On January 8th, rent-control advocate Rafael Bautista filed paperwork with the city to run for the District 4 council seat now occupied by Myrtle Cole.

As covered by the Reader, Bautista is a real estate broker and one of the founding members of San Diego Tenants United, a group whose goal is to establish rent control in San Diego.

"Renters are experiencing substantial rent hikes that are not consistent with salary increases, and hard-working San Diegans face the stressful situation every year of being forced from their home if they don’t pay exploitative rent increases," reads the group's petition on Change.org. As of publication, more than 9500 people have signed the petition, close to the group's goal of 10,000.

Besides rent control, Bautista has strived to hold apartment-complex owners responsible for their properties that have fallen into disrepair.

Bautista joined several groups, including the local Socialist party, to call out a Linda Vista apartment-building owner on Eastman Street whose tenants were living among rats and cockroaches and with inadequate plumbing and sewage systems.

Besides Cole, Bautista joins candidates Monica Montgomery and Neal Arthur in the race.