager simply asserts that he hasn ' t discriminated . Gene Gutierrez said that the HRC could take specifics and confront the apartment owner with them and that ' s what HRC staff said they would do . MINUTES HOUSING CONCERNS COMMITTEE JULY 12 , 1972 PAGE 4 OF 5