Archive for the ‘Pension Fund Mismanagement’ Category
Page Mill’s “Targeted Evictions” Target Tenant Activists
Posted by admin in Page Mill Properties, Pension Fund Mismanagement, tenant harassment on June 18th, 2009
On June 2nd, Page Mill mailed a series of “Ellis Act” eviction notices that appear to be aimed at tenants who have questioned Page Mill’s policies. The Ellis Act is a state-wide law that allows landlords (even if they are under rent stabilization) to evict tenants if the owner takes a series of actions that change the property deed so as to forbid renting the property for a period of ten years. The Ellis Act is meant to be a bitter pill for landlords who really want to live in their property instead of renting it out to someone else. But the law has been misused for other purposes. Quite often, in San Francisco, landlords give notice, telling tenants they must move out, only to have the landlord fail to follow through in placing the restrictions on the property. These instances are called “bogus Ellis Act evictions” should really be illegal, and are a truly low ploy for a landlord to engage in.
Did somebody say low ploy, hmm….is it time to add it to the Page Mill playbook? Oh, right, who are we dealing with here….back to the story….
The Ellis Act eviction notices that went out earlier this month seemed largely aimed tenants who have articulated their concerns about Page Mill’s wrongdoings–they involve four properties–1909 Cooley, 1911 Cooley, 1643 Woodland, and 901 Cooley, all in East Palo Alto. Indeed, we can verify that many of the tenants who have received notice of Page Mill’s putative plans to top renting and move in to East Palo Alto were almost simultaneously being harassed for lengthy depositions by Page Mill’s attorney on topics wide and sundry—all in relation to a suit that one of Page Mill’s shadow LLCs had filed not against them, but against the City (!?!)
( We’ll have more to report on that, but just so you know, Page Mill includes as one of the fringe benefits of the Woodland Park Community the chance for people who are victims of their scheme the privilege of being grilled by their lawyer for hours at a time about your opinion about the law. It’s a really ugly process, and a misuse of the legal system. The good news is that word on the street is that Page Mill has now lost that lawsuit–the 1643 Woodland lawsuit, for those trying to keep track–and has thus closed the door on one of their many avenues for harassing tenants. If your next thought is that the new Ellis notices are merely a chance to discover a new angle for harassment, well, you are probably not wrong. We don’t believe however that Page Mill will prevail; eventually the law will see through these lies, as tenants already do.)
Ah, all the law we must learn to defend our right to the “peaceful enjoyment of one’s home.” That reminds us that, as Independence Day is coming up soon, you might wish to exercise your civil rights and contact your local and state representatives.
We encourage you to contact your local representative to amend the Ellis Act to disallow bogus and fraudulent noticing, and encourage anyone who is even contemplating purchasing property in East Palo Alto to make sure you aren’t buying something that Page Mill has put under the Ellis Act but failed to inform buyers. You don’t want to be victim of a fraud.
While you are contacting your state representatives about the abuse of the Ellis Act, consider giving a call to your federal representative to look into a statement made by Mr. Shore of Page Mill concerning these Ellis Act evictions. In a recent Mercury News article, Mr. Shore said that Page Mill would be evicting rental tenants under rent stabilization in order to participate in a federal program designed, reportedly, to create housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income home buyers.
We really hope this isn’t true. Tell your representative that it would be scandalous for a large landlord, whose money is coming from a state agency, to use a state law to evict tenants out of low income housing so that they might receive federal dollars for “creating” low income housing. No federal program should take low-income rental housing off the market in order to turn the same apartments into low-income mortgages. Anna Eshoo, in particular, should be contacted on this matter: the property not only falls in her district, but she has apparently told members of the East Palo Alto Fair Rent Coalition that the crisis in East Palo Alto is “not a federal issue.” Given that Ms. Eshoo’s ex-husband reportedly has (and thus she once had?) land holdings in East Palo Alto, we don’t find that particularly honest or probing. Call her office at (650) 323-2984.
Tell your representatives that Page Mill has created nothing,and they certainly deserve no federal dollars for their predatory equity scheme.
Page Mill Fact Check #1
Posted by admin in Page Mill Properties, Pension Fund Mismanagement, tenant harassment on May 15th, 2009
This is the first in a series of posts we will do about Page Mill’s ugly relation to the truth.
In a recent Mercury News article, Page Mill spokesperson Jim Shore finally admitted that Page Mill has evicted hundreds of people in East Palo Alto. This is progress toward the unhappy truth.
Two weeks ago, Page Mill’s hired Public Relations “fixer,” Sam Singer, said in a prepared statement that Page Mill had only evicted twenty residents, and that “The data that is being provided by a local tenants group is simply false.” Anyone who has actually been to the neighborhood knows this is false, and certainly Page Mill knew it was an outright falsehood. When the fair rent coalition then published the actual San Mateo case numbers for the unlawful detainers filed by Page Mill, our favorite pension fund raiders were trapped in their own smokescreen.
Without apologizing for the insult of senseless lying and insult (or acknowledging that they had been irrefutably exposed in their lies), the refuted Mr. Shore simply tried to change the subject, arguing that though those previously denied evictions had indeed happened, but that such numbers were completely normal number, given the tenants that they had.
Okay, so for those of you keeping score at home, I think the score right now is Page Mill 0, the Truth 2.
Now, let it be said that some of Mr. Shore’s claims are really not verifiable and simply bizarre. Take for example his refusal to talk about vacancy rates in the East Palo Properties, on the grounds that such information is “proprietary.” Hmm. That’s interesting. According to a scientifically conducted sample survey conducted by the fair rent coalition, Page Mill has achieved a vacancy rate of approximately 25% in their units in East Palo Alto—a rate that is about eight times the historic 3% vacancy rate of these apartments. So when the Mercury News wanted Page Mill to comment on how they have reached this glorious achievement of being eight times worse at retaining tenants than their predecessors, Mr. Shore claimed such business information is a secret? Isn’t that kind of like the teenager who trashes his parents house during the weekend and then replies, “Sorry, Dad, I can’t tell how it happened because that the story constitutes privileged information”? Okay, so now we are at Page Mill 0, The Truth 2, The Bizarre 1.
But then the reporter, Jessica Bernstein-Wax, obviously asked Page Mill about the disproportionate rate at which they evict people in East Palo Alto. Contacting an equivalently large landlord in Redwood City, and asking for a point of comparison between Page Mill’s 100 evictions per 1800 units, we learn:
Shirleen McDougal, president of Whitley Property Management in Redwood City, said her company manages about 1,100 units in the area and files about one unlawful detainer a year. Eviction rates of about 1 or 2 percent are fairly common in the area, said Len Moore, of San Carlos-based Vilmont Investment Properties.
This is good journalism, not content to let Page Mill put down another smokescreen. Let’s see, Page Mill has approximately a 10% eviction rate over eighteen months, and other landlords are reporting about 1-2% a year, but with numbers as low as 1 in 1100 (about 1/10th of percent). And Page Mill claims that their eviction rates are typical? I think that the tenant volunteers have documented beyond any reasonable discussion that Page Mill cannot count, and that Page Mill has a serious eviction problem. Another point for the Truth and a minus point for Page Mill for lame excuses of “confidentiality”. (They are in fact required by local law to provide this information to the City, but have refused) I think we also must give out a half-point on the bizarre for Mr. Shore’s seeming inability to grasp basic math. Page Mill 0, The Truth 3, The Bizarre 1.5
Page Mill’s spokespersons have represented many times to the rent board and to the City that they have “no intention of evicting people.” They have such a funny way of showing it! What is Page Mill planning to do with East Palo Alto other than to let units sit vacant for no reason? One can only ask which side of the incompetence/mendacity pendulum Page Mill’s Jim Shore and David Taran are on today. For now we can only add score: The Preposterous 1
Finally, last but not least: included in the Mercury article are several reports that Page Mill has intentionally refused to accept rent from tenants receiving “pay-or-quit” notices. Could it be that the blatant refusal to accept rents is in fact a Page Mill strategy to drive people out? Page Mill must merely claim the rent is a single day late, refuse to accept the rent, and start an eviction process? Clearly Whitley Property Management does the right (and legal) thing, allowing tenants who fall behind on their rent to catch up and stay in their apartment. Page Mill, on the other hand, seems to squeeze the eviction trigger with the glee of a ten-year old with a bb-gun.
How widespread are these refusals to accept rent payments? If you have experienced a refusal of rent from Page Mill, please write to us at mail@pagemillwatch.com, and we’ll preserve your confidentiality and try to do the truth some good.
Let Page Mill know: we’re going to do some more digging into some of Mr. Shore’s other claims, and we’ll report back here soon. Oh by the way, if anyone from Page Mill cares to write in to tell us what you think the score should be, please do write. We promise to reprint your response in toto on the website.