Prop 1-2-3

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Your editorial yesterday urging a "No" vote on my Proposition 1-2-3 contains several factual errors.

First, you assume that prices for tenants who might choose to purchase their homes would be $100,000 or, perhaps, $75,000; and then assert "most people can't afford $75,000, either." But the binding prices already offered by the largest landlord in the city are lower than that: 3/4 of the prices are below $70,000.

Under common mortgage-lending standards, people can pay three times their salary for a home price. $70,000 is three times a salary of $23,333, which is below the median income for rent-control tenants. So Proposition I really does provide a choice of affordable homeownership.

Second, you assert that a homeownership tax exemption would "discount the real estate tax value by about $50,000." But you do not explain that such a homeownership tax is not required by law for the next fiscal year, but would have to be voted by the next city council. And the supporters of Proposition 1-2-3 do not support such an exemption for tenants allowed to buy under Proposition 1. Just because we support a choice of homeownership does not mean we want the city to subsidize it, in any way. Instead, the plan is for the new homeowners to help other people, who need help paying their rent.

Third, you attack motives, suggesting financial greed, slyness, and deception. As the sole author of Proposition 1-2-3, I resent that inappropriate attack. I am a real-estate broker, but not a landlord. I don't own or manage one rent-controlled apartment; and no broker is needed for a landlord to sell to his own tenant.

After 25 years in business in Harvard Square, I wrote Proposition 1-2-3 because it didn't seem fair to me that rich white couples can buy a house from me off Brattle Street, but a poor man can't buy his own apartment on Bristol Street. And a needy couple can't buy their apartment on Broadway.

It may seem O.K. to your editorial board that rent-controlled apartments in fact don't go to the poor, but are distributed to whoever offers the most money for one via a Reward poster behind the Coop. The whole system cries out for reforms like mine.

The current rent-control system is illiberal, illogical and intolerant. The caring and progressive way to vote today is: give the right to own to all. Vote "Yes" on Proposition 1-2-3. Fred Meyer   Harvard Square