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.