I will try to include all new updates about the CalVailla Tenant Union Campaign in this thread, so please turn on notifications for this thread specifically.
As a quick update to what was worked on during the 2024-02-05T08:00:00Z Working Meeting
One note by @HipGnosis was that we should avoid sounding like a tenant NGO and only talk about tenant rights and the courts when we know those options are limited. There are a lot of resources linked in WCUTU Resourcess from other TUs. We intended to develop a reading list of our own, but the ones we have from other orgs might give us a better idea of how to speak about tenant unions.
@Turcotte and I did some canvassing today.
We finished what we had on our list of priority contacts. I think there might be a few more people I did not get into our Excel file, so I’ll review the canvassing notes again. But we should double back on the people who seemed interested in this round next week.
Hi @everyone
Spoke with my dad about code enforcement (CE) stuff. Quick summary of what I learned:
CE Assignments:
There is no assigned inspector for the city. Code enforcement officers are assigned areas within the city. So, if tenants have city code complaints and have addressed them to their landlord without results, they can call CE or Neighborhood Services. So best way to contact is probably through the phone that was one the website.
Cockroaches:
-he said they that often times with a CE officer goes out to a property, if they see that a house looks “trashed” where there is food and garbage in many places, they will likely not cite the landlord and tell the tenet that they need to tidy and contain sources for bugs to enter. BUT, I stated that it’s in several properties-so he said that would seem like a landlord issue in that case. But since CalVilla has separate owners for some of these places, it complicates things.
Concern about CE as part of SPD:
Self-certification inspections:
-They are a thing boo </3
though he said some do lie. They just pay a fee and wait until inspection is due again to self-certify 
Hope this helps.
Super helpful!
I just called them, and someone picked up pretty quickly.
They said they’d need the address, contact info, and proof would be nice but not necessary, but they’d send someone out to inspect within 10 days. At that point, the code inspector would want proof of prior contact with the landlord.
Steps to take today and after the meeting today
Didn’t take a group picture 
Thank you to everyone for pitching in to help make that meeting happen!! Not just to prep this presentation, but all the work we put into it for half a year, even if it was slow going at times. It went better than most initial tenant union meetings I’ve heard of. Definitely a solid start to build off of.
Please join the Tenant Union WhatsApp Community and CalVilla Group here:
We also need to decide on a date for the next CalVilla Meeting. Luis said both 2024-03-23T21:30:00Z→2024-03-23T23:00:00Z & 2024-03-24T21:30:00Z→2024-03-24T23:00:00Z are available right now, but we should get back to him soon before something else gets booked. The following weekend is Easter weekend; I do not think we should hold the meeting then. If this weekend does not work for very many of us, then perhaps we should wait until the first weekend of April?
Please use this link to select times that you are available: CrabFit
@anon26178869 and @HipGnosis wrote up notes from the meeting. I will anonymize them a bit and post them in the first thread.
Hi @everyone, just wanted to give an update on Calvilla TU tasks and progress.
@chima reached out to me to assist in contacting the tenants we spoke to on 3/23 which was our last canvassing meetup. I went ahead and contacted 4 tenants where I informed them on our upcoming TU meeting. Background: we originally had the date for this meeting for April 6 (tomorrow) but seeing that we weren’t able to canvass many people on 3/23 due to the weather the date has been moved with the plans to canvass more.
This canvassing is to recruit tenants to work on drafting and writing a letter to Stockton Code Enforcement (CE) as a group of tenants with the hopes of this sending a strong message to their landlords and HOA as a group rather than individual tenants.
I’m gonna go ahead and attach the link to the excel sheet to show what tenants I spoke to by showing the date “4/5” with text following afterwards. This will all be found on the first tab titled “up to date form” on the excel sheet.