April 18, 2017
Oakland Council OKs $700,000 in Assistance for Survivors Displaced by San Pablo Avenue Fire
Survivors of the San Pablo Avenue fire that killed four and displaced over 70 households will be receiving financial assistance directly from the city by Friday.
The Oakland City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday night to reallocate $615,000 in community development block grant money to a special city fund that helps tenants relocate after they are displaced due to code violations and habitability issues caused by their landlord.
According to Michelle Byrd, Oakland's director of housing and community development, 54 residents of the destroyed building have already been approved to receive relocation assistance. The amount of benefits each resident is eligible for ranges from$6,500 to $12,375, depending on their age, how many dependents they have, and the size of their apartment unit or studio.
"We are still receiving applications," said Byrd. "Every day someone comes into the housing assistance center indicating they were a resident."
Assistant City Administrator Claudia Cappio said the city could issue checks as early as Friday. The fire, which was caused when a candle was knocked over, occurred on March 27 early in the morning. The building had a long history of code violations and had been flagged by fire inspectors as a danger just prior to the blaze.
Many survivors have been living in shelters or on the street. Tracking them down has proven difficult for the city.
Brenda Corley moved into the building in April 2012. She said that since the fire, she has had to sleep outside on the streets for several nights. "I need some help now, today," she told the council. "I'm scared."
Richard Meyers, another resident of the building, said that many of the residents scattered after the fire and still haven't been found. They're living in homeless camps or with friends and aren't aware that they're eligible for assistance.
The relocation assistance program was created in 1993. In January of this year, the council approved an update that Rebecca Kaplan had introduced in 2015, including increasing the amounts paid to tenants who are displaced due to code violations and fires.
"This has been in our law for some time," said Kaplan in an interview. "But it's done fairly rarely. I want this set up as a system, not just for the victims of this fire. I’ve asked for us to have better systems to do these in general."
The relocation assistance will be paid by the city directly to survivors of the fire who can document that they were legal tenants of the building. The city will then bill the landlord for the assistance funds. If the landlord doesn't pay the money back, the city then has the option of putting a lien on the property.
"This was never a question of whether or not to distribute the funds," said Cappio during the meeting. "It was to get authorization from the council because the relocation account had been expended."
Kaplan said it's important that the city "make it clear that it's our policy that we don't leave people out on the streets to suffer after a fire."
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/oakland-council-oks-700000-in-assistance-for-survivors-displaced-by-san-pablo-avenue-fire/Content?oid=6395924
Friday, April 28, 2017
137 City of Oakland - Schaaf stacks the planning commission with real estate industry reps
April 21, 2017
Community and Labor Groups Say Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf Has Stacked the Planning Commission with Real Estate Industry Reps
Since taking office in 2015, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf has made three new appointments to Oakland's seven-member planning commission. She’s also re-appointed two members. In each case, Schaaf put a developer, architect, or attorney from the real estate industry on the commission.
Yesterday, Schaaf nominated her fourth new pick for the board: Jonathan Fearn, a vice president with the developer SummerHill Homes.
The mayor's choices are drawing criticism from community groups and unions worried about how development in Oakland affects low-income residents and workers.
Critics say real estate industry representatives on the commission aren't always sensitive to the social and economic impacts of projects and policies, and that the board needs more diversity.
"The planning commission has historically been heavily weighted to include developers, architects, and others who have a financial interest in fast-tracking development, and who come from wealthier neighborhoods," said Ayodele Nzinga of the Community Coalition for Equitable Development and Black Arts Movement and Business District.
Over the past year, Nzinga’s coalition has negotiated community benefits agreements with developers building along the 14th Street corridor bordering Chinatown and the new Black Arts Movement and Business District. She said her group is interested in minimizing displacement, adding more affordable housing, and ensuring high paying jobs, among other priorities.
"We are disappointed in the latest appointment of a real estate developer to the Planning Commission," said Wei-Ling Huber, the president of Unite HERE 2850. "Every Planning Commissioner appointed since 2015 works for the real estate development industry as a developer, lawyer, architect, or real estate agent."
Unite HERE 2850 has advocated that project approvals be contingent on developers agreeing to uphold Oakland's labor laws, and whether a project will create living wage jobs.
Karolyn Wong of the Community Coalition for Equitable Development said that the lack of occupational diversity on the commission has caused unnecessary delays on important votes.
"The commissioners often have to recuse themselves because they are in close financial or business partnerships with the developers applying for projects, and the result has been a lack of votes to reach quorum leading to project approval delays," said Wong.
A review of planning commission records by the Express shows at least 51 recusals by different commissioners on votes concerning 31 items in 2016, due to conflicts of interest. The commission considered a total of 95 items in 2016, according to meeting minutes.
In other words, in one out of every three projects voted on by the planning commission last year, at least one commissioner had to recuse themselves.
In many cases, the recused commissioner had worked on the project under consideration, or represented a project applicant in legal proceedings in another city.
Candice Elder of the East Oakland Collective said the planning commission currently doesn't reflect the geographic diversity of Oakland. She noted that all but one of the commissioners — Jahmese Myers — live near Lake Merritt, or in North Oakland, Rockridge, and the hills above Piedmont. A review of property records by the Express confirmed Elder's observation about where the planning commissioners live.
Elder added that East Oakland residents are concerned about affordable housing. They feel the city should be doing more to ensure projects include units that are deeply affordable.
"There needs to be a balance on the commission to hold the city and developers accountable, to make sure there's affordable housing in these new projects," she said.
Naomi Schiff of the Oakland Heritage Alliance echoed Elder: "Historically, East Oakland has been wildly underrepresented on the planning commission."
"More than half of Oakland is east of the lake, and there are big issues coming up," continued Schiff. "We have the Coliseum area, Oak Knoll, and potential proposed zoning changes that will really affect the area. We also have bus rapid transit coming through, so there's a lot of real estate pressure."
Schaaf's recent nomination of Jonathan Fearn would fill a seat being vacated by landscape designer Chris Pattillo. But Fearn’s appointment would maintain a planning commission with six of the seven members hailing from the real estate industry, or having clients who frequently have matters pending before the commission. And Fearn, according to county records, lives in North Oakland.
Fearn's current employer, SummerHill Homes, has built residential housing in Pleasanton and Moraga. Fearn previously worked as a manager with EM Johnson Interest, better known as UrbanCore.
Two years ago, Pattillo had to recuse herself from planning commission meetings and votes regarding UrbanCore's controversial proposal to build an apartment tower by Lake Merritt on city-owned land. Pattillo's firm was a subcontractor on the project.
Fearn still has to be approved by the city council.
Mayor Schaaf's office didn’t respond to a request for comment for this report.
Schaaf's other recent appointments to the planning commission were Clark Manus and Tom Limon.
Manus is an architect with Heller Manus. He lives in the Trestle Glen neighborhood near Lake Merritt. His architectural firm has at least two major projects pending before the city: the Kaiser Auditorium remodel being undertaken by Orton Development, and a 23-story residential tower at 1510 Webster Street.
Limon is a broker with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. Limon is also a member of the Oakland Builders Alliance, a developer lobbying group whose members have numerous, large development projects pending before the city.
Schaaf’s first appointment to the planning commission in June of 2015 was Amanda Monchamp, an attorney with Holland and Knight who specializes in land use law. Monchamp, a resident of Rockridge, was the planning commissioner with the most recusals in 2016.
Schaaf also re-appointed Adhi Nagraj and Emily Weinstein to the commission in June 2015. Both Nagraj and Weinstein work for Bridge Housing, an affordable housing developer.
Communities for Equitable Development launched a petition yesterday asking Mayor Schaaf to reappoint commissioner Myers to a second three-year term, and to also appoint a Nischit Hegde to the planning commission seat being vacated by Patillo, instead of Fearn.
Hegde is a staff member of the union AFSCME 3299, which represents workers at University of California campuses and medical centers. Hegde previously worked with Unite HERE.
Last year, Unite HERE 2850 asked the city planning commission to deny an application for a new hotel in downtown Oakland because the developers violated Oakland’s minimum wage and sick leave laws at other hotels they currently operate. The union implored the planning commission to consider social and economic impacts of approving a hotel run by a company accused of labor law violations. The planning commission approved the project, however.
"The Commission is desperately in need of diverse voices that can represent the interests of working-class communities of color in Oakland, who are bearing the brunt of skyrocketing housing costs and rising income inequality," said Wei-Ling Huber of Unite HERE.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/04/21/community-and-labor-groups-say-oakland-mayor-libby-schaaf-has-stacked-the-planning-commission-with-real-estate-industry-reps
Community and Labor Groups Say Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf Has Stacked the Planning Commission with Real Estate Industry Reps
Since taking office in 2015, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf has made three new appointments to Oakland's seven-member planning commission. She’s also re-appointed two members. In each case, Schaaf put a developer, architect, or attorney from the real estate industry on the commission.
Yesterday, Schaaf nominated her fourth new pick for the board: Jonathan Fearn, a vice president with the developer SummerHill Homes.
The mayor's choices are drawing criticism from community groups and unions worried about how development in Oakland affects low-income residents and workers.
Critics say real estate industry representatives on the commission aren't always sensitive to the social and economic impacts of projects and policies, and that the board needs more diversity.
"The planning commission has historically been heavily weighted to include developers, architects, and others who have a financial interest in fast-tracking development, and who come from wealthier neighborhoods," said Ayodele Nzinga of the Community Coalition for Equitable Development and Black Arts Movement and Business District.
Over the past year, Nzinga’s coalition has negotiated community benefits agreements with developers building along the 14th Street corridor bordering Chinatown and the new Black Arts Movement and Business District. She said her group is interested in minimizing displacement, adding more affordable housing, and ensuring high paying jobs, among other priorities.
"We are disappointed in the latest appointment of a real estate developer to the Planning Commission," said Wei-Ling Huber, the president of Unite HERE 2850. "Every Planning Commissioner appointed since 2015 works for the real estate development industry as a developer, lawyer, architect, or real estate agent."
Unite HERE 2850 has advocated that project approvals be contingent on developers agreeing to uphold Oakland's labor laws, and whether a project will create living wage jobs.
Karolyn Wong of the Community Coalition for Equitable Development said that the lack of occupational diversity on the commission has caused unnecessary delays on important votes.
"The commissioners often have to recuse themselves because they are in close financial or business partnerships with the developers applying for projects, and the result has been a lack of votes to reach quorum leading to project approval delays," said Wong.
A review of planning commission records by the Express shows at least 51 recusals by different commissioners on votes concerning 31 items in 2016, due to conflicts of interest. The commission considered a total of 95 items in 2016, according to meeting minutes.
In other words, in one out of every three projects voted on by the planning commission last year, at least one commissioner had to recuse themselves.
In many cases, the recused commissioner had worked on the project under consideration, or represented a project applicant in legal proceedings in another city.
Candice Elder of the East Oakland Collective said the planning commission currently doesn't reflect the geographic diversity of Oakland. She noted that all but one of the commissioners — Jahmese Myers — live near Lake Merritt, or in North Oakland, Rockridge, and the hills above Piedmont. A review of property records by the Express confirmed Elder's observation about where the planning commissioners live.
Elder added that East Oakland residents are concerned about affordable housing. They feel the city should be doing more to ensure projects include units that are deeply affordable.
"There needs to be a balance on the commission to hold the city and developers accountable, to make sure there's affordable housing in these new projects," she said.
Naomi Schiff of the Oakland Heritage Alliance echoed Elder: "Historically, East Oakland has been wildly underrepresented on the planning commission."
"More than half of Oakland is east of the lake, and there are big issues coming up," continued Schiff. "We have the Coliseum area, Oak Knoll, and potential proposed zoning changes that will really affect the area. We also have bus rapid transit coming through, so there's a lot of real estate pressure."
Schaaf's recent nomination of Jonathan Fearn would fill a seat being vacated by landscape designer Chris Pattillo. But Fearn’s appointment would maintain a planning commission with six of the seven members hailing from the real estate industry, or having clients who frequently have matters pending before the commission. And Fearn, according to county records, lives in North Oakland.
Fearn's current employer, SummerHill Homes, has built residential housing in Pleasanton and Moraga. Fearn previously worked as a manager with EM Johnson Interest, better known as UrbanCore.
Two years ago, Pattillo had to recuse herself from planning commission meetings and votes regarding UrbanCore's controversial proposal to build an apartment tower by Lake Merritt on city-owned land. Pattillo's firm was a subcontractor on the project.
Fearn still has to be approved by the city council.
Mayor Schaaf's office didn’t respond to a request for comment for this report.
Schaaf's other recent appointments to the planning commission were Clark Manus and Tom Limon.
Manus is an architect with Heller Manus. He lives in the Trestle Glen neighborhood near Lake Merritt. His architectural firm has at least two major projects pending before the city: the Kaiser Auditorium remodel being undertaken by Orton Development, and a 23-story residential tower at 1510 Webster Street.
Limon is a broker with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. Limon is also a member of the Oakland Builders Alliance, a developer lobbying group whose members have numerous, large development projects pending before the city.
Schaaf’s first appointment to the planning commission in June of 2015 was Amanda Monchamp, an attorney with Holland and Knight who specializes in land use law. Monchamp, a resident of Rockridge, was the planning commissioner with the most recusals in 2016.
Schaaf also re-appointed Adhi Nagraj and Emily Weinstein to the commission in June 2015. Both Nagraj and Weinstein work for Bridge Housing, an affordable housing developer.
Communities for Equitable Development launched a petition yesterday asking Mayor Schaaf to reappoint commissioner Myers to a second three-year term, and to also appoint a Nischit Hegde to the planning commission seat being vacated by Patillo, instead of Fearn.
Hegde is a staff member of the union AFSCME 3299, which represents workers at University of California campuses and medical centers. Hegde previously worked with Unite HERE.
Last year, Unite HERE 2850 asked the city planning commission to deny an application for a new hotel in downtown Oakland because the developers violated Oakland’s minimum wage and sick leave laws at other hotels they currently operate. The union implored the planning commission to consider social and economic impacts of approving a hotel run by a company accused of labor law violations. The planning commission approved the project, however.
"The Commission is desperately in need of diverse voices that can represent the interests of working-class communities of color in Oakland, who are bearing the brunt of skyrocketing housing costs and rising income inequality," said Wei-Ling Huber of Unite HERE.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/04/21/community-and-labor-groups-say-oakland-mayor-libby-schaaf-has-stacked-the-planning-commission-with-real-estate-industry-reps
136 City of Oakland - 2 deadly fires yet the Oakland Fire Dept remains under-staffed.
April 24,2017
Town Business: Oakland Fire Department Still Seriously Under-Staffed
Despite recent hires, there still are not enough firefighters in Oakland, and key positions remain unfilled.
Nearly five months after the deadly Ghost Ship inferno, which highlighted the shortcomings of Oakland's poorly-resourced emergency responders, the city's ability to fight fires, provide emergency medical response, and especially to inspect buildings, remains hamstrung due to staffing issues.
According to Oakland's most recent jobs vacancy report, 36 positions, or 7.1 percent of budgeted, sworn jobs in the fire department aren't filled right now. That's worse than the police department's under-staffing, which is 2.2 percent.
However, the fire department's personnel situation has improved since last December when there were 62 empty sworn positions. Back then, Oakland was missing seventeen firefighters, six paramedics, and seven engineers.
There's now only twelve missing firefighters, three paramedics, and four engineers.
But Oakland fire is still missing key personnel, including fifteen captains.
And the department still doesn't have an Assistant Fire Marshal, and it's missing three inspectors in the Fire Prevention Bureau, which is responsible for inspecting buildings like the Ghost Ship and 2551 San Pablo Avenue.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/04/24/town-business-oakland-fire-department-still-seriously-under-staffed
Town Business: Oakland Fire Department Still Seriously Under-Staffed
Despite recent hires, there still are not enough firefighters in Oakland, and key positions remain unfilled.
Nearly five months after the deadly Ghost Ship inferno, which highlighted the shortcomings of Oakland's poorly-resourced emergency responders, the city's ability to fight fires, provide emergency medical response, and especially to inspect buildings, remains hamstrung due to staffing issues.
According to Oakland's most recent jobs vacancy report, 36 positions, or 7.1 percent of budgeted, sworn jobs in the fire department aren't filled right now. That's worse than the police department's under-staffing, which is 2.2 percent.
However, the fire department's personnel situation has improved since last December when there were 62 empty sworn positions. Back then, Oakland was missing seventeen firefighters, six paramedics, and seven engineers.
There's now only twelve missing firefighters, three paramedics, and four engineers.
But Oakland fire is still missing key personnel, including fifteen captains.
And the department still doesn't have an Assistant Fire Marshal, and it's missing three inspectors in the Fire Prevention Bureau, which is responsible for inspecting buildings like the Ghost Ship and 2551 San Pablo Avenue.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/04/24/town-business-oakland-fire-department-still-seriously-under-staffed
136 Oakland Police Dept (OPD) discriminating against rappers and music venues
April 26, 2017
Blacklisted: How The Oakland Police Department Discriminates Against Rappers and Music Venues
Artists, promoters, and civil-rights advocates say police policy bans artists and levies huge security fees on rap venues.
Last year, Philthy Rich’s hometown release-show for Hood Rich 4 was supposed to be a victory lap. The staunchly independent local rapper’s previous album, Real Niggas Back in Style, climbed to No. 5 on Billboard’s “Heatseekers” chart, and Philthy seemed poised to clinch that distinctly Bay Area rap-game ambition: local empire, national reputation.
But on the day before his November 18 gig at downtown nightclub Vinyl, venue owner Oscar Edwards says an Oakland cop visited him personally to tell him that Philthy’s show, advertised for weeks, was a “problem.”
Abruptly, Edwards and Philthy called it off. It was a familiar situation: Edwards said the department edits and censors local hip-hop lineups “all the time.”
For Philthy, it was a costly disappointment. He’d flown in three guest performers, put them up in hotels, and chartered a van with a driver and a security guard to bring everyone to the club. Philthy’s manager, PK (for Prashant Kumar) estimated the loss to be approximately $10,000.
“There’s no way it wasn’t malicious,” PK reckoned of the department’s motive. “‘Let’s let him set up the show — and then cancel it at the last minute.’
The Oakland Police Department says it “does not cancel shows,” but Philthy isn’t the only local rapper who, following police pressure on promoters, has been removed from lineups or had shows canceled outright.
In fact, several artists, promoters, and club owners who spoke to the Express in recent months described two different approaches to nightlife oversight in Oakland. They say genres besides hip-hop seldom if ever receive police scrutiny, while rap — one of the Town’s most prized cultural exports — is subjected to burdensome, costly regulations that critics call discriminatory.
Oakland rappers aside from Philthy, including Birch Boy Barie and Project Poppa, even have the impression that they’re banned from performing in their home city — a prospect that alarms civil-rights advocates.
“It’s very disturbing,” said Oakland attorney Dan Siegel. “Even if some of these guys have had run-ins with the cops, what does that have to do with whether or not they can play a show?”
The rap shows in question are legitimate concerts at permitted Oakland venues, not underground gigs or secret warehouse parties. And while Oakland city code requires police to provide written explanations for denying special-event applications, venue owners say they’ve never been offered such documents, and police nightlife overseers declined to be interviewed for this article.
San Francisco attorney John Hamasaki, whose defense of Richmond artist Laz tha Boy brought attention to government prosecutors’ punitive use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials, said the opacity with which Oakland police censor shows “indicates that OPD knows they’re infringing on these artists’ right to perform.”
Even the City of Oakland’s cultural affairs manager, Roberto Bedoya, is troubled by the apparent uneven enforcement. “The city’s commitment to racial equity needs to be considered when it comes to how these policies are enforced,” he told the Express. “Any racial bias at play in policing artist speech — that’s worth looking at.”
Philthy, born Philip Beasley, 34, supported Hood Rich 4 with an incident-free, seventeen-date West Coast tour earlier this year. Conspicuously absent was a gig in Oakland, the subject of affection in so many of his songs. Last November, the day after his canceled local show, the rapper and his out-of-town friends handed out 500 turkeys at the Rainbow Recreation Center in his East Oakland neighborhood of Seminary.
His charity didn’t go unnoticed: The Alameda County Board of Supervisors formally proclaimed November 19, 2016, as “Philthy Rich — H.U.G.S./F.O.D. Thanksgiving Day.” The supervisors also thanked the rapper and his co-organizers for their “philanthropic hearts.”
“I’d love to play Oakland, but I’m not even trying to talk to a promoter about doing shows there,” he told the Express while on the road. “I don’t want to disappoint people when I’m not allowed to show up.”
“It is heartbreaking. Usually tours end in your hometown.”
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/blacklisted-how-the-oakland-police-department-discriminates-against-rappers-and-music-venues/Content?oid=6482231
Blacklisted: How The Oakland Police Department Discriminates Against Rappers and Music Venues
Artists, promoters, and civil-rights advocates say police policy bans artists and levies huge security fees on rap venues.
Last year, Philthy Rich’s hometown release-show for Hood Rich 4 was supposed to be a victory lap. The staunchly independent local rapper’s previous album, Real Niggas Back in Style, climbed to No. 5 on Billboard’s “Heatseekers” chart, and Philthy seemed poised to clinch that distinctly Bay Area rap-game ambition: local empire, national reputation.
But on the day before his November 18 gig at downtown nightclub Vinyl, venue owner Oscar Edwards says an Oakland cop visited him personally to tell him that Philthy’s show, advertised for weeks, was a “problem.”
Abruptly, Edwards and Philthy called it off. It was a familiar situation: Edwards said the department edits and censors local hip-hop lineups “all the time.”
For Philthy, it was a costly disappointment. He’d flown in three guest performers, put them up in hotels, and chartered a van with a driver and a security guard to bring everyone to the club. Philthy’s manager, PK (for Prashant Kumar) estimated the loss to be approximately $10,000.
“There’s no way it wasn’t malicious,” PK reckoned of the department’s motive. “‘Let’s let him set up the show — and then cancel it at the last minute.’
The Oakland Police Department says it “does not cancel shows,” but Philthy isn’t the only local rapper who, following police pressure on promoters, has been removed from lineups or had shows canceled outright.
In fact, several artists, promoters, and club owners who spoke to the Express in recent months described two different approaches to nightlife oversight in Oakland. They say genres besides hip-hop seldom if ever receive police scrutiny, while rap — one of the Town’s most prized cultural exports — is subjected to burdensome, costly regulations that critics call discriminatory.
Oakland rappers aside from Philthy, including Birch Boy Barie and Project Poppa, even have the impression that they’re banned from performing in their home city — a prospect that alarms civil-rights advocates.
“It’s very disturbing,” said Oakland attorney Dan Siegel. “Even if some of these guys have had run-ins with the cops, what does that have to do with whether or not they can play a show?”
The rap shows in question are legitimate concerts at permitted Oakland venues, not underground gigs or secret warehouse parties. And while Oakland city code requires police to provide written explanations for denying special-event applications, venue owners say they’ve never been offered such documents, and police nightlife overseers declined to be interviewed for this article.
San Francisco attorney John Hamasaki, whose defense of Richmond artist Laz tha Boy brought attention to government prosecutors’ punitive use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials, said the opacity with which Oakland police censor shows “indicates that OPD knows they’re infringing on these artists’ right to perform.”
Even the City of Oakland’s cultural affairs manager, Roberto Bedoya, is troubled by the apparent uneven enforcement. “The city’s commitment to racial equity needs to be considered when it comes to how these policies are enforced,” he told the Express. “Any racial bias at play in policing artist speech — that’s worth looking at.”
Philthy, born Philip Beasley, 34, supported Hood Rich 4 with an incident-free, seventeen-date West Coast tour earlier this year. Conspicuously absent was a gig in Oakland, the subject of affection in so many of his songs. Last November, the day after his canceled local show, the rapper and his out-of-town friends handed out 500 turkeys at the Rainbow Recreation Center in his East Oakland neighborhood of Seminary.
His charity didn’t go unnoticed: The Alameda County Board of Supervisors formally proclaimed November 19, 2016, as “Philthy Rich — H.U.G.S./F.O.D. Thanksgiving Day.” The supervisors also thanked the rapper and his co-organizers for their “philanthropic hearts.”
“I’d love to play Oakland, but I’m not even trying to talk to a promoter about doing shows there,” he told the Express while on the road. “I don’t want to disappoint people when I’m not allowed to show up.”
“It is heartbreaking. Usually tours end in your hometown.”
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/blacklisted-how-the-oakland-police-department-discriminates-against-rappers-and-music-venues/Content?oid=6482231
135 City of Oakland - Condo Conversions are displacing renters and undermining affordability
April 26, 2017
Condominium Conversions in Oakland Displace Renters and Undermine Affordability, According to Tenants and Housing Experts
When Karen Dick signed her lease in 2012, she thought she was moving into an affordable, rent-controlled apartment. But last year, her landlord delivered surprising news: Her modest one-bedroom had been turned into a condominium while she was living in it.
Now she will either have to pay as much as $450,000 to buy the condo, or move out when someone else purchases it.
Dick says her options are all bad. She doesn’t have enough money to buy, and doesn’t think the converted condo is worth the price. She’ll have to find a new apartment.
But rents have shot dramatically upward since 2012, so there won’t be anything available for the roughly $1,200 a month she was paying, thanks to Oakland’s rent control. Living on a social worker’s salary, and having spent 32 years in the East Bay, she fears she’ll be displaced.
“If I had been told they purchased in 2007 and started to convert it to a condo, I never would have been stupid enough to sign a lease,” Dick told the Express
Oakland law requires landlords to notify tenants when they convert their apartments into condos. But in Dick’s case, she didn’t move in until five years after the conversion began in 2007. Her landlord, Mosswood Builders, paused the conversion during the recession and only completed it last year. Dick said she sought answers from city officials about the legality of the conversion without notification, and her rights, but according to emails she shared with the Express, various city officials didn’t respond.
Her apartment-turned-condo was one of 53 rental units affected by condominium conversion in 2016, according to Oakland’s department of planning and building. Another 46 apartments were converted to condos in 2015. Far more were converted in the early 1980s and again in the mid-2000s. Many worry conversions will spike again, and Oakland’s laws won’t protect tenants.
Housing-policy experts say the steady drip of conversions is eliminating affordable rental housing in Oakland. Most affected units are subject to rent control — but once they become condos they’re no longer covered, per the state’s Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. The new owners can rent them out at whatever prices they want, or move into them. Either way, cheap apartments permanently disappear.
“The city does need to take this up soon, since we need every tool possible to preserve the dwindling amount of relatively affordable rental housing still remaining in Oakland,” said Gloria Bruce, the executive director of East Bay Housing Organizations.
For years, Oakland officials have said they want to amend the city’s Condominium Conversion Ordinance, which was originally passed in 1981 in response to a spike in conversions that led to hundreds of residents losing their homes.
But in 2006, several councilmembers, with urging from the real estate industry, proposed easing conversion rules in the name of expanding homeownership opportunities. Others pointed out that the average Oakland renter simply can’t afford a mortgage. The proposed changes were scrapped.
Most recently, Mayor Libby Schaaf’s 2016 housing policy report, called “Oakland at Home,” proposed amending the condo-conversion ordinance to protect rental housing. And Councilmember Dan Kalb has reportedly been working on amendments to the law for several years now.
But it’s unclear when updates will be brought to a vote. Schaaf didn’t respond to questions from the Express and Kalb would only say, in an email message, that he’s hoping to bring amendments to the council in several months. He didn’t state specifically what his legislation would change, however.
Jeffrey Levin of East Bay Housing Organizations said there are major loopholes in the existing condo-conversion law. For instance, there’s a lack of concrete benefits for displaced tenants required under the law. And two-to-four unit buildings in most of the city are exempt from the law’s requirement that converted apartments be replaced with new rentals, a provision that’s designed to prevent a net loss of rental-housing stock.
“Many of the conversions in the past were in these smaller buildings,” Levin wrote in an email. “There are thousands of units that are potentially at risk.”
Oakland also doesn’t have a cap on the total number of apartments that can be converted in a given year in the entire city. Berkeley and San Francisco both have caps to prevent the sudden loss of apartments.
Another problem is that the city’s “conversion credit” system, which was designed as a market-based mechanism that replaces converted apartments with new rental units, has been criticized as a shell game.
Specifically, the existing law states landlords who convert apartments into condos, in what are called the “primary” and “secondary” impact areas — neighborhoods around Lake Merritt and Rockridge where higher property values make conversions more likely — have to either build an equivalent number of new rental-housing units, or buy conversion credits. For five-unit and larger buildings throughout the rest of the city, the same replacement requirement is in effect.
But landlords who convert their apartment buildings into condos rarely build new rental housing to fulfill these requirements. Most of the time, they purchase conversion credits.
The credits are generated by other landlords who build or preserve rental housing. Each credit therefore supposedly represents a new replacement rental unit, so that, in theory, there’s no net loss of rental housing.
But the current law allows developers who build condos to also sell conversion credits, so long as they operate their condos as rentals for seven years. After seven years, they can sell the units, leading to a loss of affordable apartments.
In a report issued last year, several Berkeley researchers with the Urban Displacement Project characterized this as a way to “get around” the intent of the regulations, resulting in “no permanent replacement housing.”
Another problem is that many of the landlords selling credits haven’t actually built new rental housing.
For example, in the case of Dick’s apartment, Mosswood Builders opted to purchase condo conversion credits. But the credits weren’t from a developer who recently built new rental housing. Rather, the seller was a landlord who owned a house that was built in 1915. The house was transformed into a seven-unit apartment building before 1967, according to city records.
In other words, the condo-conversion credits — which Mosswood Builders purchased for $30,000 — didn’t actually represent new rentals.
Dick also said Mosswood Builders ran some of the neighboring apartments in her building as Airbnb pads for several years, instead of putting them on the market for permanent residents. The building felt at times more like a hotel than her home, she said, with strangers constantly coming and going.
Josh Whitkin of Mosswood Builders didn’t respond to an interview request for this story.
Today, Dick is the last tenant in her building. The assistance plan written by her landlord and approved by the city in 2007 states that she has the right to purchase her apartment before it’s marketed to the general public. It also states that, if she voluntarily elects to vacate her apartment, she may qualify for $2,000 in relocation assistance, and that her landlord will provide a list of similar rentals nearby.
But for Dick, this amount of assistance doesn’t help.
After contacting her councilmember, Kalb, as well as Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney, Schaaf, the Oakland housing-assistance office, and numerous pro bono housing attorneys, she says no one has stepped forward to help her understand the law or advocate for her rights as a tenant.
“I could have saved myself a lot of problem from the start,” Dick said. “I should have never signed a lease.”
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/condominium-conversions-in-oakland-displace-renters-and-undermine-affordability-according-to-tenants-and-housing-experts/Content?oid=6482524
Condominium Conversions in Oakland Displace Renters and Undermine Affordability, According to Tenants and Housing Experts
When Karen Dick signed her lease in 2012, she thought she was moving into an affordable, rent-controlled apartment. But last year, her landlord delivered surprising news: Her modest one-bedroom had been turned into a condominium while she was living in it.
Now she will either have to pay as much as $450,000 to buy the condo, or move out when someone else purchases it.
Dick says her options are all bad. She doesn’t have enough money to buy, and doesn’t think the converted condo is worth the price. She’ll have to find a new apartment.
But rents have shot dramatically upward since 2012, so there won’t be anything available for the roughly $1,200 a month she was paying, thanks to Oakland’s rent control. Living on a social worker’s salary, and having spent 32 years in the East Bay, she fears she’ll be displaced.
“If I had been told they purchased in 2007 and started to convert it to a condo, I never would have been stupid enough to sign a lease,” Dick told the Express
Oakland law requires landlords to notify tenants when they convert their apartments into condos. But in Dick’s case, she didn’t move in until five years after the conversion began in 2007. Her landlord, Mosswood Builders, paused the conversion during the recession and only completed it last year. Dick said she sought answers from city officials about the legality of the conversion without notification, and her rights, but according to emails she shared with the Express, various city officials didn’t respond.
Her apartment-turned-condo was one of 53 rental units affected by condominium conversion in 2016, according to Oakland’s department of planning and building. Another 46 apartments were converted to condos in 2015. Far more were converted in the early 1980s and again in the mid-2000s. Many worry conversions will spike again, and Oakland’s laws won’t protect tenants.
Housing-policy experts say the steady drip of conversions is eliminating affordable rental housing in Oakland. Most affected units are subject to rent control — but once they become condos they’re no longer covered, per the state’s Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. The new owners can rent them out at whatever prices they want, or move into them. Either way, cheap apartments permanently disappear.
“The city does need to take this up soon, since we need every tool possible to preserve the dwindling amount of relatively affordable rental housing still remaining in Oakland,” said Gloria Bruce, the executive director of East Bay Housing Organizations.
For years, Oakland officials have said they want to amend the city’s Condominium Conversion Ordinance, which was originally passed in 1981 in response to a spike in conversions that led to hundreds of residents losing their homes.
But in 2006, several councilmembers, with urging from the real estate industry, proposed easing conversion rules in the name of expanding homeownership opportunities. Others pointed out that the average Oakland renter simply can’t afford a mortgage. The proposed changes were scrapped.
Most recently, Mayor Libby Schaaf’s 2016 housing policy report, called “Oakland at Home,” proposed amending the condo-conversion ordinance to protect rental housing. And Councilmember Dan Kalb has reportedly been working on amendments to the law for several years now.
But it’s unclear when updates will be brought to a vote. Schaaf didn’t respond to questions from the Express and Kalb would only say, in an email message, that he’s hoping to bring amendments to the council in several months. He didn’t state specifically what his legislation would change, however.
Jeffrey Levin of East Bay Housing Organizations said there are major loopholes in the existing condo-conversion law. For instance, there’s a lack of concrete benefits for displaced tenants required under the law. And two-to-four unit buildings in most of the city are exempt from the law’s requirement that converted apartments be replaced with new rentals, a provision that’s designed to prevent a net loss of rental-housing stock.
“Many of the conversions in the past were in these smaller buildings,” Levin wrote in an email. “There are thousands of units that are potentially at risk.”
Oakland also doesn’t have a cap on the total number of apartments that can be converted in a given year in the entire city. Berkeley and San Francisco both have caps to prevent the sudden loss of apartments.
Another problem is that the city’s “conversion credit” system, which was designed as a market-based mechanism that replaces converted apartments with new rental units, has been criticized as a shell game.
Specifically, the existing law states landlords who convert apartments into condos, in what are called the “primary” and “secondary” impact areas — neighborhoods around Lake Merritt and Rockridge where higher property values make conversions more likely — have to either build an equivalent number of new rental-housing units, or buy conversion credits. For five-unit and larger buildings throughout the rest of the city, the same replacement requirement is in effect.
But landlords who convert their apartment buildings into condos rarely build new rental housing to fulfill these requirements. Most of the time, they purchase conversion credits.
The credits are generated by other landlords who build or preserve rental housing. Each credit therefore supposedly represents a new replacement rental unit, so that, in theory, there’s no net loss of rental housing.
But the current law allows developers who build condos to also sell conversion credits, so long as they operate their condos as rentals for seven years. After seven years, they can sell the units, leading to a loss of affordable apartments.
In a report issued last year, several Berkeley researchers with the Urban Displacement Project characterized this as a way to “get around” the intent of the regulations, resulting in “no permanent replacement housing.”
Another problem is that many of the landlords selling credits haven’t actually built new rental housing.
For example, in the case of Dick’s apartment, Mosswood Builders opted to purchase condo conversion credits. But the credits weren’t from a developer who recently built new rental housing. Rather, the seller was a landlord who owned a house that was built in 1915. The house was transformed into a seven-unit apartment building before 1967, according to city records.
In other words, the condo-conversion credits — which Mosswood Builders purchased for $30,000 — didn’t actually represent new rentals.
Dick also said Mosswood Builders ran some of the neighboring apartments in her building as Airbnb pads for several years, instead of putting them on the market for permanent residents. The building felt at times more like a hotel than her home, she said, with strangers constantly coming and going.
Josh Whitkin of Mosswood Builders didn’t respond to an interview request for this story.
Today, Dick is the last tenant in her building. The assistance plan written by her landlord and approved by the city in 2007 states that she has the right to purchase her apartment before it’s marketed to the general public. It also states that, if she voluntarily elects to vacate her apartment, she may qualify for $2,000 in relocation assistance, and that her landlord will provide a list of similar rentals nearby.
But for Dick, this amount of assistance doesn’t help.
After contacting her councilmember, Kalb, as well as Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney, Schaaf, the Oakland housing-assistance office, and numerous pro bono housing attorneys, she says no one has stepped forward to help her understand the law or advocate for her rights as a tenant.
“I could have saved myself a lot of problem from the start,” Dick said. “I should have never signed a lease.”
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/condominium-conversions-in-oakland-displace-renters-and-undermine-affordability-according-to-tenants-and-housing-experts/Content?oid=6482524
134 Oakland Bldg Dept - Code Enforcement strategies were adopted but never implemented.
April 24, 2017
Oakland Must Re-Imagine Code Enforcement As Advocate For Community Health and Safety
The recent fire tragedies in Oakland have shined the light on deplorable housing conditions in which many Oakland residents live. This problem is exacerbated with the growing diminishment of renters’ bargaining powers in a tightening housing market. To address Oakland’s housing habitability problems and prevent more tragedies require us to re-imagine Code Enforcement as an advocate for community health and safety. The City of Oakland and Code Enforcement had embraced such a vision several years ago, but the momentum stalled.
What happened and what can be done now?
Tasked by former Oakland City Administrators to lead Code Enforcement’s transformation in response to the 2011 Grand Jury Report, I had witnessed firsthand how Code Enforcement serves as an implementer for political values. The “get tough on blight” approach, highlighted in the Grand Jury Report, appeared rooted in former Mayor Brown’s vision of Oakland as a bedroom community for San Francisco. It was also driven by the City’s budget mandate that Code Enforcement operations be 100% revenue generating. The prior punitive rules resulted in quickly accruing expensive penalties for lower income homeowners who lacked the resources to fix up their blighted homes. Code Enforcement liens were then attached, transmitted over to the County Tax Collector for collection, and sometimes resulted in homes lost to investors at tax auctions. For example, the 2013 County tax auction included 75 vacant lots that had previous structures demolished by Code Enforcement.
The Grand Jury report served as an opportunity for Code Enforcement staff to be empowered to design a new vision. The staff, supported by a team that included the City Administration, City Attorney, City Council, County Health, and community groups, re-imagined Code Enforcement as a vehicle for community health and safety. To achieve this new vision required Code Enforcement to change its policies, create new partnerships, be less driven by revenue concerns, and allow its staff to operate as caring human beings.
The changes made meant that an elderly, low-income property owner with a damaged roof, rather than receiving a blight notice and subsequent fines, would instead receive referrals to rehab resources from Code Enforcement staff. It meant that Code Enforcement staff received trainings from County Health on health impacts from mold, were lent humidity reading new technology by San Francisco Health, and developed a case management team with County health workers.
However, sustaining the transformation of Code Enforcement required three strategies, two of which the City adopted in theory but never implemented.
First, Code Enforcement critically needs a full-time leader with expertise in health/community development and program/financial management. We had developed a job description for a new Code Enforcement Manager but the position was later eliminated.
Second, the City Council needs to adopt a Proactive Rental Inspection (PRI) ordinance that empowers Code Enforcement to proactively inspect rental units rather than the current flawed complaint system, target limited City resources towards the worst offenders, include anti-displacement strategies, and generate an ongoing new revenue source that’s spread broadly across rental units. Cities like Sacramento and Los Angeles have effectively implemented PRI programs, resulting in improvements to habitability and health.
Third, the City can use part of its new Infrastructure Bond $100 million for housing for a landlord rehabilitation fund in exchange for long-term affordable rents to counter the displacement crisis.
Councilmember Lynette McElhaney has been trying to advance a PRI policy. There’s an informational report from the City Administration headed to the Council CED Committee on April 25th. But there’s only so much the Administration can do—we need City Council action to pass a PRI ordinance, include a Code Enforcement Manager in its new budget, and create a Landlord Rehab/Anti-Displacement Fund. Without all three measures, Oakland’s housing habitability problems, as highlighted by the recent fire tragedies, will go unabated.
Margaretta Lin served as Deputy City Administrator for the City of Oakland and currently serves as Executive Director of the Dellums Institute for Social Justice.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/oakland-must-re-imagine-code-enforcement-as-advocate-for-community-health-and-safety/Content?oid=6467985
Oakland Must Re-Imagine Code Enforcement As Advocate For Community Health and Safety
The recent fire tragedies in Oakland have shined the light on deplorable housing conditions in which many Oakland residents live. This problem is exacerbated with the growing diminishment of renters’ bargaining powers in a tightening housing market. To address Oakland’s housing habitability problems and prevent more tragedies require us to re-imagine Code Enforcement as an advocate for community health and safety. The City of Oakland and Code Enforcement had embraced such a vision several years ago, but the momentum stalled.
What happened and what can be done now?
Tasked by former Oakland City Administrators to lead Code Enforcement’s transformation in response to the 2011 Grand Jury Report, I had witnessed firsthand how Code Enforcement serves as an implementer for political values. The “get tough on blight” approach, highlighted in the Grand Jury Report, appeared rooted in former Mayor Brown’s vision of Oakland as a bedroom community for San Francisco. It was also driven by the City’s budget mandate that Code Enforcement operations be 100% revenue generating. The prior punitive rules resulted in quickly accruing expensive penalties for lower income homeowners who lacked the resources to fix up their blighted homes. Code Enforcement liens were then attached, transmitted over to the County Tax Collector for collection, and sometimes resulted in homes lost to investors at tax auctions. For example, the 2013 County tax auction included 75 vacant lots that had previous structures demolished by Code Enforcement.
The Grand Jury report served as an opportunity for Code Enforcement staff to be empowered to design a new vision. The staff, supported by a team that included the City Administration, City Attorney, City Council, County Health, and community groups, re-imagined Code Enforcement as a vehicle for community health and safety. To achieve this new vision required Code Enforcement to change its policies, create new partnerships, be less driven by revenue concerns, and allow its staff to operate as caring human beings.
The changes made meant that an elderly, low-income property owner with a damaged roof, rather than receiving a blight notice and subsequent fines, would instead receive referrals to rehab resources from Code Enforcement staff. It meant that Code Enforcement staff received trainings from County Health on health impacts from mold, were lent humidity reading new technology by San Francisco Health, and developed a case management team with County health workers.
However, sustaining the transformation of Code Enforcement required three strategies, two of which the City adopted in theory but never implemented.
First, Code Enforcement critically needs a full-time leader with expertise in health/community development and program/financial management. We had developed a job description for a new Code Enforcement Manager but the position was later eliminated.
Second, the City Council needs to adopt a Proactive Rental Inspection (PRI) ordinance that empowers Code Enforcement to proactively inspect rental units rather than the current flawed complaint system, target limited City resources towards the worst offenders, include anti-displacement strategies, and generate an ongoing new revenue source that’s spread broadly across rental units. Cities like Sacramento and Los Angeles have effectively implemented PRI programs, resulting in improvements to habitability and health.
Third, the City can use part of its new Infrastructure Bond $100 million for housing for a landlord rehabilitation fund in exchange for long-term affordable rents to counter the displacement crisis.
Councilmember Lynette McElhaney has been trying to advance a PRI policy. There’s an informational report from the City Administration headed to the Council CED Committee on April 25th. But there’s only so much the Administration can do—we need City Council action to pass a PRI ordinance, include a Code Enforcement Manager in its new budget, and create a Landlord Rehab/Anti-Displacement Fund. Without all three measures, Oakland’s housing habitability problems, as highlighted by the recent fire tragedies, will go unabated.
Margaretta Lin served as Deputy City Administrator for the City of Oakland and currently serves as Executive Director of the Dellums Institute for Social Justice.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/oakland-must-re-imagine-code-enforcement-as-advocate-for-community-health-and-safety/Content?oid=6467985
133 City of Oakland - Victims of Deadly West Oakland Fire sue landlord and housing non-profit
April 26, 2017
Fifteen former tenants of 2551 San Pablo Avenue are suing the building's owner and several housing nonprofits that leased the complex.
The three-story structure was destroyed by a fire last month that claimed four lives. Approximately 100 people were displaced.
According to the lawsuit, landlord Keith Kim and the nonprofits Urojas Community Services, House of Change, and Dignity Housing West, were all aware of serious building and fire code violations, but they didn't remedy the problems.
"Keith Kim made a decision not to have the fire safety and fire prevention systems in operation in the years leading up to the fire, including the fire alarm and sprinkler systems," reads the complaint, which was filed today in the Alameda County State Superior Court. "[T]here were missing smoke detectors in units, rooms, dorms and common areas and missing fire extinguishers and blocked fire exits."
The tenants claim that they also repeatedly told the nonprofits running the building about the code violations, but that the problems weren't fixed.
Kenneth Greenstein of the Greenstein and McDonald law firm is representing the tenants.
They're seeking $125,000 in damages per plaintiff, rental reimbursements, compensation for loss of personal property, among other relief.
"At this point I have not seen the lawsuit yet so I cannot comment on it," said Kim's attorney William Kronenberg in a press statement issued today. Kronenberg also said that Kim had been "unfairly criticized" in the media due to the negligence of Urojas Community Services.
In press release sent last month, Kim stated that he was "trying to protect the residents and improve the management of the building by removing Urojas as its manager and operator," when the fire broke out.
Kim claims that Urojas Community Services had failed to maintain the building, which he said the nonprofit was required to do as part of its lease agreement.
The Express was unable to reach Jasper Lowery, the executive director of Urojas Community Services, for comment about Kim's allegations and the lawsuit.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/04/26/tenants-sue-landlord-and-housing-nonprofits-over-deadly-west-oakland-fire
Fifteen former tenants of 2551 San Pablo Avenue are suing the building's owner and several housing nonprofits that leased the complex.
The three-story structure was destroyed by a fire last month that claimed four lives. Approximately 100 people were displaced.
According to the lawsuit, landlord Keith Kim and the nonprofits Urojas Community Services, House of Change, and Dignity Housing West, were all aware of serious building and fire code violations, but they didn't remedy the problems.
"Keith Kim made a decision not to have the fire safety and fire prevention systems in operation in the years leading up to the fire, including the fire alarm and sprinkler systems," reads the complaint, which was filed today in the Alameda County State Superior Court. "[T]here were missing smoke detectors in units, rooms, dorms and common areas and missing fire extinguishers and blocked fire exits."
The tenants claim that they also repeatedly told the nonprofits running the building about the code violations, but that the problems weren't fixed.
Kenneth Greenstein of the Greenstein and McDonald law firm is representing the tenants.
They're seeking $125,000 in damages per plaintiff, rental reimbursements, compensation for loss of personal property, among other relief.
"At this point I have not seen the lawsuit yet so I cannot comment on it," said Kim's attorney William Kronenberg in a press statement issued today. Kronenberg also said that Kim had been "unfairly criticized" in the media due to the negligence of Urojas Community Services.
In press release sent last month, Kim stated that he was "trying to protect the residents and improve the management of the building by removing Urojas as its manager and operator," when the fire broke out.
Kim claims that Urojas Community Services had failed to maintain the building, which he said the nonprofit was required to do as part of its lease agreement.
The Express was unable to reach Jasper Lowery, the executive director of Urojas Community Services, for comment about Kim's allegations and the lawsuit.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/04/26/tenants-sue-landlord-and-housing-nonprofits-over-deadly-west-oakland-fire
132 Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf attempts to divert tax revenue from Measure HH away from the health programs
April 28, 2017
During last year's campaign for the sugar-sweetened beverage tax, city officials told voters that the money would only be used for health education programs and spent under the supervision of an appointed board.
That board hasn't been established yet.
In a Facebook post published last night, Councilmember Desley Brooks called the mayor's plan a "bait and switch."
Opponents of the soda tax, including the American Beverage Association, campaigned against it by warning voters that the money would be deposited in the general fund, and city officials could spend it on anything.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/04/28/oakland-councilmembers-accuse-mayor-schaaf-of-bait-and-switch-with-soda-tax-revenue
During last year's campaign for the sugar-sweetened beverage tax, city officials told voters that the money would only be used for health education programs and spent under the supervision of an appointed board.
That board hasn't been established yet.
In a Facebook post published last night, Councilmember Desley Brooks called the mayor's plan a "bait and switch."
Opponents of the soda tax, including the American Beverage Association, campaigned against it by warning voters that the money would be deposited in the general fund, and city officials could spend it on anything.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/04/28/oakland-councilmembers-accuse-mayor-schaaf-of-bait-and-switch-with-soda-tax-revenue
Friday, April 14, 2017
131 City of Oakland website goes down - city forgot to renew the domain name
April 13, 2017
OAKLAND — The city of Oakland’s website was down Thursday for some Internet users because the city had not renewed its domain name, spokeswoman Karen Boyd said.
People trying to access oaklandnet.com were met a placeholder page for a domain registration site, which read, “back order domain, renew now.”
The city’s information technology department has renewed the domain name “but it takes time to propagate” to all the servers, Boyd said.
“Depending on where you try to access it, you may have different levels of success,” the spokeswoman said.
While oaklandnet.com is taken by the city, other similarly named websites are available on Internet domain registrars ranging from $7.99 to $11.99 a year.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/13/oakland-city-website-down-domain-name-not-renewed/
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/
April 14, 2017
The bill was paid, but some links are still broken
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/government/o/CityAdministration/2551-san-pablo-fire/OAK063356
OAKLAND — The city of Oakland’s website was down Thursday for some Internet users because the city had not renewed its domain name, spokeswoman Karen Boyd said.
People trying to access oaklandnet.com were met a placeholder page for a domain registration site, which read, “back order domain, renew now.”
The city’s information technology department has renewed the domain name “but it takes time to propagate” to all the servers, Boyd said.
“Depending on where you try to access it, you may have different levels of success,” the spokeswoman said.
While oaklandnet.com is taken by the city, other similarly named websites are available on Internet domain registrars ranging from $7.99 to $11.99 a year.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/13/oakland-city-website-down-domain-name-not-renewed/
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/
April 14, 2017
The bill was paid, but some links are still broken
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/government/o/CityAdministration/2551-san-pablo-fire/OAK063356
Friday, April 7, 2017
130 City of Oakland - No enforcement when contractors display obstruction permits for another city (and fail to obtain permits for Oakland)
March 10, 2017 - East Bay Express
Contractors fail to obtain street and obstruction permits for large jobs
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/03/10/developer-stiffs-city-on-permits-for-west-oakland-condo-project
Politically-connected developer Madison Park and its general contractor Dettaglio Construction failed to obtain street and sidewalk obstruction permits for a large project in West Oakland.
Instead, the contractor displayed permits issued by the City of San Francisco — not Oakland — to block off an adjacent street and sidewalk, according to photos, city records, and interviews.
The un-permitted street and sidewalk closure was carried out to facilitate the demolition of several structures located at 3250 Hollis Street, where Madison Park plans to build a 94-unit condominium project.
The failure to obtain permits could cost the city up to several thousand dollars, depending on how many days the street is obstructed.
Earlier this week, neighbors noticed that one lane of Hollis Street was being blocked with construction saw horses. Upon inspection, the neighbors observed that street-closure permits attached to the barriers were issued by San Francisco, not Oakland.
The Express visited the construction site earlier this morning and saw signs claiming that the sidewalk abutting the demolition site along Hollis Street was "closed." The sign wasn't a city-permitted notice, however.
A construction manager at the site who did not provide his name confirmed to the Express that his company did not obtain permits to close the streets or sidewalks. But he insisted this was done in order to avoid inconveniencing the neighbors by taking away their street parking for a long period of time.
However, photos of the street closure show that parking and the pedestrian path were taken away.
When asked about the San Francisco permits attached to the signs, he claimed it was a mistake, and that employees forgot to remove the other city's permits after they were used at another job site.
Several officials in Oakland's Planning and Building Department confirmed this morning that the contractor and developer haven't obtained street closure permits.
Calls to Madison Park weren't immediately returned.
Madison Park is owned and operated by John Protopappas, one of Oakland's more high-profile developers. Protopappas is also a close friend of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Gov. Jerry Brown. He has served as political campaign fundraiser for both.
Street and sidewalk obstruction permits in Oakland can cost hundreds of dollars a day, depending on how much linear space a contractor wants to close off.
A short-term permit to close an unmetered road, such as Hollis Street, runs $17 per every 25 feet per day, according to the city's fee schedule. A long-term permit (more than 15 days) cost $519 per every 25 feet and is good for up to 30 days. Street closure signs run $3 each.
The stretch of Hollis Street abutting the construction site is approximately 530 feet long, according to a measurement taken using Google Maps.
Contractors fail to obtain street and obstruction permits for large jobs
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2017/03/10/developer-stiffs-city-on-permits-for-west-oakland-condo-project
Politically-connected developer Madison Park and its general contractor Dettaglio Construction failed to obtain street and sidewalk obstruction permits for a large project in West Oakland.
Instead, the contractor displayed permits issued by the City of San Francisco — not Oakland — to block off an adjacent street and sidewalk, according to photos, city records, and interviews.
The un-permitted street and sidewalk closure was carried out to facilitate the demolition of several structures located at 3250 Hollis Street, where Madison Park plans to build a 94-unit condominium project.
The failure to obtain permits could cost the city up to several thousand dollars, depending on how many days the street is obstructed.
Earlier this week, neighbors noticed that one lane of Hollis Street was being blocked with construction saw horses. Upon inspection, the neighbors observed that street-closure permits attached to the barriers were issued by San Francisco, not Oakland.
The Express visited the construction site earlier this morning and saw signs claiming that the sidewalk abutting the demolition site along Hollis Street was "closed." The sign wasn't a city-permitted notice, however.
A construction manager at the site who did not provide his name confirmed to the Express that his company did not obtain permits to close the streets or sidewalks. But he insisted this was done in order to avoid inconveniencing the neighbors by taking away their street parking for a long period of time.
However, photos of the street closure show that parking and the pedestrian path were taken away.
When asked about the San Francisco permits attached to the signs, he claimed it was a mistake, and that employees forgot to remove the other city's permits after they were used at another job site.
Several officials in Oakland's Planning and Building Department confirmed this morning that the contractor and developer haven't obtained street closure permits.
Calls to Madison Park weren't immediately returned.
Madison Park is owned and operated by John Protopappas, one of Oakland's more high-profile developers. Protopappas is also a close friend of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Gov. Jerry Brown. He has served as political campaign fundraiser for both.
Street and sidewalk obstruction permits in Oakland can cost hundreds of dollars a day, depending on how much linear space a contractor wants to close off.
A short-term permit to close an unmetered road, such as Hollis Street, runs $17 per every 25 feet per day, according to the city's fee schedule. A long-term permit (more than 15 days) cost $519 per every 25 feet and is good for up to 30 days. Street closure signs run $3 each.
The stretch of Hollis Street abutting the construction site is approximately 530 feet long, according to a measurement taken using Google Maps.
129 City of Oakland - Code Enforcement Relocation Assistance is designed to help renters
Oakland doesn't want to enforce Building Code Violations by red-tagging substandard (and unsafe) dwellings, but CODE ENFORCEMENT is how tenants become eligible for Code Enforcement Relocation Assistance
Code Enforcement is also how tenants are able to fight illegal rent increases.
Why does the City of Oakland refuse to enforce rules that protect the health and safety of residents?
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/government/o/hcd/s/HSC/DOWD008655
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/ceda/documents/agenda/oak062437.pdf
Code Enforcement Relocation Program
In certain instances, the City of Oakland provides relocation payments and assistance to qualifying residential tenants who are displaced due to landlord code violations that prompt City Code Enforcement actions against the property in which they are renters (e.g. a residential building is "red-tagged" due to uninhabitable living conditions), or City or Redevelopment Agency actions.
The Code Enforcement Relocation Ordinance, codified in Chapter 15.60 of the Oakland Municipal Code, requires a property owner to pay relocation benefits to a residential tenant who must move because of the City's enforcement of housing and building codes.
If the owner refuses to make the payment, the City may choose to make the payment to the displaced tenant and then place a lien on the property to recover these costs.
Contact Information
Pamela Hall, (510) 238-6182
Housing Resource Center (formerly known as Housing Assistance Center)
250 Frank Ogawa Plaza, 6th Floor (Suite 6301)
Oakland, CA 94612
SUMMARY OF THE CITY OF OAKLAND’S CODE ENFORCEMENT RELOCATON ORDINANCE
The Code Enforcement Relocation Ordinance, codified in Chapter 15.60 of the Oakland Municipal Code, requires a property owner to pay relocation benefits to a residential tenant who must move because of the City’s enforcement of housing and building codes.
If the owner refuses to make the payment, the City may choose to make the payment to the displaced tenant and then place a lien on the property to recover these costs.
TENANT ELIGIBILITY
A tenant may be eligible for relocation benefits if he/she is displaced from tenant's housing unit due to the City’s code enforcement actions.
A tenant becomes eligible after the City either
(a) issues a notice of order to vacate the unit;
(b) issues a notice to abate life-threatening conditions in the unit; or
(c) declares the unit substandard or a public nuisance, and after the owner fails to correct the conditions within the abatement period specified in the notice or order.
Notwithstanding the above, a tenant is not eligible if:
(a) the tenant’s move was primarily due to a cause other than the condition of the unit or the need to make repairs;
(b) the condition was caused by the tenant or their guests, or the tenant prevented the owner from making repairs;
(c) the owner corrects the condition or the City’s notice is rescinded before the tenant begins to move; (d) the condition is due to damage caused by a natural disaster and not due to the negligence of the owner.
An owner is also not required to pay benefits if the owner offers to move the tenant into a comparable replacement unit in the same building for the same rent
If the displacement is temporary (i.e., the move is for less than 60 days), an eligible tenant may recover their actual and reasonable moving expenses and the cost of temporary housing accommodations incurred as a result of the displacement. If immediate vacation of the unit is required (i.e., the tenant has less than 30 days notice to move), the tenant is entitled to an additional $500 payment from the owner.
TIMING OF PAYMENT
In the case of permanent displacement (i.e., the move is for 60 days or longer), the owner must make the payment directly to an eligible tenant at least 10 days before the tenant’s expected move date. If the owner has not been informed of an expected move date, the tenant is responsible for making a demand for payment to the owner within 30 days of the move. In this case, payment is due within 10 days of the demand. In the case of temporary displacement (i.e., the move is for less than 60 days), the owner must make payment within five days after the tenant has submitted reasonable documentation to the owner of their actual or anticipated moving and temporary housing expenses.
MOVE-BACK OPTION
In addition to these payments, a displaced tenant has the option of moving back into the unit or a comparable unit in the same building when the unit is ready for reoccupancy. The owner must notify a displace tenant, by certified mail, at least 30 days in advance of the availability of the unit. The displaced tenant must keep the owner informed of their current address while they are displaced, and must notify the owner of their intention to move back within seven days of receiving notice of the unit’s availability.
NOTICE FROM OWNER
Any eviction or other notice from an owner to a tenant to vacate a unit after the City has taken code enforcement actions must include the following:
(a) the reasons for the vacation,
(b) the tenant’s entitlement to relocation benefits
(c) the tenant’s moveback rights and the estimated date of reoccupancy. The owner must attach this Summary to such notice and must send copies of all tenant notices to the City.
CITY ASSISTANCE
City staff when possible will assist tenants who are facing displacement by providing information and referrals to replacement housing. In some cases, the City may choose to make relocation payments to a tenant if the owner refuses to make payments when due. A tenant must request payments from the City no later than 60 days after moving. An owner is responsible for reimbursing the City if the City chooses to make payments to a tenant on the owner’s behalf. If the owner fails to reimburse, the City will record a lien on the owner’s property, either as a special assessment (tax) lien or as a nuisance abatement lien, to recover its relocation costs as well as its other code enforcement costs.
PENALTIES
An owner may not require an eligible tenant to vacate the unit until the required relocation payment has been made, unless the City has ordered immediate vacation or the owner intends to withdraw the unit from the market as permitted under state law. Any person violating the Ordinance is guilty of an infraction. Private parties may sue an owner or tenant who has violated the Ordinance, and treble damages may be awarded against an owner who has willfully failed to make required payments.
Code Enforcement is also how tenants are able to fight illegal rent increases.
Why does the City of Oakland refuse to enforce rules that protect the health and safety of residents?
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/government/o/hcd/s/HSC/DOWD008655
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/ceda/documents/agenda/oak062437.pdf
Code Enforcement Relocation Program
In certain instances, the City of Oakland provides relocation payments and assistance to qualifying residential tenants who are displaced due to landlord code violations that prompt City Code Enforcement actions against the property in which they are renters (e.g. a residential building is "red-tagged" due to uninhabitable living conditions), or City or Redevelopment Agency actions.
The Code Enforcement Relocation Ordinance, codified in Chapter 15.60 of the Oakland Municipal Code, requires a property owner to pay relocation benefits to a residential tenant who must move because of the City's enforcement of housing and building codes.
If the owner refuses to make the payment, the City may choose to make the payment to the displaced tenant and then place a lien on the property to recover these costs.
Contact Information
Pamela Hall, (510) 238-6182
Housing Resource Center (formerly known as Housing Assistance Center)
250 Frank Ogawa Plaza, 6th Floor (Suite 6301)
Oakland, CA 94612
SUMMARY OF THE CITY OF OAKLAND’S CODE ENFORCEMENT RELOCATON ORDINANCE
The Code Enforcement Relocation Ordinance, codified in Chapter 15.60 of the Oakland Municipal Code, requires a property owner to pay relocation benefits to a residential tenant who must move because of the City’s enforcement of housing and building codes.
If the owner refuses to make the payment, the City may choose to make the payment to the displaced tenant and then place a lien on the property to recover these costs.
TENANT ELIGIBILITY
A tenant may be eligible for relocation benefits if he/she is displaced from tenant's housing unit due to the City’s code enforcement actions.
A tenant becomes eligible after the City either
(a) issues a notice of order to vacate the unit;
(b) issues a notice to abate life-threatening conditions in the unit; or
(c) declares the unit substandard or a public nuisance, and after the owner fails to correct the conditions within the abatement period specified in the notice or order.
Notwithstanding the above, a tenant is not eligible if:
(a) the tenant’s move was primarily due to a cause other than the condition of the unit or the need to make repairs;
(b) the condition was caused by the tenant or their guests, or the tenant prevented the owner from making repairs;
(c) the owner corrects the condition or the City’s notice is rescinded before the tenant begins to move; (d) the condition is due to damage caused by a natural disaster and not due to the negligence of the owner.
An owner is also not required to pay benefits if the owner offers to move the tenant into a comparable replacement unit in the same building for the same rent
If the displacement is temporary (i.e., the move is for less than 60 days), an eligible tenant may recover their actual and reasonable moving expenses and the cost of temporary housing accommodations incurred as a result of the displacement. If immediate vacation of the unit is required (i.e., the tenant has less than 30 days notice to move), the tenant is entitled to an additional $500 payment from the owner.
TIMING OF PAYMENT
In the case of permanent displacement (i.e., the move is for 60 days or longer), the owner must make the payment directly to an eligible tenant at least 10 days before the tenant’s expected move date. If the owner has not been informed of an expected move date, the tenant is responsible for making a demand for payment to the owner within 30 days of the move. In this case, payment is due within 10 days of the demand. In the case of temporary displacement (i.e., the move is for less than 60 days), the owner must make payment within five days after the tenant has submitted reasonable documentation to the owner of their actual or anticipated moving and temporary housing expenses.
MOVE-BACK OPTION
In addition to these payments, a displaced tenant has the option of moving back into the unit or a comparable unit in the same building when the unit is ready for reoccupancy. The owner must notify a displace tenant, by certified mail, at least 30 days in advance of the availability of the unit. The displaced tenant must keep the owner informed of their current address while they are displaced, and must notify the owner of their intention to move back within seven days of receiving notice of the unit’s availability.
NOTICE FROM OWNER
Any eviction or other notice from an owner to a tenant to vacate a unit after the City has taken code enforcement actions must include the following:
(a) the reasons for the vacation,
(b) the tenant’s entitlement to relocation benefits
(c) the tenant’s moveback rights and the estimated date of reoccupancy. The owner must attach this Summary to such notice and must send copies of all tenant notices to the City.
CITY ASSISTANCE
City staff when possible will assist tenants who are facing displacement by providing information and referrals to replacement housing. In some cases, the City may choose to make relocation payments to a tenant if the owner refuses to make payments when due. A tenant must request payments from the City no later than 60 days after moving. An owner is responsible for reimbursing the City if the City chooses to make payments to a tenant on the owner’s behalf. If the owner fails to reimburse, the City will record a lien on the owner’s property, either as a special assessment (tax) lien or as a nuisance abatement lien, to recover its relocation costs as well as its other code enforcement costs.
PENALTIES
An owner may not require an eligible tenant to vacate the unit until the required relocation payment has been made, unless the City has ordered immediate vacation or the owner intends to withdraw the unit from the market as permitted under state law. Any person violating the Ordinance is guilty of an infraction. Private parties may sue an owner or tenant who has violated the Ordinance, and treble damages may be awarded against an owner who has willfully failed to make required payments.
128 City of Oakland - Protecting residents is not a priority - Oakland Fire
March 31, 2017 - SF Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-firefighters-wanted-halfway-house-shut-11042357.php\
The city’s reluctance to clear residents out of dangerous buildings arose again last week after a massive fire swept through an occupied three-story halfway house on San Pablo Avenue in West Oakland. Four people died, and more than 80 were displaced.
Emails released by the city Friday showed that firefighters had urged their command staff to shut down the building as early as January due to life-threatening conditions. Instead, Fire Department managers cited the building for deficiencies, allowing the residents to remain.
Instead of displacing residents, the Oakland mayor has directed city authorities to work with property owners to bring the buildings up to code. Schaaf said soon after the Ghost Ship fire that she would not let “our emotions lead to hasty decisions or witch hunts.” Records show she followed through on that promise — but at a cost.
The city documents indicate that building inspectors and code-enforcement officers were no more inclined to red-tag properties after the Ghost Ship fire than they were in the past. Comparing the three months after the blaze to the same time period one year earlier, little had changed.
From December 2015 to the start of March 2016, seven Oakland buildings were red-tagged — three more than in the most recent interval. All but one were the result of fires. The exception was a single-family home whose foundation and cripple wall failed.
Bill Strawn, spokesman for San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection, said of the West Oakland fire, “The habitability situation sounded like they couldn’t maintain the building. I suspect that our code-enforcement process has been a little more rigorous than Oakland’s.” But he and officials in other California cities added that red-tagging should be a last-resort tool, and that building inspectors should lean on landlords to make sure properties don’t get to that level of danger.
Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents a swath of East Oakland where the Ghost Ship warehouse is located, said the city needs to ramp up its enforcement and hold landlords accountable for fixing unsafe living conditions.
“Either the safety of our residents is a priority, or it’s not,” Gallo said. “Right now, by our actions or our lack of actions, protecting our residents doesn’t seem to be at the top of our list.”
Gallo said Oakland officials shouldn’t be afraid of temporarily displacing residents while repairs are made to their homes.
“I think what has happened in Oakland is we don’t enforce the rules from the street level to the buildings, and property owners take advantage of us,” Gallo said. “They clearly know what the rules are, what the requirements are to maintain safety and health. So there’s no excuse around it.”
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-firefighters-wanted-halfway-house-shut-11042357.php
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-firefighters-wanted-halfway-house-shut-11042357.php\
The city’s reluctance to clear residents out of dangerous buildings arose again last week after a massive fire swept through an occupied three-story halfway house on San Pablo Avenue in West Oakland. Four people died, and more than 80 were displaced.
Emails released by the city Friday showed that firefighters had urged their command staff to shut down the building as early as January due to life-threatening conditions. Instead, Fire Department managers cited the building for deficiencies, allowing the residents to remain.
Instead of displacing residents, the Oakland mayor has directed city authorities to work with property owners to bring the buildings up to code. Schaaf said soon after the Ghost Ship fire that she would not let “our emotions lead to hasty decisions or witch hunts.” Records show she followed through on that promise — but at a cost.
The city documents indicate that building inspectors and code-enforcement officers were no more inclined to red-tag properties after the Ghost Ship fire than they were in the past. Comparing the three months after the blaze to the same time period one year earlier, little had changed.
From December 2015 to the start of March 2016, seven Oakland buildings were red-tagged — three more than in the most recent interval. All but one were the result of fires. The exception was a single-family home whose foundation and cripple wall failed.
Bill Strawn, spokesman for San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection, said of the West Oakland fire, “The habitability situation sounded like they couldn’t maintain the building. I suspect that our code-enforcement process has been a little more rigorous than Oakland’s.” But he and officials in other California cities added that red-tagging should be a last-resort tool, and that building inspectors should lean on landlords to make sure properties don’t get to that level of danger.
Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents a swath of East Oakland where the Ghost Ship warehouse is located, said the city needs to ramp up its enforcement and hold landlords accountable for fixing unsafe living conditions.
“Either the safety of our residents is a priority, or it’s not,” Gallo said. “Right now, by our actions or our lack of actions, protecting our residents doesn’t seem to be at the top of our list.”
Gallo said Oakland officials shouldn’t be afraid of temporarily displacing residents while repairs are made to their homes.
“I think what has happened in Oakland is we don’t enforce the rules from the street level to the buildings, and property owners take advantage of us,” Gallo said. “They clearly know what the rules are, what the requirements are to maintain safety and health. So there’s no excuse around it.”
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-firefighters-wanted-halfway-house-shut-11042357.php
127 City of Oakland rewards Keith Kim (owner of 2551 San Pablo) with a lucrative land deal
March 30, 2017 - East Bay Express
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/day-after-deadly-west-oakland-apartment-fire-city-modified-real-estate-deal-to-financially-benefit-negligent-landlord/Content?oid=6066524
The day after Monday’s deadly apartment fire in West Oakland, the city council voted to modify a potentially lucrative real-estate deal involving Keith Kim, the owner of the fire-ravaged building.
The blaze took four lives and displaced more than 80 people. Records show that Oakland officials knew for years that Kim’s building, at 2551 San Pablo Avenue, was a fire danger. It was the subject of 20 building code complaints since 2007. And fire inspectors flagged the structure as a hazard last week.
But while Kim allowed the building to fall into a dangerous state of disrepair, he was also investing in a company that negotiated an unusual multimillion-dollar real-estate deal with the City of Oakland.
What’s more, the city even went out of its way to acquire state-owned land for the exclusive benefit of the company Kim had a major stake in.
Kirkham Street Land Deal
The complicated real-estate transaction involving the city, Kim, plus other investors and companies dates back to 2013.
Businessman Jabari Herbert approached Oakland officials with a proposal: give a company that he and Kim operated, the West Oakland Development Group, the exclusive right to purchase 2.8 acres of state-owned land on Kirkham Street, near Interstate 880. Herbert planned to develop hundreds of apartments and retail shops at the location, potentially worth hundreds-of-millions of dollars.
Herbert told the Express this morning that he was motivated to reclaim the land for West Oakland’s Black community, which had been pushed off the site when the freeways and BART were built. “The public land was taken from private Black business owners and home owners who weren’t paid market rate for those properties,” Herbert said.
The land is currently owned by the California Department of Transportation. Normally, Caltrans auctions off excess property to the highest bidder. But the agency’s policy is to solicit bids from government agencies first, in case they might want to acquire it for a public-benefit purpose.
The city stepped in, on behalf of the West Oakland Development Group, and offered to buy the land from Caltrans for $4.2 million. Oakland officials then planned to immediately sell the land for the same price to Herbert’s West Oakland Development Group.
But the city never issued any public notice seeking input or proposals from other developers. Instead, Oakland negotiated privately with West Oakland Development Group. Officials justified the exclusive deal on the grounds that it would give the city more control over what would be developed on the site.
Emails from last year, obtained via a public-records request, show that Herbert was the everyday face of the West Oakland Development Group. But state documents show that the company was actually incorporated by Hahn Kim, brother of Keith Kim. And its business address is a Montclair home that Keith listed as his personal residence between 2005 and 2009.
Keith Kim is an investor in the West Oakland Development Group through another company, called DCSI, according to city records, court documents, and interviews. The percent or dollar amount Kim owns in West Oakland Development Group is unclear, however, as DCSI is incorporated in Delaware and its records are private. But in public hearings, city staff called Kim a “partner” in the West Oakland Development Group, and records describe DCSI as a key source of funding.
County records show that both Keith and Hahn Kim have represented themselves as the president of DCSI in real estate deals in the past.
In 2014, when Caltrans granted Oakland an option to purchase the Kirkham Street property, the West Oakland Development Group made the options payments, totaling $795,922 to date.
Since 2015, the West Oakland Development Group has brought other developers, including Tim Lewis Partners and, later, Panoramic Interests, to negotiate a final deal with the city. According to records, West Oakland Development Group lacked the experience to actually develop the site, and all along had been working as a middleman.
Nevertheless, West Oakland Development Group still to this day has significant money tied up in the land acquisition, according to city records.
Herbert wouldn’t disclose to the Express how much he and Kim have at stake in the Kirkham Street land deal. “Where I have a non-disclosure agreement, I cannot comment,” he said.
Councilmember McElhaney Intervenes
Earlier this month, McElhaney’s office got involved to protect the West Oakland Development Group’s interests, in light of the modified deal, according to council records and public statements made by her staff and Herbert.
At a council subcommittee meeting on March 14, McElhaney’s chief of staff, Zach Wald, told committee members that his boss wanted them to require Tim Lewis Partners to resolve a dispute with West Oakland Development Group before signing off on a transfer of the rights to purchase and develop the land.
Oakland Councilmember McElhaney's chief of staff Zach Wald.
“We recently have become aware that there’s a misunderstanding between West Oakland Development Group and Tim Lewis Partners with regards to the property,” Wald told the committee. He added that McElhaney wanted to condition the council’s approval for the new deal on the “working out of the differences” between the companies “so that when this transfer does occur, it’s clean, and we’d know that everybody is being well served.”
Herbert addressed the committee immediately after Wald. “We ask for no delay, that we quickly approve this, with the conditions stated by Zach and Councilwoman McElhaney’s office,” he said.
The nature of the misunderstanding between the two companies is unclear, however, as the terms of their deal are private.
Herbert said his non-disclosure agreement also prevents him from sharing any information about these terms. When asked about the $795,922 in options payments that his and Kim’s company made to Caltrans, he declined to respond.
Representatives of Tim Lewis Communities did not return calls and emails.
This past Tuesday night, when the council voted to approve the last modification to the Kirkham Street land deal, Herbert said during public comment that he was pleased his company and Tim Lewis had “come to an equitable agreement.”
The San Pablo Avenue Fire
Kim’s dilapidated apartment building on San Pablo Avenue was owned by another company called Mead Avenue Housing Associates, LLC. But one of the nonprofit tenants paid rent to DCSI, the same company Kim used to finance the West Oakland Development Group.
According to records shared with the Express by James Cook, the attorney representing the nonprofit, Urojas Community Services, its director Jasper Lowery paid DCSI at least $56,500 in rent between March 2015 and December 2016.
At times, other rent payments made by Lowery went to Dignity House West and the House of Change, two nonprofits that Jabari Herbert incorporated.
Herbert told the East Bay Times earlier this week that he’s no longer affiliated with either nonprofit.
The dangerous condition of Kim’s building were well-known to the city — in particularly McElhaney and her staff.
Last month, the fire department responded to a service call at the building. Then last week, on March 24, the building was inspected by the fire marshal. Inspector David Davis found that the building lacked basic safety infrastructure, including working smoke alarms, sprinklers, fire extinguishers, and more.
According to comments in a separate building-inspection report dated February 3, McElhaney and her staff “toured the building” that month.
The councilmember was reportedly trying to help Kim and Lowery reach some kind of deal after Kim attempted to evict Urojas from the building. McElhaney reportedly was working to preserve the building as an affordable housing project.
“She was just trying to get us to talk,” Lowery said in an interview. “But I couldn’t get [Kim] to agree to nothing.”
When asked about her roles in mediating between Kim and Lowery before the fire, and also the land deal involving the city, West Oakland Development Group, and Tim Lewis Partners, McElhaney declined to answer questions.
She wrote in an email that she has been “focused on finding support for fire victims,” and that city staff oversaw the West Oakland Development Group and Tim Lewis dispute resolution.
At this past Tuesday’s council meeting, members of the public asked officials why the city is working to help Kim benefit from the Kirkham Street deal despite the San Pablo building tragedy. This prompted Councilmember Noel Gallo asked city staff to clarify Kim’s role in the Kirkham Street land deal.
A staffer confirmed that Kim is a partner in the West Oakland Development Group, but said that the city isn’t technically a party to any direct agreement with Kim. Gallo motioned for a vote, and the council approved the deal’s new terms.
City records show that Kim made a $700 contribution to Gallo’s campaign committee last year. Herbert made a $700 contribution to McElhaney’s campaign last year, as well.
A History of Deals and Controversy
Kim has a long history of deals with the City of Oakland, and also controversial business disputes.
Kim’s first deal with Oakland involved a $2.2 million loan from the city so that Kim could purchase the financially distressed Granny Goose food manufacturing company in 1995, which had a factory in East Oakland. Kim briefly turned the company’s fortunes around, but by 2000 it closed for good.
Kim was an investor in several Dot-Com companies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Kim with insider trading. The government alleged Kim used privileged information to trade stocks, illegally earning himself $832,877. He also handed the information to a friend. Kim was convicted in 2002.
In 2008, Kim was sued by a childhood friend, Michael Chung, who alleged that Kim stole a $1 million investment Chung made in Brainrush Inc., another tech company run by Kim, and then later failed to pay back a loan.
In 2011, Kim filed for bankruptcy. Despite owning multiple properties and companies, Kim listed his income that year at a lean $45,757.
In a court document related to his bankruptcy, Kim identified DCSI as the source of payments being made on his behalf, to cover debt counseling services mandated by the court. The records also revealed that DCSI owns property that Kim personally uses, including a Mercedes Benz S500 and a grand piano.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/day-after-deadly-west-oakland-apartment-fire-city-modified-real-estate-deal-to-financially-benefit-negligent-landlord/Content?oid=6066524
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/day-after-deadly-west-oakland-apartment-fire-city-modified-real-estate-deal-to-financially-benefit-negligent-landlord/Content?oid=6066524
The day after Monday’s deadly apartment fire in West Oakland, the city council voted to modify a potentially lucrative real-estate deal involving Keith Kim, the owner of the fire-ravaged building.
The blaze took four lives and displaced more than 80 people. Records show that Oakland officials knew for years that Kim’s building, at 2551 San Pablo Avenue, was a fire danger. It was the subject of 20 building code complaints since 2007. And fire inspectors flagged the structure as a hazard last week.
But while Kim allowed the building to fall into a dangerous state of disrepair, he was also investing in a company that negotiated an unusual multimillion-dollar real-estate deal with the City of Oakland.
What’s more, the city even went out of its way to acquire state-owned land for the exclusive benefit of the company Kim had a major stake in.
Kirkham Street Land Deal
The complicated real-estate transaction involving the city, Kim, plus other investors and companies dates back to 2013.
Businessman Jabari Herbert approached Oakland officials with a proposal: give a company that he and Kim operated, the West Oakland Development Group, the exclusive right to purchase 2.8 acres of state-owned land on Kirkham Street, near Interstate 880. Herbert planned to develop hundreds of apartments and retail shops at the location, potentially worth hundreds-of-millions of dollars.
Herbert told the Express this morning that he was motivated to reclaim the land for West Oakland’s Black community, which had been pushed off the site when the freeways and BART were built. “The public land was taken from private Black business owners and home owners who weren’t paid market rate for those properties,” Herbert said.
The land is currently owned by the California Department of Transportation. Normally, Caltrans auctions off excess property to the highest bidder. But the agency’s policy is to solicit bids from government agencies first, in case they might want to acquire it for a public-benefit purpose.
The city stepped in, on behalf of the West Oakland Development Group, and offered to buy the land from Caltrans for $4.2 million. Oakland officials then planned to immediately sell the land for the same price to Herbert’s West Oakland Development Group.
But the city never issued any public notice seeking input or proposals from other developers. Instead, Oakland negotiated privately with West Oakland Development Group. Officials justified the exclusive deal on the grounds that it would give the city more control over what would be developed on the site.
Emails from last year, obtained via a public-records request, show that Herbert was the everyday face of the West Oakland Development Group. But state documents show that the company was actually incorporated by Hahn Kim, brother of Keith Kim. And its business address is a Montclair home that Keith listed as his personal residence between 2005 and 2009.
Keith Kim is an investor in the West Oakland Development Group through another company, called DCSI, according to city records, court documents, and interviews. The percent or dollar amount Kim owns in West Oakland Development Group is unclear, however, as DCSI is incorporated in Delaware and its records are private. But in public hearings, city staff called Kim a “partner” in the West Oakland Development Group, and records describe DCSI as a key source of funding.
County records show that both Keith and Hahn Kim have represented themselves as the president of DCSI in real estate deals in the past.
In 2014, when Caltrans granted Oakland an option to purchase the Kirkham Street property, the West Oakland Development Group made the options payments, totaling $795,922 to date.
Since 2015, the West Oakland Development Group has brought other developers, including Tim Lewis Partners and, later, Panoramic Interests, to negotiate a final deal with the city. According to records, West Oakland Development Group lacked the experience to actually develop the site, and all along had been working as a middleman.
Nevertheless, West Oakland Development Group still to this day has significant money tied up in the land acquisition, according to city records.
Herbert wouldn’t disclose to the Express how much he and Kim have at stake in the Kirkham Street land deal. “Where I have a non-disclosure agreement, I cannot comment,” he said.
Councilmember McElhaney Intervenes
Earlier this month, McElhaney’s office got involved to protect the West Oakland Development Group’s interests, in light of the modified deal, according to council records and public statements made by her staff and Herbert.
At a council subcommittee meeting on March 14, McElhaney’s chief of staff, Zach Wald, told committee members that his boss wanted them to require Tim Lewis Partners to resolve a dispute with West Oakland Development Group before signing off on a transfer of the rights to purchase and develop the land.
Oakland Councilmember McElhaney's chief of staff Zach Wald.
“We recently have become aware that there’s a misunderstanding between West Oakland Development Group and Tim Lewis Partners with regards to the property,” Wald told the committee. He added that McElhaney wanted to condition the council’s approval for the new deal on the “working out of the differences” between the companies “so that when this transfer does occur, it’s clean, and we’d know that everybody is being well served.”
Herbert addressed the committee immediately after Wald. “We ask for no delay, that we quickly approve this, with the conditions stated by Zach and Councilwoman McElhaney’s office,” he said.
The nature of the misunderstanding between the two companies is unclear, however, as the terms of their deal are private.
Herbert said his non-disclosure agreement also prevents him from sharing any information about these terms. When asked about the $795,922 in options payments that his and Kim’s company made to Caltrans, he declined to respond.
Representatives of Tim Lewis Communities did not return calls and emails.
This past Tuesday night, when the council voted to approve the last modification to the Kirkham Street land deal, Herbert said during public comment that he was pleased his company and Tim Lewis had “come to an equitable agreement.”
The San Pablo Avenue Fire
Kim’s dilapidated apartment building on San Pablo Avenue was owned by another company called Mead Avenue Housing Associates, LLC. But one of the nonprofit tenants paid rent to DCSI, the same company Kim used to finance the West Oakland Development Group.
According to records shared with the Express by James Cook, the attorney representing the nonprofit, Urojas Community Services, its director Jasper Lowery paid DCSI at least $56,500 in rent between March 2015 and December 2016.
At times, other rent payments made by Lowery went to Dignity House West and the House of Change, two nonprofits that Jabari Herbert incorporated.
Herbert told the East Bay Times earlier this week that he’s no longer affiliated with either nonprofit.
The dangerous condition of Kim’s building were well-known to the city — in particularly McElhaney and her staff.
Last month, the fire department responded to a service call at the building. Then last week, on March 24, the building was inspected by the fire marshal. Inspector David Davis found that the building lacked basic safety infrastructure, including working smoke alarms, sprinklers, fire extinguishers, and more.
According to comments in a separate building-inspection report dated February 3, McElhaney and her staff “toured the building” that month.
The councilmember was reportedly trying to help Kim and Lowery reach some kind of deal after Kim attempted to evict Urojas from the building. McElhaney reportedly was working to preserve the building as an affordable housing project.
“She was just trying to get us to talk,” Lowery said in an interview. “But I couldn’t get [Kim] to agree to nothing.”
When asked about her roles in mediating between Kim and Lowery before the fire, and also the land deal involving the city, West Oakland Development Group, and Tim Lewis Partners, McElhaney declined to answer questions.
She wrote in an email that she has been “focused on finding support for fire victims,” and that city staff oversaw the West Oakland Development Group and Tim Lewis dispute resolution.
At this past Tuesday’s council meeting, members of the public asked officials why the city is working to help Kim benefit from the Kirkham Street deal despite the San Pablo building tragedy. This prompted Councilmember Noel Gallo asked city staff to clarify Kim’s role in the Kirkham Street land deal.
A staffer confirmed that Kim is a partner in the West Oakland Development Group, but said that the city isn’t technically a party to any direct agreement with Kim. Gallo motioned for a vote, and the council approved the deal’s new terms.
City records show that Kim made a $700 contribution to Gallo’s campaign committee last year. Herbert made a $700 contribution to McElhaney’s campaign last year, as well.
A History of Deals and Controversy
Kim has a long history of deals with the City of Oakland, and also controversial business disputes.
Kim’s first deal with Oakland involved a $2.2 million loan from the city so that Kim could purchase the financially distressed Granny Goose food manufacturing company in 1995, which had a factory in East Oakland. Kim briefly turned the company’s fortunes around, but by 2000 it closed for good.
Kim was an investor in several Dot-Com companies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Kim with insider trading. The government alleged Kim used privileged information to trade stocks, illegally earning himself $832,877. He also handed the information to a friend. Kim was convicted in 2002.
In 2008, Kim was sued by a childhood friend, Michael Chung, who alleged that Kim stole a $1 million investment Chung made in Brainrush Inc., another tech company run by Kim, and then later failed to pay back a loan.
In 2011, Kim filed for bankruptcy. Despite owning multiple properties and companies, Kim listed his income that year at a lean $45,757.
In a court document related to his bankruptcy, Kim identified DCSI as the source of payments being made on his behalf, to cover debt counseling services mandated by the court. The records also revealed that DCSI owns property that Kim personally uses, including a Mercedes Benz S500 and a grand piano.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/day-after-deadly-west-oakland-apartment-fire-city-modified-real-estate-deal-to-financially-benefit-negligent-landlord/Content?oid=6066524
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
126 City of Oakland - Inspectors need to be held accountable
April 5, 2017 - East Bay Times
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/05/editorial-too-many-fire-deaths-its-about-time-mayor-schaaf-got-mad/
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf says she “went through the roof” when she heard last week about emails showing the fire department knew for at least 2 1/2 months about safety problems at the site of last week’s fire that killed four.
Well, it’s about time she got angry. Ever since the Dec. 2 Ghost Ship inferno that claimed 36 lives, the mayor has sent mixed messages about priorities and about holding public employees accountable.
She and her administration have been reactive to a steady drip of public records disclosures rather than aggressively proactive to ensure timely release of documents.
It’s time for full disclosure. It’s time for placing building safety above competing concerns. It’s time to insist every city employee does his or her part to protect residents. It’s time for a crackdown on unsafe buildings.
For four months now, we’ve watched the Schaaf administration try — unsuccessfully — to manage the message. The reality is that the city’s fire safety inspection system is dysfunctional and requires a top-to-bottom overhaul.
To be sure, Schaaf inherited a fire chief who was in over her head, who had received multiple warnings, including from the Alameda County civil grand jury, of a broken system in dire need of repair.
Yet, Chief Teresa Deloach Reed did nothing and then lashed out at her critics. Fortunately, she eventually got the message that she wasn’t cutting it, went on leave and announced her retirement in May.
But even with a new strong chief, the situation won’t change without clear direction that safety is the top priority. As long as the mayor insists on equally weighting keeping people housed with keeping them safe, inspectors will be reluctant to shut down buildings that should be closed.
We understand that no one wants to eliminate housing in a community that already has a shortage. But safety must come first. Forty people have died in four months in fires that were preventable. It’s time to unequivocally put safety first.
That message must be loud and clear. That means hiring adequate numbers of inspectors and then backing them up when they make the tough calls.
And that means holding accountable those workers — police, firefighters, building inspectors or any other city workers — who fail to report dangerous living conditions or fail to follow through.
Soon after the Ghost Ship fire, Schaaf declared, “We will not scapegoat city employees in the wake of this disaster.” She’s right. No one should be unfairly blamed.
But everyone should be held accountable, starting with the mayor. We’re glad to see she’s angry. So are we. And so should every Oakland resident. Too many people have lost their lives.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/05/editorial-too-many-fire-deaths-its-about-time-mayor-schaaf-got-mad/
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/05/editorial-too-many-fire-deaths-its-about-time-mayor-schaaf-got-mad/
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf says she “went through the roof” when she heard last week about emails showing the fire department knew for at least 2 1/2 months about safety problems at the site of last week’s fire that killed four.
Well, it’s about time she got angry. Ever since the Dec. 2 Ghost Ship inferno that claimed 36 lives, the mayor has sent mixed messages about priorities and about holding public employees accountable.
She and her administration have been reactive to a steady drip of public records disclosures rather than aggressively proactive to ensure timely release of documents.
It’s time for full disclosure. It’s time for placing building safety above competing concerns. It’s time to insist every city employee does his or her part to protect residents. It’s time for a crackdown on unsafe buildings.
For four months now, we’ve watched the Schaaf administration try — unsuccessfully — to manage the message. The reality is that the city’s fire safety inspection system is dysfunctional and requires a top-to-bottom overhaul.
To be sure, Schaaf inherited a fire chief who was in over her head, who had received multiple warnings, including from the Alameda County civil grand jury, of a broken system in dire need of repair.
Yet, Chief Teresa Deloach Reed did nothing and then lashed out at her critics. Fortunately, she eventually got the message that she wasn’t cutting it, went on leave and announced her retirement in May.
But even with a new strong chief, the situation won’t change without clear direction that safety is the top priority. As long as the mayor insists on equally weighting keeping people housed with keeping them safe, inspectors will be reluctant to shut down buildings that should be closed.
We understand that no one wants to eliminate housing in a community that already has a shortage. But safety must come first. Forty people have died in four months in fires that were preventable. It’s time to unequivocally put safety first.
That message must be loud and clear. That means hiring adequate numbers of inspectors and then backing them up when they make the tough calls.
And that means holding accountable those workers — police, firefighters, building inspectors or any other city workers — who fail to report dangerous living conditions or fail to follow through.
Soon after the Ghost Ship fire, Schaaf declared, “We will not scapegoat city employees in the wake of this disaster.” She’s right. No one should be unfairly blamed.
But everyone should be held accountable, starting with the mayor. We’re glad to see she’s angry. So are we. And so should every Oakland resident. Too many people have lost their lives.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/05/editorial-too-many-fire-deaths-its-about-time-mayor-schaaf-got-mad/
125 City of Oakland - Oakland's Housing of Last Resort
OAKLAND — People in the industry call it “housing of last resort.”
East Bay Times
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/05/housing-of-last-resort-stuck-between-a-firetrap-and-the-streets/
Scattered throughout Alameda County, there are perhaps 200 to 300 such facilities — some in the form of single-family homes tucked into quiet residential neighborhoods or single-room occupancy hotels dotting downtown Oakland, Hayward, Berkeley and Alameda. Still others are nondescript apartment buildings lining main streets in East and West Oakland. The one thing most have in common is the people living there have few other options.
When a four-alarm fire ripped through a transitional living facility in West Oakland last week, killing four people and displacing more than 80 others, it exposed the difficult position in which many city and county regulators and homeless advocates find themselves when it comes to this type of housing: a choice between safety or the streets.
Elissa Dennis, an affordable housing finance consultant with Community Economics, called it a “catastrophe.”
“We are in an impossible situation of deciding whether the most vulnerable among us are more safe and secure in a tent or are more safe and secure in a firetrap,” she said. “That’s not a good choice to make.”
Like Urojas Community Services, which operated the transitional residential facility at the San Pablo Avenue building that burned on Mar. 27, many of these types of facilities are not licensed by the state because they don’t provide direct care or supervision for tenants, though they often provide meals. The independent living facilities, as they often are called, frequently advertise with a label: sober living residences, substance abuse recovery homes, housing for formerly homeless, for people coming out of incarceration, for indigent women with children, for veterans or people with mental health conditions, said Robert Ratner, the housing services director for Alameda County’s Health Care Services agency. .
“The labels are more about targeting specific populations,” he said. “People are renting out rooms with varying levels of support on site.”
And they are often located in parts of the county where it is difficult for the property owner to rent rooms to higher-paying tenants, Ratner said. So it’s no surprise that most of these facilities are concentrated in neighborhoods with higher levels of poverty and blight. Nor do many of the operators receive public dollars — whether from the county or the federal government in the form of Section 8. Rather, they take in clients who receive Social Security income, or are able to get their rent paid by the probation department or other service agencies. Ratner described it as “a step above homelessness.”
But for Charles Hutson, at least, it’s been a godsend. Hutson moved into an East Oakland home run by Tower of Faith Ministry roughly one month ago. The two-story building houses between 10 to 12 people at any given time, said Pastor Roosevelt Taylor, who oversees the home. The kitchens and bathrooms are clean and well-maintained, and there is fresh paint on the outside walls.
“When I keep the house decent, then (the residents) will take care of it,” Taylor said. “If they see things hanging off the walls and all this stuff, then they won’t do anything, and who can blame them?”
Before he moved into the home, Hutson had been homeless for five years, he said, bouncing between shelters, couch-surfing and sleeping on the bus when he could find no other place to stay. A 2010 drug conviction for possession with the intent to sell marijuana made it extremely difficult to find a landlord willing to rent to him when he was released in 2011. He was not eligible for public housing.
Moving from shelter to shelter every 30 to 120 days made it hard for him to get or keep a job, he said, and sleeping in the shelter was like sleeping at a “circus.”
“It was just wild. It’s just dealing with other people and their problems and their drug habits,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s hard to go to sleep because there would be like people talking and off their drugs and stuff.”
Tower of Faith’s home stands in stark contrast to the burned building at 2551 San Pablo Ave., which had dozens of complaints filed against it over the past five years for all sorts of issues, from bugs, garbage and water leaks to critical fire safety concerns. Gail Harbin, a tenant in the building, described cockroaches and rodents constantly scuttling through the halls, holes in the walls and a leaking roof. She credited Pastor Jasper Lowery, the Urojas founder, with trying to do the best he could to repair what he could afford to fix, but she said it was difficult to live in those conditions.
“It feels like you’re being put on the lowest level of the human ladder,” she said in an interview a week before the fire. “You’re nothing. You’re nobody. It makes you feel like they don’t care about you and how you live.”
As the housing market tightens, Jung Pham, an attorney and investigator with Disability Rights California, said he is seeing more and more people squeezed into independent living facilities because they can’t find affordable housing anywhere else. For people with disabilities, that can be especially challenging, he said.
“A low-income person with a disability who may have a hard time pulling together resources for rents, they are disincentivized to report these facilities because they are afraid of getting kicked out,” Pham said.
At the same time, the number of adult residential facilities, which are licensed by the state and provide 24-hour services for residents, is declining, in part because of legislation that made it more onerous for licensed facilities to operate in the state, Pham and Ratner said. They pointed to an incident at Valley Springs Manor in Castro Valley three and half years ago when more than a dozen bedridden residents were left alone for two days to fend for themselves after the state shut the facility down, but failed to implement a relocation plan for the residents.
The public outcry spurred legislators to introduce new laws heightening the requirements for licensed facilities and increasing the fines for violating those requirements, among other changes, Pham said.
“It became more onerous for folks running these licensed homes,” Pham said. “(The operators) can, in effect, do the same thing in unlicensed homes as long as nobody complains.”
It’s unclear how many service providers have transitioned from licensed residential facilities to unlicensed ones, because the state does not keep that data. But county and state officials, along with advocates, are working on ways to curb unsafe living conditions for the region’s most vulnerable residents. Ratner said county officials are drawing on a model San Diego implemented in 2012, called the Independent Living Association (ILA), to bring greater transparency and accountability to unlicensed residential homes.
Faced with many of the same challenges as the Bay Area, independent living service providers began banding together, said May Devera, a founding member of the ILA who operates her own facility. A few years later the county provided a three-year, $1.5 million grant to formalize the program, said ILA Executive Director Melanie Briones.
To join the association, operators agree to certain housing quality standards, along with annual inspections, Briones said. Once they are certified to join, members are added to a database the county uses for referrals, and they get extra points when applying for public funds. Operators also receive training from the ILA and other perks. So far, Briones said it’s working.
“We are in a housing crisis like you all are, and we are doing the best we can to augment the high quality housing stock for this incredibly vulnerable population,” she said.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/05/housing-of-last-resort-stuck-between-a-firetrap-and-the-streets/
East Bay Times
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/05/housing-of-last-resort-stuck-between-a-firetrap-and-the-streets/
Scattered throughout Alameda County, there are perhaps 200 to 300 such facilities — some in the form of single-family homes tucked into quiet residential neighborhoods or single-room occupancy hotels dotting downtown Oakland, Hayward, Berkeley and Alameda. Still others are nondescript apartment buildings lining main streets in East and West Oakland. The one thing most have in common is the people living there have few other options.
When a four-alarm fire ripped through a transitional living facility in West Oakland last week, killing four people and displacing more than 80 others, it exposed the difficult position in which many city and county regulators and homeless advocates find themselves when it comes to this type of housing: a choice between safety or the streets.
Elissa Dennis, an affordable housing finance consultant with Community Economics, called it a “catastrophe.”
“We are in an impossible situation of deciding whether the most vulnerable among us are more safe and secure in a tent or are more safe and secure in a firetrap,” she said. “That’s not a good choice to make.”
Like Urojas Community Services, which operated the transitional residential facility at the San Pablo Avenue building that burned on Mar. 27, many of these types of facilities are not licensed by the state because they don’t provide direct care or supervision for tenants, though they often provide meals. The independent living facilities, as they often are called, frequently advertise with a label: sober living residences, substance abuse recovery homes, housing for formerly homeless, for people coming out of incarceration, for indigent women with children, for veterans or people with mental health conditions, said Robert Ratner, the housing services director for Alameda County’s Health Care Services agency. .
“The labels are more about targeting specific populations,” he said. “People are renting out rooms with varying levels of support on site.”
And they are often located in parts of the county where it is difficult for the property owner to rent rooms to higher-paying tenants, Ratner said. So it’s no surprise that most of these facilities are concentrated in neighborhoods with higher levels of poverty and blight. Nor do many of the operators receive public dollars — whether from the county or the federal government in the form of Section 8. Rather, they take in clients who receive Social Security income, or are able to get their rent paid by the probation department or other service agencies. Ratner described it as “a step above homelessness.”
But for Charles Hutson, at least, it’s been a godsend. Hutson moved into an East Oakland home run by Tower of Faith Ministry roughly one month ago. The two-story building houses between 10 to 12 people at any given time, said Pastor Roosevelt Taylor, who oversees the home. The kitchens and bathrooms are clean and well-maintained, and there is fresh paint on the outside walls.
“When I keep the house decent, then (the residents) will take care of it,” Taylor said. “If they see things hanging off the walls and all this stuff, then they won’t do anything, and who can blame them?”
Before he moved into the home, Hutson had been homeless for five years, he said, bouncing between shelters, couch-surfing and sleeping on the bus when he could find no other place to stay. A 2010 drug conviction for possession with the intent to sell marijuana made it extremely difficult to find a landlord willing to rent to him when he was released in 2011. He was not eligible for public housing.
Moving from shelter to shelter every 30 to 120 days made it hard for him to get or keep a job, he said, and sleeping in the shelter was like sleeping at a “circus.”
“It was just wild. It’s just dealing with other people and their problems and their drug habits,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s hard to go to sleep because there would be like people talking and off their drugs and stuff.”
Tower of Faith’s home stands in stark contrast to the burned building at 2551 San Pablo Ave., which had dozens of complaints filed against it over the past five years for all sorts of issues, from bugs, garbage and water leaks to critical fire safety concerns. Gail Harbin, a tenant in the building, described cockroaches and rodents constantly scuttling through the halls, holes in the walls and a leaking roof. She credited Pastor Jasper Lowery, the Urojas founder, with trying to do the best he could to repair what he could afford to fix, but she said it was difficult to live in those conditions.
“It feels like you’re being put on the lowest level of the human ladder,” she said in an interview a week before the fire. “You’re nothing. You’re nobody. It makes you feel like they don’t care about you and how you live.”
As the housing market tightens, Jung Pham, an attorney and investigator with Disability Rights California, said he is seeing more and more people squeezed into independent living facilities because they can’t find affordable housing anywhere else. For people with disabilities, that can be especially challenging, he said.
“A low-income person with a disability who may have a hard time pulling together resources for rents, they are disincentivized to report these facilities because they are afraid of getting kicked out,” Pham said.
At the same time, the number of adult residential facilities, which are licensed by the state and provide 24-hour services for residents, is declining, in part because of legislation that made it more onerous for licensed facilities to operate in the state, Pham and Ratner said. They pointed to an incident at Valley Springs Manor in Castro Valley three and half years ago when more than a dozen bedridden residents were left alone for two days to fend for themselves after the state shut the facility down, but failed to implement a relocation plan for the residents.
The public outcry spurred legislators to introduce new laws heightening the requirements for licensed facilities and increasing the fines for violating those requirements, among other changes, Pham said.
“It became more onerous for folks running these licensed homes,” Pham said. “(The operators) can, in effect, do the same thing in unlicensed homes as long as nobody complains.”
It’s unclear how many service providers have transitioned from licensed residential facilities to unlicensed ones, because the state does not keep that data. But county and state officials, along with advocates, are working on ways to curb unsafe living conditions for the region’s most vulnerable residents. Ratner said county officials are drawing on a model San Diego implemented in 2012, called the Independent Living Association (ILA), to bring greater transparency and accountability to unlicensed residential homes.
Faced with many of the same challenges as the Bay Area, independent living service providers began banding together, said May Devera, a founding member of the ILA who operates her own facility. A few years later the county provided a three-year, $1.5 million grant to formalize the program, said ILA Executive Director Melanie Briones.
To join the association, operators agree to certain housing quality standards, along with annual inspections, Briones said. Once they are certified to join, members are added to a database the county uses for referrals, and they get extra points when applying for public funds. Operators also receive training from the ILA and other perks. So far, Briones said it’s working.
“We are in a housing crisis like you all are, and we are doing the best we can to augment the high quality housing stock for this incredibly vulnerable population,” she said.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/05/housing-of-last-resort-stuck-between-a-firetrap-and-the-streets/
124 Oakland Fire Dept (OFD) - Fire Captain recommended 2551 San Pablo be shut down months before fire
April 3, 2017 - Insurance Journal
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2017/04/03/446653.htm
Oakland Fire Captain Recommended Building Be Shut Down in January
An Oakland fire captain recommended in January that a building that burned this week, killing four people, should be shut down immediately for safety reasons, but department officials opted to take less drastic measures, records released Friday show.
In an email dated Jan. 8 and titled “Fire Safety Hazard,” Fire Captain Richard Chew reported that a fire alarm had been pulled and not reset and there were open piles of garbage on the third floor of the building and a padlock on the door to the fire escape.
He recommended officials consider shutting the building down immediately “due to the danger to life safety.”
The records show Battalion Chief Geoff Hunter ordered Chew to cut the padlock and other officials to contact the building’s owner to fix the alarm and remove trash.
Acting Assistant Fire Marshal Maria Sabatini, head of the fire prevention bureau, responded that it was appropriate to give the owner 30 days to make repairs.
Oakland became the site of the deadliest structure fire in the U.S. in a decade when 36 people died in a December blaze at a warehouse known as the Ghost Ship that had been illegally converted into live and work spaces for artists. Officials then vowed to crack down on substandard housing and conduct more inspections.
A Jan. 9 email by another fire captain regarding the building that burned Monday reported there were no fire extinguishers in the building. Fire Lt. Steve Padgett reported in a Feb. 25 email that the address is a “known fire hazard.”
“There are no fire extinguishers. Storage in the hallways. Faulty or unmaintained smoke detectors,” he wrote. “This building is dangerous! Please let Station 15 know what we can do to get this place shut down, updated and repaired.”
The city disclosed the emails as Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced Friday she was ordering an overhaul of fire safety inspection services.
Schaaf told The Associated Press this week that new streamlined communications she put in place after the Ghost Ship fire to keep problem buildings from slipping through the cracks seem to have improved and worked in this case.
She said firefighters answering a call in February at the building reported possible problems, which prompted an inspection last week.
Yet the emails appear to contradict Schaaf’s account, showing that Chew raised concerns in January, and possibly earlier, though officials did not release emails from before January.
She said the city didn’t have the authority to immediately shut down the property, which requires a declaration that a building is unsafe for human habitation.
The building’s owner, Keith Kim, has not responded to repeated messages, including ones left Friday, and his attorney also has not responded to calls and emails.
Kim was in the process of evicting Urojas Community Services, the tenant that leased two of the three floors. Urojas provided services to low-income people recovering from addiction or who had been recently homeless.
The emails released Friday show mounting concerns and growing frustration by fire officials.
In a March 18 email, Fire Lt. Frank Mui listed “what appears to be household extension cords used to supply electricity to different units in the building,” including between the second and third floors via the central stairway. Rats had chewed through the insulation on one extension cord, he wrote.
Minutes later, Battalion Chief Jeff Hunter shot off an email to Sabatini, of the fire prevention bureau. He wrote that the problems “still exist and seem to be getting worse” and that “this building appears to be hazardous to both our public and our firefighters.”
Inspectors finally conducted an annual inspection on March 24. They again found multiple fire code violations, including inoperable sprinklers and alarms. Officials also noted a lack of fire extinguishers and overloaded electrical cords during the inspection.
“This is the beginning of a coordinated effort along with Building Services to address the issues at this location,” Sabatini wrote.
The owner was given 30 days to correct the problems.
Three days later, the fire broke out.
The nonprofit organization also said they called on the landlord to make necessary repairs. Residents complained of serious rodent infestations, plumbing and electrical problems, garbage-strewn hallways and an unusable kitchen on the first floor.
Jasper Lowery, the founder of Urojas Community Services that sub-leased rooms to about 40 residents, said the landlord ignored his pleas for repairs. Instead, Lowery said he was served eviction papers, alleging Urojas owed thousands of dollars in past-due rent.
The eviction process was still underway when the fire started Monday.
“We are grieving and heartbroken,” said Aurea Lewis, Lowery’s partner at Urojas. Lewis said her brother Ed Anderson, 64, was one of those residents who died in the fire.
Lewis said her brother was a U.S. Air Force veteran and one of 11 siblings who grew up in Oakland.
“If you only knew how devastating this is for our family,” she said.
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2017/04/03/446653.htm
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2017/04/03/446653.htm
Oakland Fire Captain Recommended Building Be Shut Down in January
An Oakland fire captain recommended in January that a building that burned this week, killing four people, should be shut down immediately for safety reasons, but department officials opted to take less drastic measures, records released Friday show.
In an email dated Jan. 8 and titled “Fire Safety Hazard,” Fire Captain Richard Chew reported that a fire alarm had been pulled and not reset and there were open piles of garbage on the third floor of the building and a padlock on the door to the fire escape.
He recommended officials consider shutting the building down immediately “due to the danger to life safety.”
The records show Battalion Chief Geoff Hunter ordered Chew to cut the padlock and other officials to contact the building’s owner to fix the alarm and remove trash.
Acting Assistant Fire Marshal Maria Sabatini, head of the fire prevention bureau, responded that it was appropriate to give the owner 30 days to make repairs.
Oakland became the site of the deadliest structure fire in the U.S. in a decade when 36 people died in a December blaze at a warehouse known as the Ghost Ship that had been illegally converted into live and work spaces for artists. Officials then vowed to crack down on substandard housing and conduct more inspections.
A Jan. 9 email by another fire captain regarding the building that burned Monday reported there were no fire extinguishers in the building. Fire Lt. Steve Padgett reported in a Feb. 25 email that the address is a “known fire hazard.”
“There are no fire extinguishers. Storage in the hallways. Faulty or unmaintained smoke detectors,” he wrote. “This building is dangerous! Please let Station 15 know what we can do to get this place shut down, updated and repaired.”
The city disclosed the emails as Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced Friday she was ordering an overhaul of fire safety inspection services.
Schaaf told The Associated Press this week that new streamlined communications she put in place after the Ghost Ship fire to keep problem buildings from slipping through the cracks seem to have improved and worked in this case.
She said firefighters answering a call in February at the building reported possible problems, which prompted an inspection last week.
Yet the emails appear to contradict Schaaf’s account, showing that Chew raised concerns in January, and possibly earlier, though officials did not release emails from before January.
She said the city didn’t have the authority to immediately shut down the property, which requires a declaration that a building is unsafe for human habitation.
The building’s owner, Keith Kim, has not responded to repeated messages, including ones left Friday, and his attorney also has not responded to calls and emails.
Kim was in the process of evicting Urojas Community Services, the tenant that leased two of the three floors. Urojas provided services to low-income people recovering from addiction or who had been recently homeless.
The emails released Friday show mounting concerns and growing frustration by fire officials.
In a March 18 email, Fire Lt. Frank Mui listed “what appears to be household extension cords used to supply electricity to different units in the building,” including between the second and third floors via the central stairway. Rats had chewed through the insulation on one extension cord, he wrote.
Minutes later, Battalion Chief Jeff Hunter shot off an email to Sabatini, of the fire prevention bureau. He wrote that the problems “still exist and seem to be getting worse” and that “this building appears to be hazardous to both our public and our firefighters.”
Inspectors finally conducted an annual inspection on March 24. They again found multiple fire code violations, including inoperable sprinklers and alarms. Officials also noted a lack of fire extinguishers and overloaded electrical cords during the inspection.
“This is the beginning of a coordinated effort along with Building Services to address the issues at this location,” Sabatini wrote.
The owner was given 30 days to correct the problems.
Three days later, the fire broke out.
The nonprofit organization also said they called on the landlord to make necessary repairs. Residents complained of serious rodent infestations, plumbing and electrical problems, garbage-strewn hallways and an unusable kitchen on the first floor.
Jasper Lowery, the founder of Urojas Community Services that sub-leased rooms to about 40 residents, said the landlord ignored his pleas for repairs. Instead, Lowery said he was served eviction papers, alleging Urojas owed thousands of dollars in past-due rent.
The eviction process was still underway when the fire started Monday.
“We are grieving and heartbroken,” said Aurea Lewis, Lowery’s partner at Urojas. Lewis said her brother Ed Anderson, 64, was one of those residents who died in the fire.
Lewis said her brother was a U.S. Air Force veteran and one of 11 siblings who grew up in Oakland.
“If you only knew how devastating this is for our family,” she said.
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2017/04/03/446653.htm
123 Oakland Fire Dept (OFD) - Threatened with lawsuit over refusal to turn over Ghost Ship records
Oakland city officials must end their stonewalling over the release of records pertaining to the Ghost Ship warehouse fire.
It’s been more than two months since the tragic inferno that killed 36 people. Despite Mayor Libby Schaaf’s promise of transparency, her administration has failed to release critical public documents.
The mayor and City Attorney Barbara Parker have a choice: They can follow the law or they can become the political symbols of a cover-up of the nation’s deadliest fire since 2003.
And if they choose cover-up, we’ll meet them in court. We served notice with a front-page article on Friday and in a letter from our attorneys the day before. City officials have one week to produce the records we’ve been seeking for two months or we will file a lawsuit to compel them.
We’re tired of waiting. The public deserves answers about what city workers and officials knew about the dangerous conditions inside the warehouse in the years leading up to the fire.
What makes this particularly disturbing is that Schaaf knows – indeed she has publicly acknowledged – that, under the law, the records from before the fire are disclosable public documents.
There should be no hassling over whether they’re confidential. All pre-fire records about the warehouse were public documents then and they remain so today.
It’s past time for the city to produce them, along with the other documents we seek. Yet city officials have ignored our request for records about fire inspections, calls to the Police Department for service and the 911 tapes from the night of the tragedy.
Most of what the public has learned about the months and years leading up to the fire has come from investigative journalism. Records are often the key to that. They’re often the best documentation of who knew what and when.
While Schaaf has promised her own “very thorough and methodical investigation so we can discern what in fact happened,” that’s not a substitute for public access to records.
Especially when Schaaf has hedged her promise by declaring “we will not scapegoat city employees in the wake of this disaster.” No one is looking to unfairly blame workers for the fault of others, but those responsible should be held accountable.
Our job is to hold them accountable, to report on what went wrong and who is responsible. Right now, city officials are blocking that and ignoring the public’s legal right of access.
It’s time for the transparency the mayor promised. Now.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/04/editorial-oakland-must-turn-over-ghost-ship-records-now/
It’s been more than two months since the tragic inferno that killed 36 people. Despite Mayor Libby Schaaf’s promise of transparency, her administration has failed to release critical public documents.
The mayor and City Attorney Barbara Parker have a choice: They can follow the law or they can become the political symbols of a cover-up of the nation’s deadliest fire since 2003.
And if they choose cover-up, we’ll meet them in court. We served notice with a front-page article on Friday and in a letter from our attorneys the day before. City officials have one week to produce the records we’ve been seeking for two months or we will file a lawsuit to compel them.
We’re tired of waiting. The public deserves answers about what city workers and officials knew about the dangerous conditions inside the warehouse in the years leading up to the fire.
What makes this particularly disturbing is that Schaaf knows – indeed she has publicly acknowledged – that, under the law, the records from before the fire are disclosable public documents.
There should be no hassling over whether they’re confidential. All pre-fire records about the warehouse were public documents then and they remain so today.
It’s past time for the city to produce them, along with the other documents we seek. Yet city officials have ignored our request for records about fire inspections, calls to the Police Department for service and the 911 tapes from the night of the tragedy.
Most of what the public has learned about the months and years leading up to the fire has come from investigative journalism. Records are often the key to that. They’re often the best documentation of who knew what and when.
While Schaaf has promised her own “very thorough and methodical investigation so we can discern what in fact happened,” that’s not a substitute for public access to records.
Especially when Schaaf has hedged her promise by declaring “we will not scapegoat city employees in the wake of this disaster.” No one is looking to unfairly blame workers for the fault of others, but those responsible should be held accountable.
Our job is to hold them accountable, to report on what went wrong and who is responsible. Right now, city officials are blocking that and ignoring the public’s legal right of access.
It’s time for the transparency the mayor promised. Now.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/04/editorial-oakland-must-turn-over-ghost-ship-records-now/
122 Oakland Fire Dept (OFD) - Senior Officials ignored life/safety issues at 2551 San Pablo
March 31, 2017
The Associated Press reports that inspectors have discovered that an apartment building in a California neighborhood (2551 San Pablo Ave Oakland, CA) , lacked fire extinguishers, smoke detectors in every apartment, along with a working sprinkler system just three days before a blaze erupted and killed three (four) residents. During an inspection on Friday, officials uncovered the multiple fire code violations, and ordered the owner of the Oakland building to immediately fix the fire alarm and sprinkler systems.
Oakland firefighters urged senior fire officials in January to consider immediately shutting down the West Oakland halfway house that burned Monday, killing four people, because of safety problems, newly released city emails show
The emails show that firefighters who responded to medical calls in January and February at the three-story building reported seeing dangerous conditions — trash, exposed electrical wires, a locked door to a fire escape — that posed a danger to “life safety.” They urged fire inspectors to shut down the building.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-firefighters-wanted-halfway-house-shut-11042357.php
Sabatini was a fire department arson investigator before she was brought over to the Fire Prevention Bureau starting Jan. 3 to help with inspections in the wake of the infamous Ghost Ship warehouse fire that killed 36 people.
She was part of a 2 1/2-month string of email communications about the San Pablo Avenue boarding house that began Jan. 8, after firefighters responded to a medical call at the building.
“I recommend that we consider shutting this building down immediately due to the danger to life safety,” wrote Capt. Richard Chew. But Sabatini overruled him and directed the property owner be given 30 days to fix the problems.
Sabatini said Tuesday that she later accompanied two fire inspectors into the building on Friday March 24. The inspection report from the visit detailed 11 deficiencies, which have been widely reported since the fire.
Sabatini said none of them were considered life-threatening. “I don’t want people to think we left a building that we thought was an imminent danger,” she said.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/04/inspectors-requirement-might-have-led-to-fatal-oakland-fire/
The Associated Press reports that inspectors have discovered that an apartment building in a California neighborhood (2551 San Pablo Ave Oakland, CA) , lacked fire extinguishers, smoke detectors in every apartment, along with a working sprinkler system just three days before a blaze erupted and killed three (four) residents. During an inspection on Friday, officials uncovered the multiple fire code violations, and ordered the owner of the Oakland building to immediately fix the fire alarm and sprinkler systems.
Oakland firefighters urged senior fire officials in January to consider immediately shutting down the West Oakland halfway house that burned Monday, killing four people, because of safety problems, newly released city emails show
The emails show that firefighters who responded to medical calls in January and February at the three-story building reported seeing dangerous conditions — trash, exposed electrical wires, a locked door to a fire escape — that posed a danger to “life safety.” They urged fire inspectors to shut down the building.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-firefighters-wanted-halfway-house-shut-11042357.php
Sabatini was a fire department arson investigator before she was brought over to the Fire Prevention Bureau starting Jan. 3 to help with inspections in the wake of the infamous Ghost Ship warehouse fire that killed 36 people.
She was part of a 2 1/2-month string of email communications about the San Pablo Avenue boarding house that began Jan. 8, after firefighters responded to a medical call at the building.
“I recommend that we consider shutting this building down immediately due to the danger to life safety,” wrote Capt. Richard Chew. But Sabatini overruled him and directed the property owner be given 30 days to fix the problems.
Sabatini said Tuesday that she later accompanied two fire inspectors into the building on Friday March 24. The inspection report from the visit detailed 11 deficiencies, which have been widely reported since the fire.
Sabatini said none of them were considered life-threatening. “I don’t want people to think we left a building that we thought was an imminent danger,” she said.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/04/inspectors-requirement-might-have-led-to-fatal-oakland-fire/
121 Oakland Police Dept (OPD) - Visited Ghost Ship 35 times in 2 years. Yet no enforcement.
Feb 16, 2017 - East Bay Times
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/16/editorial-ghost-ship-fire-killed-36-but-its-not-their-department/
Thirty-six people died in Oakland’s infamous Ghost Ship fire. Police had seen and had been told almost two years earlier that people were living there illegally. Yet they did nothing.
Why? Because it’s not their department.
It would be merely a bureaucratic cliché if the outcome hadn’t been so tragic. Amazingly, Mayor Libby Schaaf endorses this shameful denial of responsibility. It’s political pandering at its worst.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf speaks at a press conference regarding the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire at the Emergency Operations Center on Wednesday, Dec. 7,2016, in
“Our police officers are trained to identify criminal activity, they are not trained in code enforcement,” Schaaf told our reporters. Well, Madame Mayor, maybe it’s time to train them, like other cities do and Oakland has in the past.
We’re not talking about the intricacies of wiring for 240-volt outlets or the required dimensions of a landing outside a doorway. We’re talking about recognizing obvious hazards and showing enough initiative to alert experts in other city departments.
Newly released records, turned over only after this newspaper’s threat of litigation, reveal that police had visited the building and associated properties 35 times between mid-2014 and the Dec. 2 fire.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/16/editorial-ghost-ship-fire-killed-36-but-its-not-their-department/
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/16/editorial-ghost-ship-fire-killed-36-but-its-not-their-department/
Thirty-six people died in Oakland’s infamous Ghost Ship fire. Police had seen and had been told almost two years earlier that people were living there illegally. Yet they did nothing.
Why? Because it’s not their department.
It would be merely a bureaucratic cliché if the outcome hadn’t been so tragic. Amazingly, Mayor Libby Schaaf endorses this shameful denial of responsibility. It’s political pandering at its worst.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf speaks at a press conference regarding the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire at the Emergency Operations Center on Wednesday, Dec. 7,2016, in
“Our police officers are trained to identify criminal activity, they are not trained in code enforcement,” Schaaf told our reporters. Well, Madame Mayor, maybe it’s time to train them, like other cities do and Oakland has in the past.
We’re not talking about the intricacies of wiring for 240-volt outlets or the required dimensions of a landing outside a doorway. We’re talking about recognizing obvious hazards and showing enough initiative to alert experts in other city departments.
Newly released records, turned over only after this newspaper’s threat of litigation, reveal that police had visited the building and associated properties 35 times between mid-2014 and the Dec. 2 fire.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/16/editorial-ghost-ship-fire-killed-36-but-its-not-their-department/
120 Oakland Fire Dept (OFD) - 2551 San Pablo Ave was reported as unsafe in 2015 - and nothing was done.
April 4, 2017 - Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/04/04/oakland-halfway-house-fire-firefighter-botched-2015-inspection-referral/
New emails and correspondence from Oakland officials show confusion dating back to 2015 involving a firefighter’s attempted referral on the 2551 San Pablo Ave. building that burned last week.
In September 2015, a Station 5 firefighter found an alarming situation at a halfway house on San Pablo Avenue and sent a referral to inspectors to visit the three-story building.
Or so he thought.
In fact, the dangerously unsafe building would not be brought to the fire prevention bureau’s attention until 16 months later. An inspection was finally completed March 24 — finding a number of serious violations in the transitional housing facility — and three days later four people were killed in a predawn fire that broke out in a room lit by a candle, according to the preliminary fire investigation.
In another example of the city’s failure to respond appropriately to fire safety issues, the firefighter in September 2015 checked the “referred” box on the department’s inspection software OneStep, but made the critical mistake of not also phoning or emailing the Fire Protection Bureau to alert them that an inspection was needed. That mistake, which has been an issue in the department, according to exclusive emails obtained by this news organization, sent the referral falling through the cracks.
“Clicking that doesn’t do anything on the other end” to send an alert, said Mark Hoffmann, co-acting fire chief, referring to the “referred” box in OneStep. A spokeswoman for Mayor Libby Schaaf confirmed the referral procedure was not followed.
In an exclusive interview with this newspaper Tuesday, Assistant Fire Marshal Maria Sabatini found ample problems when they finally walked through the building on March 24 and ordered extension cords and other wiring removed from the second-floor room where the fire originated, raising the possibility that the resident in that room was using a candle because electricity was no longer available.
“That might have been the case,” Sabatini said, referring to the need to use a candle that apparently started the fire. That question and whether the extension cord was later disconnected will probably be part of the ongoing investigation into the fire, she said.
Tuesday’s revelations show further confusion between the city’s firefighters and the civilian inspectors who have split responsibilities on monitoring fire safety issues inside Oakland’s buildings.
Fire inspection data shows that firefighter Charles Gresher on Sept. 17, 2015, attempted to refer problems at 2551 San Pablo Ave. to the Fire Prevention Bureau. Gresher declined to comment Tuesday and a request for comment from the firefighter’s union was not immediately returned.
On Jan. 11, 2017, Fire Capt. Sean Laffan emailed Sabatini, other inspectors and firefighters, reminding them that the halfway house had been referred to inspectors in 2015 because firefighters believed it was a care facility, needing state-mandated annual inspections by civilian inspectors. Laffan remarked in the email that the building “far exceeds the level of training for a company officer.”
Sabatini, who only moved to her fire marshal role in January after serving for years as an arson investigator, responded the next day to Laffan and a battalion chief, reminding them of firefighter lapses in how referrals are made.
“I’ve learned some (firefighters) think that when the ‘referred’ tab is clicked in OneStep, that an inspector is automatically notified. (This is not true),” she wrote. “Do you think it means someone picked up the phone and called the (Fire Protection Bureau), or sent an email? Not looking to hang anyone here, just really trying to figure out how to smooth this out.”
In the missive she explained the frantic atmosphere in the inspection bureau post-Ghost Ship, and said she had trouble even talking to Fire Marshal Miguel Trujillo because they were so busy and overwhelmed.
“I’m serious … it is crazy busy here,” she wrote. “They are not able to keep up with their own assignments and on top of that, everyday a batch of notices like this situation with 2551 San Pablo comes in.”
The city also provided a timeline by Inspector Flanoy Garrett and his five attempts between Feb. 25 and March 24 to get the building owner or nonprofit tenant to accompany them for an inspection of the three-story apartment building. Finally, part-owner Monsa Nitoto joined them for the inspection March 24.
“When the inspector was finally able to have the reluctant owner appear for the site visit, he was presented with violations to mitigate immediately, and informed that an inspector would return after the weekend to evaluate the progress,” Sabatini wrote in an email Tuesday to city spokeswoman Karen Boyd, obtained by this newspaper. “As part of the inspection we knocked on doors and entered several individual rooms to look for candles and other imminent fire hazards. We entered the room where the fire eventually started, and we spoke with the occupant. There were no candles or careless use of smoking materials observed in any of the rooms.
“I know this awful tragedy cannot be undone but I hope that there might be some awareness that despite a tremendous shortage of inspectors, corrective action was taking place in an attempt to address the safety issues,” she continued.
Also on Tuesday, city officials finally released the December National Fire Protection Association report on the Ghost Ship fire which this newspaper had requested repeatedly since the agency met with Oakland officials a week after the Fruitvale fire in which 36 people died.
The NFPA recommended the city conduct a survey of all occupied buildings and log each one into a centralized database that can be accessed by multiple city departments. The city should use that database to identify the highest-risk properties, set a schedule for inspections and staff the city’s Fire Prevention Bureau appropriately, the group suggested.
The recommendations also encourage the city to identify how property data maintained by different city agencies can be shared and made interactive so employees can more readily access information from other departments.
Last week, the city announced it would be roughly doubling the fire inspection staff, which currently stands at five, and taking steps to enhance their training. The announcement followed the release of emails showing that firefighters — on at least three occasions since the start of this year — urged their bosses to contact the Fire Prevention Bureau and shut down a San Pablo Avenue property.
When it comes to figuring out what to do with known problem properties, however, the recommendations are less clear. The NFPA suggested the city work with city and county staff, along with community members, to develop a policy to assess and address hazardous buildings and also conduct a workshop on how to identify, prevent and intervene in unpermitted social gatherings.
Finally, the NFPA recommended the city do a better job of communicating with just about everyone, from elected officials to city staff and from property owners to the public.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/04/04/oakland-halfway-house-fire-firefighter-botched-2015-inspection-referral/
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/04/04/oakland-halfway-house-fire-firefighter-botched-2015-inspection-referral/
New emails and correspondence from Oakland officials show confusion dating back to 2015 involving a firefighter’s attempted referral on the 2551 San Pablo Ave. building that burned last week.
In September 2015, a Station 5 firefighter found an alarming situation at a halfway house on San Pablo Avenue and sent a referral to inspectors to visit the three-story building.
Or so he thought.
In fact, the dangerously unsafe building would not be brought to the fire prevention bureau’s attention until 16 months later. An inspection was finally completed March 24 — finding a number of serious violations in the transitional housing facility — and three days later four people were killed in a predawn fire that broke out in a room lit by a candle, according to the preliminary fire investigation.
In another example of the city’s failure to respond appropriately to fire safety issues, the firefighter in September 2015 checked the “referred” box on the department’s inspection software OneStep, but made the critical mistake of not also phoning or emailing the Fire Protection Bureau to alert them that an inspection was needed. That mistake, which has been an issue in the department, according to exclusive emails obtained by this news organization, sent the referral falling through the cracks.
“Clicking that doesn’t do anything on the other end” to send an alert, said Mark Hoffmann, co-acting fire chief, referring to the “referred” box in OneStep. A spokeswoman for Mayor Libby Schaaf confirmed the referral procedure was not followed.
In an exclusive interview with this newspaper Tuesday, Assistant Fire Marshal Maria Sabatini found ample problems when they finally walked through the building on March 24 and ordered extension cords and other wiring removed from the second-floor room where the fire originated, raising the possibility that the resident in that room was using a candle because electricity was no longer available.
“That might have been the case,” Sabatini said, referring to the need to use a candle that apparently started the fire. That question and whether the extension cord was later disconnected will probably be part of the ongoing investigation into the fire, she said.
Tuesday’s revelations show further confusion between the city’s firefighters and the civilian inspectors who have split responsibilities on monitoring fire safety issues inside Oakland’s buildings.
Fire inspection data shows that firefighter Charles Gresher on Sept. 17, 2015, attempted to refer problems at 2551 San Pablo Ave. to the Fire Prevention Bureau. Gresher declined to comment Tuesday and a request for comment from the firefighter’s union was not immediately returned.
On Jan. 11, 2017, Fire Capt. Sean Laffan emailed Sabatini, other inspectors and firefighters, reminding them that the halfway house had been referred to inspectors in 2015 because firefighters believed it was a care facility, needing state-mandated annual inspections by civilian inspectors. Laffan remarked in the email that the building “far exceeds the level of training for a company officer.”
Sabatini, who only moved to her fire marshal role in January after serving for years as an arson investigator, responded the next day to Laffan and a battalion chief, reminding them of firefighter lapses in how referrals are made.
“I’ve learned some (firefighters) think that when the ‘referred’ tab is clicked in OneStep, that an inspector is automatically notified. (This is not true),” she wrote. “Do you think it means someone picked up the phone and called the (Fire Protection Bureau), or sent an email? Not looking to hang anyone here, just really trying to figure out how to smooth this out.”
In the missive she explained the frantic atmosphere in the inspection bureau post-Ghost Ship, and said she had trouble even talking to Fire Marshal Miguel Trujillo because they were so busy and overwhelmed.
“I’m serious … it is crazy busy here,” she wrote. “They are not able to keep up with their own assignments and on top of that, everyday a batch of notices like this situation with 2551 San Pablo comes in.”
The city also provided a timeline by Inspector Flanoy Garrett and his five attempts between Feb. 25 and March 24 to get the building owner or nonprofit tenant to accompany them for an inspection of the three-story apartment building. Finally, part-owner Monsa Nitoto joined them for the inspection March 24.
“When the inspector was finally able to have the reluctant owner appear for the site visit, he was presented with violations to mitigate immediately, and informed that an inspector would return after the weekend to evaluate the progress,” Sabatini wrote in an email Tuesday to city spokeswoman Karen Boyd, obtained by this newspaper. “As part of the inspection we knocked on doors and entered several individual rooms to look for candles and other imminent fire hazards. We entered the room where the fire eventually started, and we spoke with the occupant. There were no candles or careless use of smoking materials observed in any of the rooms.
“I know this awful tragedy cannot be undone but I hope that there might be some awareness that despite a tremendous shortage of inspectors, corrective action was taking place in an attempt to address the safety issues,” she continued.
Also on Tuesday, city officials finally released the December National Fire Protection Association report on the Ghost Ship fire which this newspaper had requested repeatedly since the agency met with Oakland officials a week after the Fruitvale fire in which 36 people died.
The NFPA recommended the city conduct a survey of all occupied buildings and log each one into a centralized database that can be accessed by multiple city departments. The city should use that database to identify the highest-risk properties, set a schedule for inspections and staff the city’s Fire Prevention Bureau appropriately, the group suggested.
The recommendations also encourage the city to identify how property data maintained by different city agencies can be shared and made interactive so employees can more readily access information from other departments.
Last week, the city announced it would be roughly doubling the fire inspection staff, which currently stands at five, and taking steps to enhance their training. The announcement followed the release of emails showing that firefighters — on at least three occasions since the start of this year — urged their bosses to contact the Fire Prevention Bureau and shut down a San Pablo Avenue property.
When it comes to figuring out what to do with known problem properties, however, the recommendations are less clear. The NFPA suggested the city work with city and county staff, along with community members, to develop a policy to assess and address hazardous buildings and also conduct a workshop on how to identify, prevent and intervene in unpermitted social gatherings.
Finally, the NFPA recommended the city do a better job of communicating with just about everyone, from elected officials to city staff and from property owners to the public.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/04/04/oakland-halfway-house-fire-firefighter-botched-2015-inspection-referral/
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