Oakland Faces Lawsuit Over Measure EE

Oakland Faces Lawsuit Over Measure EE

Democracy Under Threat In Oakland As Landlords File Suit And Claim That Measure EE Is Unconstitutional.

By Lynda Carson 2/17/03

In a standoff with the voters of Oakland over Measure EE, the recently passed Just Cause for Eviction Ordinance of Oakland, landlords quietly filed suit against the city on January 31, 2003.

The landlords claim Measure EE is unconstitutional, that it supersedes California state law, and violates the property rights of the property owners. The lawsuit seeks to overturn provisions in Measure EE that restrict unfair evictions and allows tenants the right to a jury trial and damage awards by seeking an injunction to prohibit the city from enforcing the new rent laws that went into effect as recent as December 27, 2002.

Despite the claims of the landlords and their high profile out of town attorneys' distaste for democracy, the city of Oakland has taken a different stance.

An impartial analysis from the office of the City Attorney has concluded that tenants may recover damages, including treble damages in some instances, costs, and attorney's fees for violations of Measure EE. The analysis further concludes that the City Attorney may enforce Measure EE, and that State law permits cities to enact laws limiting the grounds for residential evictions.

Adam Gold, the Lead Organizer for Just Cause Oakland, say's that their trying to put together a legal team, though the team has not yet been confirmed. We are confidant that the legal team will prevail. We further believe that the lawsuit is distracting from our mission to move forward on other important issues, Gold said.

Efforts are under way to enable the Just Cause Coalition to intervene as defendants of Measure EE so as to work with Oakland city attorney's, and may eventually include tenant activist attorneys' Jay Koslovsky, Paul Wartelle, and himself, Ira Jacobowitz said.

The city of Oakland was served notice of the lawsuit on February 5, 2003 and has 30 days to file a response. The city's ability to defend itself and Measure EE from the lawsuit depends upon how much money the city provides to the city attorneys' being assigned to defend the case.

The lawsuit filed against the city of Oakland not only seeks relief from the courts in the form of an injunction to stop the enforcement of Measure EE, but, asks the courts that the Petitioners (landlords) of the suit be awarded attorneys' fees, and the costs of the civil action.

The case is known as; "Kun Sam Kim, Mitchell Tannenbaum, Rental Housing Association of Northern Alameda County vs City of Oakland."

The Rental Housing Association of Northern Alameda County (RHANAC) or it's members have filed at least 3 lawsuits including the latest against the city of Oakland during the past few years in an attempt to stem the tide of anti-eviction activists efforts to end the eviction for profit system. RHANAC claims to have over 1,000 members, and boasts that it represents over 20,000 landlords in the East Bay. Their office is located downtown Oakland at 2201 Broadway.

Steve Edrington the President of RHANAC, filed a suit against the city of Oakland as recent as August of 2002 over the analysis of Measure EE by city attorney's. The analysis was provided for and used by the 2002 Voter Information Guide. The case is known as, Edrington vs Floyd.

RHANAC also sued the city of Oakland over a 2 year Moratorium against rent increases after evictions, which went into effect on August 1st, 2000. The city wide moratorium was meant to slow down the pace of unfair evictions dumping the renters upon the streets.

This latest standoff against the city of Oakland involves landlord Kun Sam Kim of KSK Property Management. During April of 2001, Kim settled in a lawsuit known as Manuel Depay vs KSK Property, and payed out $175,000 for his share to settle the case allegedly involving uninhabitable conditions at one of the properties he ran.

Mitchell Tannenbaum also involved in the lawsuit against the city of Oakland and Measure EE, is an individual owner of a 1% interest of a property located in Oakland, and joined forces with Kim and RHANAC in their bid to overturn the will of the people who voted for Measure EE.

It took years of struggle and several campaigns for Oakland anti-eviction activists to get an ordinance in place that would protect renters from unfair evictions in a corrupt system favoring the rich and powerful.

The latest campaign by Just Cause Oakland took to the streets collecting more than 36,000 signatures to get Measure EE on last Novembers ballot. They raised over $80,000 dollars in the process for campaign expenditures and made a massive effort to get out the vote. Landlords became furious over these developments, and did their best to convince renters in their buildings to vote against Measure EE. The heated battle was narrowly won by a thin margin, but, sufficient enough for the will of the people to over-come the objections of the landlords.

RHANAC fought against them all of the way with a furious campaign of their own, and the landlords spent over $500,000 in their bid to stop the renters of Oakland from organizing and using the process of democracy to exert their lawful rights as voters to pass Measure EE.

A list of board members for RHANAC include Steve Edrington as President, Wayne Roland as First Vice President, with Rick Philips, Luke Blacklidge, and others who are active in the property management or realty businesses of the East Bay.

PEDDLERS of PREJUDICE

The campaign to convince the voters of Oakland to vote no on Measure EE slipped into high gear after the landlords formed a group called Oaklanders for Safe Neighborhoods which was a Political Action Committee for landlord associations. It became notorious after it got down and dirty by sending out a mailer with a picture of Councilmember Nancy Nadel along with text that inferred that she was against Measure EE, which was the very ordinance she introduced to the city council on several past occasions.

Several members from the board of RHANAC became spokesmen for the PAC known as Oaklanders for Safe Neighborhoods, and they stirred up a hornets nest of bad feelings during their campaign to defeat Measure EE with a host of distorted lies and deception during press conferences and debates.

During August of 2002, an election campaign debate over Measure EE was held at the MGO Democratic Club and Wayne Roland shocked the audience when he tried to convince the crowd of about 75 people that a "yes" vote for Measure EE would prohibit landlords from being able to evict terrorists' that may be residing in Oakland. Along the campaign trail, Roland also claimed that Measure EE will drive out African-Americans, and in further opposition to Measure EE he has stated that property owners did'nt become landlords just to be hassled by lawyers.

On one of the numerous mailers sent out to the voters by Oaklanders for Safe Neighborhoods, was a photo of Wayne Roland, Steve Edrington, and Rick Philips who are all members of RHANAC being pictured together on the mailer in a bid to convince Oaklanders to vote against Measure EE. Other mailers used photos of vicious dogs or images of drunken bikers along with text stating that landlords may never get rid of tenants with vicious dogs or the drunk biker called Eddie portrayed as the new neighbor next door if Measure EE passes.

Although Mayor Jerry Brown never took an official position regarding Measure EE, one of the mailers from Oaklanders for Safe Neighborhoods claimed that the Mayor was against Measure EE and believed that if passed that it would contribute to run-down neighborhoods and increase crime throughout Oakland. When questioned about the factual truth of this mailer, in an Oct 11, 2002 Montclarion article, Steve Edrington was quoted as stating; that he learned of Browns position from a Feb.26 article in the Oakland Tribune. End quote.

Mayor Browns Office quickly scrambled to deny ever taking an official position for or against Measure EE, and Edrington never verified where the claims in the mailer came from that states that the Mayor believes Measure EE would increase crime in Oakland neighborhoods if passed.

Other campaign materials sent out against Measure EE claimed that the measure would allow renters to sublet their homes to anyone they wished without the landlord’s consent or approval, including convicted felons, and sex offenders.

The cynical orchestrated campaign of anti-tenant rhetoric designed to portray Oakland renters as sex-offenders, ex-convicts, drug dealers, and beer swilling bikers, revealed that Oaklanders for Safe Neighborhoods was nothing more than peddlers of prejudice motivated by greed! Their campaign of distorted lies uncovered these entrepreneurs of obfuscation as being wholesale purveyors of anxiety, hell bent on defeating Measure EE by any means necessary.

Many Oakland tenants believed all along that they were being treated like criminals by many of the landlords, and the campaign against Measure EE brought out the worst in the landlords trying to oppress the renters of Oakland.

TERRORIZING the RENTERS

The fear of being BLACKLISTED with bad credit reports kept most Oakland renters from fighting evictions, and "30 DAY NO CAUSE EVICTIONS" were nearly impossible to challenge. Landlords convinced most renters that it was better to move after receipt of a 30 DAY NOTICE rather than risk receipt of an UNLAWFUL DETAINER which later shows up on their credit reports for the next 7 years or more. In essence, they are blacklisting the renters that fight against evictions for all the other landlords to see when they run credit checks on prospective clients.

Most Oakland landlords call upon "THE EVICTORS" when all else fails to get rid of the renters, and many of Oaklands renters have repeatedly been evicted by this eviction mill. The Evictors are located in Oaklands Jack London Square area at 510 Third Street, and is run by attorney Ed Nagy who also owns the building the Evictors are located in.

The strategy of the Evictors has been to convince the renters to settle out of court and into moving as quickly as possible without pursuing their rights to a jury trial. Generally the landlords have to contact other attorney's if it looks like the case is going to head for a jury trial because Ed Nagy generally does not do jury trials. Along the way, the low-income renters feel most terrorized by the whole process which may dump them onto the streets within 15 days if they lose in a court trial without settling beforehand.

Measure EE has reversed the situation that has terrorized most renters which is why the landlords are so concerned about it. It is the landlords who now fear serving eviction notices because when they screw up not only will it be tossed out of the courts, but, they may face being sued for actual or punitive damages for violating Measure EE.

The battle against Measure EE has gone judicial now that the landlords have lost against the will of the people, and the struggle moves forward to keep Measure EE from being weakened or tossed out by a judicial process that may counter democracy in action.

Just Cause Oakland may be reached at 510/ 763-5877