My most frequent repeat questions come from students with landlord and roommate problems. Surprise, surprise. Although I’ve covered it before, it’s worth repeating now that a new year is well underway: Security deposits must be returned to you within 21 days of moving out, or else the landlord owes you a triple refund.

Question: My lease ended on Jan. 1. My landlord is refusing to return my security deposit. He says I need to collect it from the new tenant who’s replacing me. I don’t want to have to deal with whoever the new person is. Can the landlord make me do this?

— Various students, Everywhere.

Answer: No, your landlord can’t make you chase after the new tenants for the security deposit.

Within 21 days of you vacating the apartment, the landlord must refund your security deposit. If he doesn’t, or he refunds only part of it, he has to tell you why he did that. He needs to mail or personally hand to you an itemized list of the amounts of any deductions and the reasons for the deductions. He should also include copies of documents showing the charges incurred to clean or repair the apartment.

This list of deductions must be reasonable. He can’t just deduct for anything he wants.

Before you move out, you’re supposed to restore the apartment to the same level of cleanliness as it was in at the time you first moved in. Does the landlord want to steam clean the whole place? He can’t charge you for that, unless steam-cleaning is indeed necessary to return it to the previous level of cleanliness. Ordinary wear and tear is to be expected, and landlords cannot deduct money for “damage” that occurred due to ordinary use.

Some landlords automatically keep about $80 of the security deposit for unspecified “cleaning” fees. But cleaning is not always necessary, and they cannot deduct money for unnecessary expenses.

The portion of the security deposit that wasn’t necessary to return the apartment to its original condition must be returned to you by the landlord.

Back to your question. The landlord cannot tell you to recover your security deposit from the new tenant.

Why?

Because you don’t have a contract with the new tenant. You’ve probably never met the new tenant. The new tenant has no idea how clean the apartment was when you first moved in, so he has no way of refunding you the correct amount.

You have a contract with your landlord. That means that if something goes wrong with that contract, you can sue only the landlord.

The law requires the landlord to hang onto that security deposit during the entire time you live there. California Civil Code Section 1950.5(D) states that any security deposit “shall be held by the landlord for the tenant who is party to the lease or agreement.”

Get your refund from the landlord, not the new tenant. He’s the one with the security deposit, so he’s the one who should give you the refund. A landlord who withholds your deposit in bad faith is liable for triple damages plus your attorney fees.

If you try to get your deposit back, do not start with a lawsuit; start with a letter to the landlord. You can find template demand letters using Google. For more detailed information, there’s a California Tenants Handbook published periodically by the State Department of Consumer Affairs. The latest edition is available at www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/catenant.pdf.

Speaking of questions I keep getting but covered but keep coming up …

Question: In student government elections, slates/parties are too powerful. Can ASUCD just ban slates? Does that violate any law or the Constitution? Is ASUCD even subject to the Constitution?

Answer: ASUCD cannot ban groups of candidates from running together under a common name. Nor can ASUCD restrict the number of candidates who run together, or whose endorsements they can use in their campaigns. Bans like these would violate a candidate’s right to free association under the First Amendment, which applies to student governments in public universities.

Courts treat student government elections as a limited public forum, in which the First Amendment applies, but with reservations. A rule restricting speech in such a forum will be upheld only if the government has legitimate interests in restricting the use of a forum to certain intended purposes that outweigh a speaker’s interest in using the forum for a different purpose. A judge would consider whether any restriction on speech is viewpoint neutral or reasonable in light of the purposes of the forum.

ASUCD isn’t nearly as bad as the student government of my undergrad alma mater, UC San Diego. There, the A.S. Council recently restricted the number of candidates who can run together under the same platform. They also banned candidates from jointly campaigning unless they all file paperwork with the elections committee. That’s pretty clearly unconstitutional, since the only conceivable purpose of such limits is to restrict the most popular candidates, those with lots of friends and supporters, from winning elections. No other purpose is served.

That does not mean that ASUCD’s bylaws are in the clear. This section, for example, is probably unconstitutional and unenforceable:

“A copy of the written list of [a candidate’s] supporters must be filed with the ASUCD Elections Committee one academic day prior to the [candidate’s] use of the endorsement.”

It is unlikely that a judge would uphold this, because its blanket restriction is unreasonable. Imagine the consequences: After a club holds its endorsement meeting on the Friday before a three-day weekend, the candidate cannot tell anyone that the club endorsed him until the following Tuesday. What reasonable purpose is served by this four-day waiting period? The club could announce its endorsement on Friday, but if the candidate’s roommate asks him about the endorsement on Saturday, he would have to stay mute or else risk disqualification. That’s nuts — or, in legal terms, unreasonable.

It’s great that UC Davis’ election bylaws are more free and fair than UC San Diego’s, but clauses like this are still a problem. Any candidate afraid of disqualification under this provision could file a lawsuit in federal court before the election even begins. Lawsuits are expensive, and ASUCD would do well to revise the bylaws before some ambitious political science student tries to test them in court.

Daniel is a Sacramento attorney, former Davis City Council candidate and graduate of UC Davis School of Law. He’ll answer questions sent to him at governorwatts@gmail.com or tweeted to @governorwatts.

Plans to renovate Freeborn Hall during the summer of 2014 have left the future use of the building up in the air.

Whether the lecture hall will be completely demolished for construction of an entirely new building or just renovated for seismic updates is still up in the air. However, Lower Freeborn is to remain open for an extended period of time.

“When we announced that Freeborn was going to go offline this year, even in that announcement it was clearly stated that even though Freeborn will be going offline, Lower will remain open,” said John Campbell, director of recreation, the Memorial Union, UC Davis stores and divisional facilities.

Although it may have been vocalized that it’d be helpful if both levels were closed, it was never intended to disrupt ASUCD’s operating units in Lower Freeborn, including KDVS.

The project is far from the point of needing the radio station to relocate as early as summer 2015, as was previously discussed.

UC Davis alumnus and former KDVS general manager Justin Cable expressed to John Meyer, vice chancellor of Administrative and Resource Management, KDVS’ concerns of the difficulty and cost of possibly moving to a temporary location.

“It really couldn’t have gone better for us because they’re including us in a lot of the discussions, now they know what our issue is,” said Cameron Cairns, general manager of KDVS.

A study for the project is being conducted to discuss current needs as well as other areas of student life. The first kickoff meeting with the project advisory group took place last week on Jan. 23.

“This is going to be one of the processes of a great study in discussion with multiple users and user needs,” Campbell said. “Our vice chancellor of Student Affairs has ensured that the student voice is being heard as we have a large number of student representation.”

The space’s intended use is student driven, and ideas of creating a new student union have been discussed.

“We don’t want to just build an ASUCD office building, we want to create a space that truly serves the student needs,” said ASUCD Controller Eric Evans.

The project is early in its stages, and program definition to determine the many needs and uses of the facility has only just begun. Campbell estimates eight to 12 months for the design group to solidify ideas, but it could possibly be years until any actual construction.

The 60-year-old hall will still shut down at the end of June due to safety issues, but there is no displacement plan for any of the operating units using Lower Freeborn.

Vice President Bradley Bottoms was absent from the ASUCD Senate meeting on Jan. 23. The meeting was called into session at 6:11 PM by President Pro Tempore Miles Thomas, who acted as presiding officer.

Senator Gareth Smythe was elected to take the place of President Pro Tempore during the meeting.

Three new commissioners were confirmed to Ethnic and Cultural Affairs Commission and four new members were confirmed to Aggie Public Arts Committee. One current member was re-confirmed to the External Affairs Commission, and a new member was confirmed as well.

A unit director report was given by Darren Schluep who represented the Associated Students Dining Services. He reported that CoHo sales have gone up this year, and that the CoHo hopes to introduce more vegetarian options for grab ‘n go salads. Schluep also reported that Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi potentially will be serving coffee at the CoHo on Feb. 3 to fulfill her Promise to Education she made in October.

Dillan Horton, the unit director of University Affairs, reported on a recent Board of Regents meeting. He said that the UC schools, along with the CSU and CCC school systems, hope to increase their online education along with streamlining the transfer process and outreach to students in grades K-12. Some senators expressed concern that an increased amount of online courses would be detrimental because of the lack of contact between students and professors.

The Club Finance Council gave a presentation. The council said that its services have increased in the past year because of increased marketing towards campus clubs. It has not been able to fund as many club events as it would like because the cost of funding for clubs has increased.

Senate Bill 26 proposed to allocate $2,948.32 to the ASUCD unit Creative Media in order to replace old ASUCD servers. The bill passed in a 12-0-0 vote. IAC Chairman Spencer McManus said it would be simply irresponsible to not supply Creative Media with the servers that it needs because of all of the work that it does for ASUCD.

The senate meeting then moved into public discussion regarding the 2014-15 academic calendar. The issue of the 2014-15 winter break schedule was discussed for a substantial amount of time. Thomas was in favor of trying to take action on the issue, but a resolution for ASUCD to bring it to the University of California Office of the President was turned down in a 5-1-6 non-binding vote.

The remainder of the meeting consisted of senators adopting ASUCD units and assigning a member to the Experimental College task force. Three new pieces of legislation were introduced into the legislative process.

-Melissa Dittrich

After its successful run in Fall Quarter 2012 through the International Students Club (ISC), the International Buddy Program saw its official beginning on Jan. 22 and Jan. 23 at program orientation. Sponsored by the Cross Cultural Center (CCC) Services for International Students and Scholars (SISS) and the ASUCD Outreach Assembly (OA), the program aims to provide a platform for international and domestic students to socialize.

As president of ISC at the time, ASUCD Senator Shehzad Lokhandwalla created the program out of inspiration from his own experience as an international student.

“One of my good friends, Ellen Liang, was kind enough to mentor [and accommodate me to] the United States,” Lokhandwalla said. “Being inspired by that, I decided to start a domestic-international program through my club.”

A total of 234 students applied to be a part of the mentorship program, 134 of them being domestic students. During a selection process that focused on finding enthusiastic students who wanted to learn more about new cultures, 174 were chosen to participate.

Moira Delgado of the SISS and Koby Rodriguez of the CCC led the orientations, discussing the ground rules for the program, such as respecting the Principles of Community. Each night had three parts, an icebreaker, program description and restrictions and culture training.

The International Buddy Program committee behind the planning and pairing of students is comprised of Lokhandwalla, his interns Jessica Reiter, Tia Nguyen and Yanlin Alice Li and Rylan Schaeffer.

Li is a second-year applied math major and international student, and she wanted to continue her involvement with the international community.

“International students don’t normally connect with domestic students because of the language barrier,” Li said. “This is a great opportunity for international students to step out of their comfort zones, as it’s a big encouragement to do so.”
Along with learning about different cultures and getting more involved on campus, students involved also have the opportunity to form friendships. Lokhandwalla believes that participants will continue to socialize with their buddies after the quarter-long program.

Nguyen, a second-year political science and sociology double major, got involved because of an interest in her own history.

“I’m a domestic student, but I thought the program was interesting because my parents were immigrants,” Nguyen said. “People are interested in learning about new cultures, and hopefully people can make lifelong friends through the program.”

In addition to orientation, one hour of commitment per week is required. At a final event at the end of the quarter, participants will be able to discuss what they learned and receive participant certificates signed by Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi.

The International Buddy Program is closed for winter 2014 and will not return spring 2014. Lokhandwalla hopes that the ASUCD International Undergraduate Committee (IUC) will be permanently institutionalized, as he wants the program to be sustainable and under its control in the future. On Feb. 14, ASUCD Senate will decide whether to terminate, extend or permanently institutionalize the IUC.

An official website is in the works, and until then, any inquiries can be directed toward Lokhandwalla at sslokhandwalla@ucdavis.edu.