# Building collapse//  concert fire // History repeats, repeats, repeats



## cda

Building collapse yesterday in one city, fire deaths in another


http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/at...-party/ar-AAl6dVE?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

""""trapped in the blaze when they couldn’t escape down a makeshift, one-way stairwell leading to the second floor that was built out of wooden pallets."""""


I wish they would round up people and put them in jail, like other countries do!!!!


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## conarb

These rave events are drug related, they pop up so cops can't catch them, *read about them here*, cops and firemen don't even want to go into these neighborhoods, *this has some before interior pictures*, I read a comment online: "Oh well, that's 40 less Obama voters".


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## cda

Are those wood trusses ??


Steel


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## cda

Last use as a warehouse


Work area for artist,,, does not sound like warehouse use.

Blight debris in adjoining lot. 11/13

Illegal construction inside

11/17 inspector could not get in


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## mark handler

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-oakland-fire-nine-dead-warehouse-20161203-story.html
City records cited allegations at least three code violations at the building this year.
“This property is a storage [facility], but the owner turned it into a trash recycling center. The yard became a trash collection site, and the main building was [remodeled] for residential,” according to city records.
City building and safety officials said Saturday afternoon that there was an open investigation into the warehouse and that inspectors had found evidence of blight. The building was permitted for use as a warehouse, not for housing.


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## cda

mark handler said:


> http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-oakland-fire-nine-dead-warehouse-20161203-story.html
> City records cited allegations at least three code violations at the building this year.
> “This property is a storage [facility], but the owner turned it into a trash recycling center. The yard became a trash collection site, and the main building was [remodeled] for residential,” according to city records.
> City building and safety officials said Saturday afternoon that there was an open investigation into the warehouse and that inspectors had found evidence of blight. The building was permitted for use as a warehouse, not for housing.




Even though the City knew it was used for concerts
And residential


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## cda

Sound construction :::


http://www.oaklandghostship.com


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## fatboy

Tragic..........as I said in the post I put up about the building collapse, horrific accidents waiting to happen.


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## steveray

It will be interesting to see if the City will be sued as they "knew about it" and did not order an abatement (that I am aware of)....That makes you negligent here in CT.


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## CityKin

Streetview from Googlemaps in 2014 shows this change of use had been going on for at least 2 years.  

https://goo.gl/maps/bRVN26WKiN92

And they just knocked on the door last month?


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## cda

CityKin said:


> Streetview from Googlemaps in 2014 shows this change of use had been going on for at least 2 years.
> 
> https://goo.gl/maps/bRVN26WKiN92
> 
> And they just knocked on the door last month?




Yep

Concerts have also been ongoing


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## conarb

Their biggest fear now is you guys:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> As they grieved for friends killed in the inferno at the Ghost Ship warehouse on 31st Avenue, artists, musicians and partygoers from east to west Oakland couldn’t help but worry about a backlash of building inspections at other warehouse collectives.
> 
> “There’s going to be a draconian overreaction to shut everything down,” said Dunn, 42, who has attended events at the collective in the Fruitvale neighborhood. “That would only add to the tragedy.”
> 
> “People are getting worried (the fire) is gonna be used against us,” said Katelyn Charvoz, of West Oakland. The 25-year-old said she’s been involved in the music/party scene since she was about 15. “The city’s gonna paint us as some ugly, crusty, punk kids that are up to no good. If they buy up all the warehouses on every street and kick everyone out, it will just hurt the arts community here.”
> 
> The tragic warehouse fire is roiling an already simmering tension between official Oakland and a vibrant, free-wheeling arts community that has given life to many of its former industrial neighborhoods in recent years. Already, rising rents were threatening to dislodge some of these artistic centers; now concerns about lack of proper permitting and unsafe conditions, like what existed at the Ghost Ship, could add to the pressure.
> 
> “They don’t want you to have affordable rent,” said Damon Gallagher, who was the master tenant at Ghost Town and has since left Oakland. “There was blood dripping out of their mouths, dollar signs in their eyes.”
> 
> The 1919 Market evictions had artists who live in warehouses around the city worried that their buildings were next. Now they wonder if that was one reason why no one at Ghost Ship answered the door when city inspectors showed up Nov. 17.
> 
> “Who is going to want to call inspectors and risk losing their space?” Dunn wondered.
> 
> To this end, Michael Snook, founder of the NIMBY collective in East Oakland, reached out to artists on Facebook Sunday. NIMBY started in a West Oakland warehouse in 2004 and was forced to move after an untended candle sparked a smoky fire in 2008 and inspectors shut it down for lack of permits and sprinklers. The city helped the group relocate to a new space in East Oakland, but it took months and a $30,000 permitting nightmare before they could rest easy.
> 
> “If anyone lives in a live work space and would like it inspected without worry of all hell breaking loose, contact me,” Snook wrote on Facebook. “I can hook you up with a private professional that knows all the rules but doesn’t work for the city of Oakland. There is a fee and all I ask is you do what he says. Please.”¹



I don't know the answer but the cost of complying with codes isn't just fire protection, it will involve structural, seismic, disability, and anything else they can come up with, historically society has always had artists, Bohemians, or others of alternative lifestyles living in unsafe circumstances, probably the most famous is depicted in Puccini's La Boheme. Another problem is the safety of the inspectors going into these buildings, the cops don't want to go anywhere near there and they've got guns, drugs are a big part of the culture. 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...-map-but-fire-spreads-fear-of-code-crackdown/


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## cda

conarb said:


> Their biggest fear now is you guys:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know the answer but the cost of complying with codes isn't just fire protection, it will involve structural, seismic, disability, and anything else they can come up with, historically society has always had artists, Bohemians, or others of alternative lifestyles living in unsafe circumstances, probably the most famous is depicted in Puccini's La Boheme. Another problem is the safety of the inspectors going into these buildings, the cops don't want to go anywhere near there and they've got guns, drugs are a big part of the culture.
> 
> 
> ¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...-map-but-fire-spreads-fear-of-code-crackdown/




So just let people get hurt?


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## conarb

cda said:


> So just let people get hurt?


As I said I don't know the answer, but where are people going to go with costs what they are?  These nightclub fires all seem to involve loud rock music, maybe ban rock music?  At least this one doesn't seem to have foam involved, I saw a list of major nightclub fires and most had toxic foam burning, I guess they use that stuff for sound deadening. 

If you were called to inspect this facility you would have to enforce all codes, that would run into the millions in a building like this.


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## steveray

CityKin said:


> Streetview from Googlemaps in 2014 shows this change of use had been going on for at least 2 years.
> 
> https://goo.gl/maps/bRVN26WKiN92
> 
> And they just knocked on the door last month?



I could see that...The way our staffing is (and the FM) I am sure we have several illegal tenants in our small town...


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## fatboy

Therein lies the rub, ability to enforce what has been reported, or what you know, or suspect. You can throw them out, and post it, and they'll be back before you get around the corner.

But, you need to make a good faith effort to notify and document that you are not condoning the illegal occupancies. CYA


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## Pcinspector1

Did the owner allow City inspections or did the Inspectors get a warrant to enter to do the inspections?


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## Yikes

"So I was down there and I was having trouble finding the exit... the lower level is like a f*****g maze. The stair room had three different exits and only one would have been the way to outside. Horrifying....

Some dude who had already gotten out stood right by the exit with all the billowing smoke and was repeatedly yelling "this is the exit", "exit." I can say without a doubt that that dude saved my life. If he wasn't there yelling I would have never found the exit and I probably would have died."
- Quote from reddit page


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## cda

Pcinspector1 said:


> Did the owner allow City inspections or did the Inspectors get a warrant to enter to do the inspections?



Sounds like the inspector did not bother to try to enter the building

Hard to believe no one was there to let him in, and more than likely you can just walk into the place.


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## fatboy

As an Inspector, you can't just "walk in", someone has to invite you in. Although I do agree, with all the "tenants" hard to believe he couldn't find someone to invite him in.


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## Pcinspector1

cda said:


> Are those wood trusses ??
> 
> 
> Steel



cda, 
One photo taken looks to me that those trusses appear to be steel and rivet design?


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## cda

Pcinspector1 said:


> cda,
> One photo taken looks to me that those trusses appear to be steel and rivet design?




Agree 
Did the question early on


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## conarb

The editorial in the local paper does appear to place the blame on the inspectors:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> It’s easy to understand how the building went up in smoke and flames so quickly about 11:30 p.m. Friday and why it took firefighters four hours to control the blaze.
> 
> It’s hard to understand how this could happen. Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo had received numerous complaints about parties at the building and illegal dumping on the property. What happened to those complaints?
> 
> Inspectors last month had supposedly launched an investigation of garbage piling up on the adjoining lot. That turned into a probe of an illegal interior building structure.
> 
> When inspectors returned on Nov. 17, they couldn’t get inside. That was 15 days before the fire broke out. What happened since then? Did the inspectors return? Gallo says they apparently didn’t try.
> 
> And what of those who walked into this death trap on Friday night? Many were young, in their 20s and 30s. Did they not sense danger in this makeshift party venue?¹



I don't agree, this is an extremely dangerous neighborhood, inspectors should be accompanied by police officers, even at that they can be hit by random gunfire on the streets.  These kinds of people are known drug users, not only can they be irrational but they usually have firearms to protect their drug operations. 

¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12/03/editorial-oakland-warehouse-inferno-was-preventable/


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## mark handler

fatboy said:


> As an Inspector, you can't just "walk in", someone has to invite you in. Although I do agree, with all the "tenants" hard to believe he couldn't find someone to invite him in.


CBC SECTION 1.8.5
RIGHT OF ENTRY FOR ENFORCEMENT
1.8.5.1 General. Subject to other provisions of law, officers
and agents of the enforcing agency may enter and inspect
public and private properties to secure compliance with the
rules and regulations promulgated by the Department of
Housing and Community Development. For limitations and
additional information regarding enforcement, see the following:
1. For applications subject to the State Housing Law as
referenced in Section 1.8.3.2.1 of this code, refer to
Health and Safety Code, Division 13, Part 1.5, commencing
with Section 17910 and California Code of
Regulations, Title 25, Division 1, Chapter 1, Subchapter
1, commencing with Section 1.


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## fatboy

Fine and dandy law..............better ask your Counsel before you walk into a structure/property where you are not invited, without a court order in hand. Me thinks they wouldn't be so happy with you.


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## conarb

Mark's post said:
			
		

> may enter and inspect
> public and private properties to secure compliance with the
> rules and regulations promulgated by the Department of
> Housing and Community Development.



H&CD does not cover warehouses, I wonder what Oakland records show as the occupancy of the building?


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## ICE

fatboy said:


> As an Inspector, you can't just "walk in", someone has to invite you in.



Well doggone, are you telling me that I have been breaking the rules?


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## Keystone

"Subject to other provisions of law..."   Which in my eyes says, Nothing more than an administrative search warrant which is only as good as when someone allows access. Now this is Cali so the rules may be slightly different but in real-vile USA it's not a cart blanch access.


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## steveray

Anywhere the public can go, "we" can go...Or, as our State prosecutor says, "Give it the girl Scout test. If a girl scout could go and sell cookies there, you are probably allowed too."


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## JBI

The language in (far too many) local laws/ordinances regarding entry upon any premises for inspection is tempered by case law. The original inclusion of such language was bolstered by an early SCOTUS decision regarding 'administrative' searches that was superseded by the SCOTUS shortly after the initial decision. Warrantless searches are illegal, lacking valid consent, regardless of which State you are in.


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## mark handler

Oakland officials fielded multiple complaints about warehouse before deadly fire
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-oakland-inspections-fire-20161205-story.html
There are growing calls for a full accounting of how Oakland city officials handled safety and health issues at a warehouse where at least 36 people died in a fire amid evidence that various city agencies fielded complaints over the last two years. 
*“I think we have to take responsibility and certainly our staff members that had that task were not as responsive or assertive as necessary,” said Oakland City Councilman Noel Gallo on Monday.*
He and others said that the city had been aware of safety and fire hazards at the warehouse for more than two years. Neighbors and former residents have told The Times that they had contacted the city about trash and debris piled up outside the warehouse as well as their concerns about unsafe conditions there.
The owner of the building, which housed an artists’ collective and is in Gallo’s district, did not have any of the building permits or fire inspection that would have been required by the alterations inside, the councilman said.
*Responding to multiple complaints from neighboring businesses and residents, a city building inspector went to the warehouse on Nov. 17 to investigate but could not get access inside the building, Gallo and city officials said.*
Victims of the Oakland warehouse fire: Who they were
“The only question that is still outstanding for me, the administration has to tell us, well, what happened to the code inspector? Why did he just knock on the door and not pursue?” Gallo said Monday. “This thing has been going on for 2 1/2 years.”
Police were repeatedly called to the warehouse to address complaints, according to one former resident. Those reports could not be confirmed to The Times on Sunday by Oakland police.
*After a December 2014 party, one partygoer notified the city Fire Department of unsafe conditions, and it was inspected, said Danielle Boudreaux, who spent time at the warehouse.* She did not know the result. 
*Gallo said he personally went to the building with an Oakland Police Department captain because of complaints about refuse and other junk scattered outside the warehouse. Gallo said they did not go inside, however.*
City records cited allegations of at least three code violations at the building this year. In one complaint*, city inspectors said there was a complaint of an illegal building on the property as well as piles of trash.* 
The building was permitted for use as a warehouse, not not for housing. City officials said that a party or concert at the property would have required a permit, which had not been granted. They also said there was no evidence of fire sprinklers or alarms in the building.
The building was the site of a concert Friday night called the Golden Donna 100% Silk 2016 West Coast Tour.
Gallo said complaints were filed by the owner of a neighboring Wendy’s restaurant because people going to parties inside the warehouse often parked in the restaurant’s parking lot and also left their trash. A resident nearby also complained to the city, saying the pallets and other trash the building manager was throwing into an empty lot posed a fire hazard, Gallo said.
Shelley Mack, 58, said she paid $700 a month to live inside a trailer parked in the warehouse from November 2014 to February 2015.
She said she had been drawn to the space by a Craigslist ad that promised cheap living space. Once there, she and several tenants — between 10 and 20, depending on the day — shared a single bathroom. The building had no heat, and in November 2014 a transformer blew, cutting off power.
“There was no electricity, and it was freezing in there,” she said.
Gas-powered generators were used to run small space heaters, and propane tanks placed indoors by the exits fueled other heaters, Mack said.
Deadly Oakland warehouse fire
Partygoers described a rabbit warren of rooms crammed with belongings — pianos, organs, antique furniture, doors and half-finished sculptures.
"It was a tinderbox," said Brooke Rollo, 30, who lives less than a mile from the scene and had gone to parties there.
Firefighters who responded to Friday’s three-alarm blaze described the interior as a labyrinth.
Alameda County Dist. Atty. Nancy O'Malley said Monday that her office had launched an investigation, and the site is now a "potential crime scene."
“It’s too early to speculate" about the charges,” she said. "Right now we've just started our investigation." 
O'Malley said her office is looking into whether there's criminal liability attached to this fire and if so, against whom.  
She said the charges could include manslaughter or murder, but it was too early to know what the evidence would reveal. 
O'Malley said her office would "leave no stone unturned."


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## mark handler

Housing and Community Development does have authority over any building that is being used as living spaces.
CBC SECTION 1.8.5
RIGHT OF ENTRY FOR ENFORCEMENT
1.8.5.1 General. Subject to other provisions of law, officers and agents of the enforcing agency may enter and inspect public and private properties to secure compliance with the rules and regulations promulgated by the Department of Housing and Community Development. For limitations and additional information regarding enforcement, see the following: 1. For applications subject to the State Housing Law as referenced in Section 1.8.3.2.1 of this code, refer to Health and Safety Code, Division 13, Part 1.5, commencing with Section 17910 and California Code of Regulations, Title 25, Division 1, Chapter 1, Subchapter 1, commencing with Section 1.


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## mark handler

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- http://abc7news.com/news/timeline-complaints-against-ghost-ship-warehouse-since-2014/1640996/
The ABC7 News I-Team has confirmed that in just the past two years, six complaints were filed against the Ghost Ship warehouse site where a tragic fire claimed the lives of more than 30 people. On at least two occasions, inspectors were unable to get inside the building to see the dangerous conditions.

12/03/16 - A complaint was filed the day after the fatal three-alarm fire. Firefighters said some of the victims might have been trapped in the blaze when they couldn't escape down a makeshift one-way stairwell built out of wooden pallets that led to the second floor.
11/14/16 - A "Blight" complaint was filed with the description: "Illegal interior building structure." ABC7 haslearned that before this was filed, an inspector went to the building but city officials say he couldn't get in. The investigation was ongoing but there are no details on what efforts the inspector may have made to get in or any follow-up attempts to inspect the property.
11/13/2016 - A "Blight" complaint was filed with the description: "There are a ton of garbage piling up on the property on 1305 31st Ave. Also, a lot of items are left on the sidewalk near the property. Some of trash was hazardous. This property is a storage but the owner turned it to become trash recycle site. the yard became a trash collection site and the main building was remodel for residential. The change causes our neighborhood looks very bad and creates health issue."
10/08/2014 - A "Habitability" complaint was filed. A City of Oakland building inspector identified as Randy Martin Schimm, a Specialty Combination Inspector, conducted an inspection of the property and reported that a "structure" was removed before the inspection and there were no violations. Records indicate Schimm earned $123,000.00 in 2015 including pay and benefits.
10/07/2014 - A "Habitability" complaint was filed with the description: "Constructing house/structure without permits."
09/30/2014 - A "Blight" complaint was filed with the description: "Pallets, construction materials blocking the sidewalk."
06/04/2014 - A "Blight" complaint was filed with the description: "Vacant lot, trash & debris, construction debris, vector issues."
04/09/2014 - A "Blight" complaint was filed with the description: "Large structures built at property, not strapped down or stable."


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## cda

Don't let someone know this::


Records indicate Schimm earned $123,000.00 in 2015 including pay and benefits.

$ 60 an hour


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## Pcinspector1

Why is this guys salary relevant?

Is Mr. Schimm the top dog or the goat?


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## conarb

cda said:


> Don't let someone know this::
> 
> 
> Records indicate Schimm earned $123,000.00 in 2015 including pay and benefits.
> 
> $ 60 an hour


That's not outrageous, probably only $100,000 of that is salary the rest benefits, in California he's paying anywhere from 35 to 55% in income taxes unless he's got a lot of writeoffs, rents are anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 a month, doesn't leave much left over for beer money.


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## conarb

Having remodeled bars and restaurants in Oakland I know a cabaret license is required if dancing is allowed, a bar could have a juke box but put a postage stamp sized hardwood floor in front of it and the city would require a cabaret license, to get the cabaret license there were all kinds of fire department requirements. 

From today's local paper:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> Repeated requests Monday for routine city records showing when the building was last inspected for fire safety were denied. Records normally provided over the counter that would show details about code enforcement visits were also not released Monday despite repeated requests. A Bay Area News Group lawyer objected in a letter to the city about the lack of access.
> 
> Oakland officials were mum on the matter Monday. Mayor Libby Schaaf walked away from a reporter trying to interview her about the visits and how often the fire department inspected the building. In a statement issued Monday night, Schaaf said “initial information (is being) compiled and (we) will be reviewing it with the District Attorney prior to release.” DA Nancy O’Malley is conducting a criminal investigation of the fire.
> 
> The city’s fire department boasts on its website of “an excellent program” in which firefighters do surprise “field inspections, on a block-by-block basis. Inspections occur at least one time annually. In some instances, high-hazard (buildings) may require additional inspections.”
> 
> Warehouse owner Chor Ng was well known to the city Code Enforcement office.
> 
> She faced $15,000 in code enforcement fines attached to her 2013-2014 county tax bill and $7,600 in similar costs in 2009 for the property. In 2007, a notice of a substandard building and special assessment of $15,000 was filed against her.
> 
> Records also show city taxes on the property were often not paid. Ng could not be reached for comment. A lawyer who has represented her in real estate matters did not return messages.
> 
> Last month an unidentified code enforcement officer went to the building in response to complaints about piles of garbage. No one came to the door of the collective. The next day, the city started an investigation about apparent illegal structures being built inside the warehouse. But no inspectors returned to follow up before the fire.
> 
> It was far from the only chance for someone to notice the hazardous conditions.
> 
> • In March of last year, police responded to a report of a dance party at the warehouse where attendees were paying $25 a head to get in. An officer was reportedly denied entry by a doorman claiming that the location was a private club with members paying monthly dues, records show. The officer left because there was no evidence of a crime.
> 
> • A tenant dispute in February 2014 also drew the attention of police. Almena was reportedly cited for battery, and another man was arrested, but no charges came out of the encounter. Officers didn’t enter the building.
> 
> • On Jan. 13, 2015, Almena was arrested on suspicion on possession of stolen property at the warehouse. According an Alameda County Sheriff’s Office probable-cause document, a woman named Farrah Dalal flagged down a passing Alameda sheriff’s deputy and said Almena had stolen her trailer and she had tracked it to the 31st Avenue site.
> 
> Dalal, who claimed Almena was her former tenant, had performed a citizen’s arrest of Almena, and Deputy Jeremy Lucha arrested him and booked him into a county jail. In his report, Lucha stated that Almena confessed to having the trailer “for about a week.” It was unclear from the report if Lucha entered the warehouse or arrested Alemna in the vacant lot next to it.
> 
> Almena spent two days in jail and agreed to plead no contest to a lesser misdemeanor charge of possessing stolen property. He was sentenced to three years’ probation and was ordered to pay restitution.
> 
> • In February 2015, the Alameda County Child and Family Services Department was called to the warehouse and took custody of Almena’s three children out of safety concerns about them living there, according to a court document. Almena also later posted on Facebook that it had happened but blamed a tenant for “fake accusations.” The children were later returned to Almena and his wife. The department director didn’t return a message Monday.¹



These places bill themselves as 'collectives', 'communes', or some other designation indicating socialist groupings, the cities have been looking the other way on them, this is East Oakland, in North Oakland an 'anti-capitalist' commune stemming from the Occupy movement has acquired a former Italian social club, they have been trying to get Oakland to waive a lot of fire, structural, and disability requirements, at least they are going about it the right way, these people with anti-establishment lifestyles can't afford to live here.. 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...ssed-signs-of-looming-disaster-at-ghost-ship/


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## fatboy

ICE said:


> Well doggone, are you telling me that I have been breaking the rules?



Probably......


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## cda

fatboy said:


> Probably......



Not breaking the rules, if the court don't catch you


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## Pcinspector1

ICE, you have been on a few roof taken photo's, I'm sure you were invited!

So....it's all good, that's the way you roll.


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## conarb

cda said:


> Not breaking the rules, if the court don't catch you


That's what both the owner and lessor of the Ghost Ship said.


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## linnrg

as the cost of the cave goes up the cave dwellers will seek less desirable caves.  when bad things happen at the cave then all who have seen the cave will be blamed.

Here in the great state of Alaska we have lots of homeless people.  More and more each year.  I do not think it has to do with the cost of the dwelling location as much as it is the people falling way down from their lifestyle choices.  Our educational books should include these stories when kids are young so that they understand that life takes concentrated efforts to: avoid poverty conditions, to avoid dangerous places, to avoid social pitfalls and most important being able to recognize the potential problems and turn your personal pathway to the positive.

So for the government officials that will be blamed, the people may not understand that you may have sent this up the chain, or that you may have met (discussed) with the owners and a plan for compliance was discussed but no action ever occurred by the owners or tenants, or that you were requested to get off the property, or that you can not see all and know all about every building in your area and what is truly going on in it, etc, etc.

I have got over three years into one case of a simple home damaged by fire and just recently obtained a positive path from the courts to take official actions.  In this case the owner is still in the picture.  Sympathy for the owners conditions whether financial problems, mental issues, bad habits, etc. has long been exhausted.   I work in a small jurisdiction and can not imagine the decay of some of the inner cites I have seen on the news.  When I began dealing with this property I studied what other cities are doing for buildings and structures that are dilapitated or dangerous and found that lots of places have huge numbers of problem buildings.  Truly sad stories.

For the building owner or landlord who has continued to gain profits from this buildings use when its doors should have been barricaded you will get no sympathy from me


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## conarb

In today's paper the editorial is calling for criminal prosecution. 



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> District Attorney Nancy O’Malley’s criminal investigation is a first step toward accountability. The probe should include the owner of the property, the mastermind tenant who created Ghost Ship, the concert organizers and promoters, the city inspectors who had been warned, and the elected leaders who knew but didn’t speak out.
> 
> Some should go to jail. Some should lose their jobs. Some will face civil liability, for whatever cold comfort it can bring survivors.
> 
> Even the artists who lived there bear responsibility. They describe horrific electrical hookups and other fires-in-waiting. Yes, reporting those conditions likely would have cost them their homes, but it might have prevented the city’s deadliest fire.
> 
> Property owners gripe about building codes and permit costs. Maybe some are excessive. But the Ghost Ship is precisely the worst nightmare that building standards and concert venue requirements are supposed to prevent. The rules are the reason we have fewer massive casualty fires than a century ago.¹



Another article blames the cost of building permits:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> Because it’s so expensive to secure building permits in the city, a lot of the warehouses aren’t even certified for occupancy. Master tenants representing groups of people negotiate with landlords who rent out the dwellings illegally.
> 
> “Five hundred dollars a month right now is a golden ticket to have a place to cook and shower and sleep; it doesn’t matter what it is as long as you can make your art and be part of a community,” Strauss said. “But we’re being forced into the worst places because of the economic, political and social climate in the city.”²




¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...hortage-doesnt-excuse-deadly-oakland-inferno/

² http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...-drive-artists-into-unsafe-living-conditions/


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## cda

and one more blames the fire chief for not staffing funded positions



OAKLAND — In the wake of the deadly Ghost Ship fire, questions are being raised whether the city has sufficient fire inspectors to cover its diverse and sometimes problematic housing stock, including many older manufacturing warehouses that have been converted to artists’ collectives.

Until last year, the city had gone three years without a fire marshal — the person with authority to shut down unsafe structures — and four other inspector positions are funded but remain vacant, according to documents.

And two years before the fire that killed 36 at an artist’s collective Friday night, an Alameda civil grand jury report showed the fire department failed to inspect more than one third of the city’s 11,000 commercial properties. The 2014 report offered other alarming findings: Oakland was losing about $1.4 million a year in unrecovered fees, fines and abatement costs due to poor billing and collections practices. “We have a shortage of staff at the enforcement level and in the fire level,” said Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the Fruitvale district where the fire happened. “We’ve been trying to merge the building inspectors with the fire inspectors.” The city’s building department has so far refused to release detailed reports of complaints about the Ghost Ship arts collective at the direction of the City Administrator’s Office. But a summary of complaints shows building inspectors were notified as far back as October 2014 of possible illegal construction at the warehouse.
And just last month, on Nov. 14, the city opened an investigation into a complaint of illegal interior building or structures at the property. The previous day inspectors visited the warehouse in response to a complaint about garbage pilling up there, but left after they could not get inside the site, officials said.

A review of employee data obtained by the Bay Area News Group shows in 2015 Oakland had nine fire prevention inspectors; three assistant fire marshals; and a fire marshal, Miguel Trujillo. There were also five fire suppression district inspectors.

Firefighter union Vice President Zac Unger said leaving the fire marshal position vacant for so long “sends a terrible signal that protecting firefighters and citizens isn’t a priority.”

There is a “giant disconnect” between the firefighters and the civilian fire safety inspectors, he said.
“We see dangerous stuff on the street and we send it up there and it just goes into a void,” Unger said, adding that Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed “has completely ignored fire prevention.”

According to the most recent staffing report released in October, two civilian fire prevention bureau inspectors positions and two fire suppression district inspector positions remain vacant, even though City Council approved funding for the jobs. 
“To me, that is the bigger outrage,” Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan said Tuesday. “There are significant vacancies in the fire department.

The grand jury panel also found that on its website, the city gave a “false impression that all commercial businesses are inspected annually,” but really did not inspect 4,000 of 11,000 properties each year. In its response to the report, the city pledged

“We’ve always advocated the need for more dedicated fire inspectors,” said Daniel Robertson, president of Oakland’s fire department union. “If you look at comparable cities with similar building stock as us, they have a higher percentage of fire prevention inspectors.”

San Jose, which is predominantly suburban, had 12 fire safety inspectors in 2015 and no fire marshal. There were three fire inspectors who also work as EMTs last year, according to payroll data. And San Mateo, one quarter the size of Oakland, had two department fire marshals and four inspectors, data shows.

In the Richmond Fire Department, there are five inspectors/investigators, said fire Capt. Rico Rincon. He said inspectors and fire prevention are perhaps the most important function of a fire department.

“We work (fighting fires) when prevention fails in a sense,” Rincon said. “The more fire prevention we do reduces the amount of fires.”

Questions remain about whether fire inspectors ever visited the warehouse after the Ghost Ship opened in 2013. Despite promises to release documents, Oakland city officials have yet to release detailed information on the overall history of fire inspections at 1315 31st Ave. However, Tuesday night Mayor Libby Schaaf said the city was compiling records from several departments that may have received reports or conducted inspections at the property and would make them available to the public.

That was an about face from earlier Tuesday, when Rebecca Kozak, executive assistant to Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed, instructed staff not to release documents related to the warehouse fire to the press, and instead encourage reporters to make online public records requests, the East Bay Express reported.


http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12/06/after-oakland-warehouse-fire-calls-come-for-more-inspectors/


----------



## mtlogcabin

“We have a shortage of staff at the enforcement level and in the fire level,” said Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the Fruitvale district where the fire happened. “We’ve been trying to merge the building inspectors with the fire inspectors.” 

Fire prevention is usually the 1st to go during a down time and the last to be re-instated when things get better

"one more blames the fire chief for not staffing funded positions"

Funded positions do not mean they can be filled at any time. I would still need city manager and council approval before advertising and hiring. Without justification of an overworked staff it will never happen


----------



## my250r11

It's not everybody's fault because people are ignorant. People ready to blame someone else instead of their selves. We can not catch everything, people want less regulation then cry we don't do enough. Society has become a VERY strange animal...... okay I'm done for now LOL.


----------



## cda

conarb said:


> That's what both the owner and lessor of the Ghost Ship said.



They got caught big time


----------



## fatboy

And that is a big difference. If there are squatters/trespassers, and get themselves in harms way, that's one thing. But if the owner/agent was complicit in the leasing/use of the building? Then the gloves come off.

Like my250r11 said, all too often folks want it both ways, they have the expectation that they should be able to do whatever they want, but when the poo hits the revolving blade device, they now want to be protected. JMHO


----------



## ICE

The people that perished have some responsibility in this.


----------



## Pcinspector1

Is it realistic that we can protect everyone by doing inspections. Last month, I got a call that the aisles were blocked and that the stores a mess. So I tighten up my rope belt and put on my straw hat and went to investigate. The main thing that caught my glass eye was the required back exit was blocked with a step ladder and merchandise boxes. 

Oh.. manager! "What's going on here I asked!" She said, I'll take care of it!  

Three weeks later, went back to re-inspect, (note I said three weeks later). A box of mops was in front of the exit. Oh..manager!, what are we going to do? How many times will I have to deal with this outfit?

At least you could still get out and grab a mop to help clean up afterwards. Wonder if my salary will get posted in the news, you guys would laugh.


----------



## cda

Pcinspector1 said:


> Is it realistic that we can protect everyone by doing inspections. Last month, I got a call that the aisles were blocked and that the stores a mess. So I tighten up my rope belt and put on my straw hat and went to investigate. The main thing that caught my glass eye was the required back exit was blocked with a step ladder and merchandise boxes.
> 
> Oh.. manager! "What's going on here I asked!" She said, I'll take care of it!
> 
> Three weeks later, went back to re-inspect, (note I said three weeks later). A box of mops was in front of the exit. Oh..manager!, what are we going to do? How many times will I have to deal with this outfit?
> 
> At least you could still get out and grab a mop to help clean up afterwards. Wonder if my salary will get posted in the news, you guys would laugh.




Does the city furnish the rope belt and straw hat???

Percs are important !!


----------



## linnrg

if building permits cost zero dollars we would still have many who would not get them (or build appropriately) just to avoid government influence.  Money makers would squeeze everything from all they could get by packing them in if regulations were not in place to provide some level of control.  The nature of people is that they think nothing ever will come of a building code violation after all we were all raised up in buildings that did not have the strict standards we now have.  Everyone wants the low bid because they believe it to be the best when it is not.

I personally would like to hear more about the inspections done by fire departments and when illegal or dangerous findings are made how effective can they be at getting compliance.  I have little problems here but I could sure wake some people up if I could write them up with an immediate fine or load them up in my trusty rig and haul them off to jail.  I would proudly wear a straw hat and the rope belt could come in handy - there is no way I would give up my super salary if I could keep my town clean.


----------



## cda

linnrg said:


> if building permits cost zero dollars we would still have many who would not get them (or build appropriately) just to avoid government influence.  Money makers would squeeze everything from all they could get by packing them in if regulations were not in place to provide some level of control.  The nature of people is that they think nothing ever will come of a building code violation after all we were all raised up in buildings that did not have the strict standards we now have.  Everyone wants the low bid because they believe it to be the best when it is not.
> 
> I personally would like to hear more about the inspections done by fire departments and when illegal or dangerous findings are made how effective can they be at getting compliance.  I have little problems here but I could sure wake some people up if I could write them up with an immediate fine or load them up in my trusty rig and haul them off to jail.  I would proudly wear a straw hat and the rope belt could come in handy - there is no way I would give up my super salary if I could keep my town clean.




We can issue citations supposed to be up to $ 2000. And daily

We can do stop notices

We can pull power


----------



## ICE

A lot went on with the Ghost Ship.  Multiple agencies were aware of the condition.  It was like that for a long time.  There is no excuse for this to happen.  There will be many excuses brought forth.  Could be a $100 million dollar hit for the city.  Oh well, it's not their money.  The person/s that own the building should go to prison...360 years sounds about right.  In many countries it would be a death penalty.


----------



## steveray

Here in CT the BO and FM are both empowered and obligated to cite violations. And if it is one of the 7 deadly sins, we are required to clear the building unless it can be remedied in 4 hours.....


----------



## mtlogcabin

Once a building owner leases a building he does not have the legal right to enter that property whenever he wishes or even have control over what goes on inside his building. The lease agreement which is a legal binding contract should spell out all these terms. Unfortunately most are minimal and do not cover much except how much the rent is and when it is due and when the lease can be broken for non-payment. 

This will be years of finger pointing and blame shifting to avoid culpability by all parties


----------



## conarb

The debate has shifted from safety to where are these people going to go:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — In the wake of Friday’s catastrophic three-alarm fire that ripped through an unpermitted live-work space and killed 36 people, artists living in similarly nonconforming spaces feared a backlash from city inspectors and rent-seeking property owners who would force them from their homes.
> 
> With some tenants already receiving eviction notices, those fears are indeed coming to fruition, and sooner than many imagined.
> 
> But even with Sarriugarte’s legal support to stall an eviction, residents of the converted machine shop in West Oakland have little hope a lawyer could help. Their space is not zoned for residential habitation, and now they are no longer welcome. There is not much a lawyer could do without rezoning the land or receiving a variance — a process that is costly and could take months or even years, they said, adding that they need the city’s help to create a less costly path toward compliance.
> At a news conference Wednesday, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf did not offer specific plans to help artists currently facing evictions but said she would reconvene and expand a task force to address affordable living and working spaces for artists. She promised the arts community would be part of the discussions as the city addresses code compliance and other issues.
> 
> For smaller spaces, the cost of bringing a building up to code can be insurmountable, said Cheryl Edison, a consultant who works with cities to help them revamp older properties. Many Bay Area cities have outdated zoning restrictions that make it both time-consuming and incredibly costly to rezone properties, meaning only well-heeled developers can afford to do it, she said.
> 
> “Every effort that individuals make to ask for permission gets one very short answer — ‘No,'” Edison said. “People want to do the right thing, but the level of collaboration is not there.”
> 
> “These places are not made by real estate developers or land owners. They don’t exist because someone is looking to make a profit; they are not profitable,” said Tanya, an architect and “flow artist” (or dancer), who lives in the former machine shop in West Oakland. “We need to be able to make them exist, and the Oakland planning (department) needs to … allow spaces like this to exist safely.”¹




¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...t-ships-wake-artists-worst-fears-coming-true/


----------



## Pcinspector1

Could the City of Oakland get there hands on some old used FEMA trailers?


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## cda

conarb said:


> The debate has shifted from safety to where are these people going to go:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...t-ships-wake-artists-worst-fears-coming-true/




Thought that was what Burning Man was for.


----------



## steveray

Here, if "we" put them out, "we" put them up. And we lien the property for whatever it costs....Giant problem on a worthless property you don't want to own...Not sure if that would hold on illegal dwelling units....


----------



## conarb

steveray said:


> Here, if "we" put them out, "we" put them up. And we lien the property for whatever it costs....Giant problem on a worthless property you don't want to own...Not sure if that would hold on illegal dwelling units....


Yeah we have to that here too, the problem is that most homeless come back they like that lifestyle, this is particularly true within the artist community, they want to live where they "work", they are all anticapitalists of some persuasion, socialists, communists, or something, they don't believe in working to survive, they believe society owes them a free living so they can pursue their "art", most are also druggies and don't want to be anywhere near authority figures.


----------



## linnrg

a couple of years ago the marijuana instructor from Colorado said that Denver had zero warehouse space available due to grow ops.  Since Cali just elected for more pot maybe the artists will have to move due to the market shift.  I have personally seen a couple of warehouse re-uses for that industry up here.

Not to be disrespectful for the needs of housing but often revitalization/rehabilitation/redevelopment causes the loss of spaces to other uses then the communities realize that they now need affordable warehouses.  I will bet that the community will continue to struggle to find cures for the un-affordable housing issues but it seems that when those monies are spent and further subsidies are allocated there will still be a problem due to current social decay.  I will also bet that in most California cases re-building with entirely new would cost less than modifying older structures where the codes via change of use can invoke seismic rehab/fire sprinklers/wall ratings/ means of egress improvements/ada improvements, etc.

I did not know that way back when I was poor I could have told all that I was an artist.  It is depressing to know how many handouts I have missed while I was working for a living.


----------



## fatboy

"a couple of years ago the marijuana instructor from Colorado said that Denver had zero warehouse space available due to grow ops."

Still the case, last I heard. Doubt they mess with residential "artists".............


----------



## tmurray

The biggest problem I have with their mentality of "I'm not hurting anyone, so let me live how I want" is that, fire departments practice their response to what is a relatively code compliant building. As the building starts to vary from this standard, the risk to any first responders increases. So, yes, you are hurting someone. There is someone who's job it is to go pull your selfish butt out of a burning building, and because you did not want the enforcement of building or fire codes, there is a very real chance that that individual might not make it home to their family.

This group of people claim to be all about "society" but constant shun the laws that the democratic society has put into place. I'm all for criticism and looking at laws from different perspectives, good debates give you good laws. But every member of society has a duty to follow the laws that the society has agreed upon. Anything else would start to approach anarchism.


----------



## steveray

Society has not agreed on the laws...politicians have....


----------



## mark handler

steveray said:


> Society has not agreed on the laws...politicians have....


Have they?


----------



## tmurray

steveray said:


> Society has not agreed on the laws...politicians have....



The politicians have been elected by society to represent their interests. Representational democracies like we both have, are essentially voting by proxy. Society chooses via election who to represent them and that person votes on legislation on the behalf of their electorate.


----------



## mark handler

Fire, building officials can't address unsafe conditions that are kept hidden
http://www.chicagotribune.com/subur...ta-slowik-inspect-st-1209-20161208-story.html
At least two dozen people are still missing following a fire in an Oakland warehouse, officials said.
Ted Slowik
The scariest part about the tragic Dec. 2 fire in Oakland that killed 36 people is that it could happen again anywhere, including in the south suburbs.
The fire broke out in a warehouse that had become an artist collective. The space had been illegally converted into living spaces, authorities said. At the time of the fire, a concert was taking place in the converted warehouse, known as the Ghost Ship.
The death toll from the Oakland tragedy makes it the nation's deadliest fire in 13 years. The loss of life was preventable, but local authorities say they can't enforce building and fire code violations that are kept hidden on private property.
"We operate on a complaint-based system," said Mike Smetana, chief building official for the Building Division of the Will County Land Use Department.
If everyone abided by the law, landlords would seek permits and officials would inspect electrical wiring, structural integrity and other conditions of residential spaces before granting occupancy.
"We don't have the right to go onto private property" and conduct inspections without the consent of property owners, Smetana said. "The permit is what gives us that consent."
Oakland officials said records showed no building inspections had been conducted over the past 30 years in the warehouse where the fire occurred, the Associated Press reported. That's because no building permits had been requested. No permits, no inspections.
Fire at Oakland warehouse trapped people on second floor, official says
Sometimes, tenants complain about conditions, and authorities become aware of illegally converted spaces.
"The county relies heavily on notifications by the public, particularly with rental properties," Smetana said.
But what about situations where both tenant and landlord keep quiet about potentially unsafe conditions because of illegal conversions of properties to residential use? Those situations can be difficult to detect. Tenants squeezed by a lack of affordable housing opportunities might be driven to compromise their own safety.
Don't people have an obligation to report illegal conversions?
"Nobody does," said Todd Fonfara, deputy chief of the Northwest Homer Fire and Ambulance Protection District. "People always hide stuff."
Homer Township has a rural character and agricultural heritage. Fonfara and I discussed a hypothetical situation where a landlord illegally converts a barn to a residence. Our hypothetical landlord allows artist and musician friends to live communally in the space at low cost.
Refrigerator may have caused Oakland warehouse fire that killed 36, officials say
"Those buildings aren't designed for living. Barns are designed for cows and hay," he said. "Exits are not marked. There are no fire alarms."
Still, it wouldn't take much for a handyman to install a shower, sink and toilet and connect them to a well and septic system. Our hypothetical tenants might plug in space heaters for warmth during the winter.
The barn may have been outfitted with minimal electrical service — enough to power lights, but not intended to also operate a refrigeration, stove, heater and other appliances.
In Oakland, authorities have not yet identified the cause of the tragic fire. Numerous reports said faulty wiring on a refrigerator is among the suspected causes.
Could artist collectives like the one in Oakland already exist in a barn in Homer Township, or in a former warehouse space off Halsted Street, or in a loft above a commercial building along Kedzie Avenue?
Artists or musicians living together in such a space could avoid detection by police, fire and building authorities until a large number of visitors gathered for an event like a concert or rave.
In Oakland, artists are worried about authorities cracking down on building codes and regulations in the wake of the tragedy, the AP reported Thursday.
"Painters, musicians and struggling artists of all types came to live and work, to perform and dance late into the night and to be surrounded by creativity," the AP said.
"They tolerated the exposed wiring, spotty electricity and other dangers or inconveniences of often unregulated warehouses, as a trade-off for affordable housing and studio space in one of the country's priciest housing markets."
It can be expensive to equip buildings with sprinklers and fire alarm systems. But there are good reasons for building safety requirements. As a society, we've learned from our tragedies.
"Ordinances and codes can prevent" tragedies like the Oakland fire, Fonfara said.
I understand why artists and musicians living and working together in unregulated spaces would want to keep quiet. I sympathize with their desire to stay under the radar because it's all they can afford.
But I also hope people in that situation have enough sense to know when their safety is compromised.
"People can help by letting public agencies know about" unsafe conditions, Fonfara said.
tslowik@tribpub.com
Twitter @tedslowik
Copyright © 2016, Daily Southtown


----------



## mark handler

Baltimore arts building condemned in light of Oakland fire
http://www.10news.com/news/baltimore-arts-building-condemned-in-light-of-oakland-fire
BALTIMORE (AP) -- Baltimore officials have shut down an arts building for safety violations and evicted dozens of tenants three days after a fire at a California warehouse-turned artists' enclave killed three dozen people. 
The Baltimore Sun reports (http://bsun.md/2h11FWs ) officials boarded up the two-story Bell Foundry arts building on Monday. 
Fire department spokesman Roman Clark says inspectors responding to a complaint found no valid permit, unsafe conditions and other violations.
City housing department spokeswoman Tania Baker says tenants may not use the building again until the building is up to code. 
The Bell Foundry is located in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District, which was designated in 2002.
A fire broke out late Friday in a cluttered Oakland, California, warehouse that had been converted into artists' studios, killing 36 people.


----------



## cda

"""People can help by letting public agencies know about" unsafe conditions, Fonfara said.
tslowik@tribpub.com
Twitter @tedslowik""

I thought people did that??


----------



## Pcinspector1

From the article that Mark posted: In Oakland, artists are worried about authorities cracking down on building codes and regulations in the wake of the tragedy, the AP reported Thursday.

So..... they want to continue living in conditions that are unsafe and want to be left alone for their artistic creativity? ie:
(Pallet stairway). Before the fire, who knows, maybe a CA RDP designed the stairway, I 'm sure it had the correct rise and run, handrail and met ADA requirements (Commercial Building). As I see it, there's the one's at the top like, Hillary's NY home construction without permits on one end of the spectrum and the Ghost Ship without permits on the other end of the spectrum). Then we have the middle class in the suburbs following the codes and paying the way and being told by inspector Clouseau, that they need "code keepers!" go figure!

Maybe they'll go after GE or Samsung because they called out that the fire may have been started due to a refrigerator? You gotta blame someone!


----------



## cda

Refrigerators do not burn

Maybe the power cord to it
Or the extension cord it was plugged into
Or the strip outlet it was plugged into


----------



## ICE

The property owner should be the one to suffer the consequences brought on by the government when dealing with illegal occupancy of a property.  The problems start with the owner allowing the illegal occupancy and that's where the problems should end.

According to the media the owner of the Ghost Ship was collecting $4500.00 a month in rent.  Had the City whispered into his hooped ear, "This could cost you $100,000.00 just in relocation costs when we shut you down", he may have reconsidered.


----------



## mark handler

cda said:


> Refrigerators do not burn
> 
> Maybe the power cord to it
> Or the extension cord it was plugged into
> Or the strip outlet it was plugged into








*insulation and plastics do*


----------



## fatboy

Taking a closer look around........
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/12/08/fire-safety-eviction-art-colony-denver-brighton-blvd/


----------



## linnrg

exactly,  this will be news all over the country - and it will be brought against the fire and code people as being the bullies.  The comments on the article show the range of community concerns.

I will bet that if research was conducted the owners of the Oakland property also owned others as well (and probably rent them out similarly).  The "investors" find a way to keep their property taxes paid while they wait for the redevelopment opportunity.

I think as others have said that the owners and the lease holder should be held financially and criminally accountable.

The one thing building codes, zoning codes and other regulations can NOT do is fix stupid.


----------



## cda

mark handler said:


> *insulation and plastics do*





Did it start the fire or add fuel load to an existing fire


----------



## cda

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/re...-arson/ar-AAlmn0s?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout


----------



## conarb

CDA's MSN link said:
			
		

> "Right now we are looking through our records," Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed told CNN on Thursday. "I can't tell you anything right now about that warehouse."
> 
> Prior to the chief's statement, a source in city government said Thursday that the 31st Avenue address was not listed in the fire department's database of buildings requiring inspections. Thirty-six people died in the structure while attending an electronic dance party last weekend.
> 
> "I can't answer how that warehouse slipped through the cracks and that it bypassed our system -- or how it bypassed the city's system," Reed told the news network. "But everybody is at the table right now trying to figure out what happened."



Oh really, it was located a few yards from an Oakland firehouse, 



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> We’re told a firefighter briefly entered the building in 2014 and reported to fire inspectors that there appeared to be hazards there. Members of the Fire Department and code enforcement also visited the site, as did an Alameda County Sheriff’s deputy and members of Child Protective Services. We don’t know what most of them saw.
> 
> Meanwhile, the warehouse, just one block away from a fire station, remained inhabited. It was a fire trap that lacked permits for staging of events like last week’s deadly concert and for the ongoing residential occupancy.¹



¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...ass-for-missing-ghost-ship-warehouse-dangers/


----------



## CityKin

*ATF believes overloaded electrical lines caused fire*

Also: NYT has diagrams of the building and stairs etc
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/12/us/oakland-warehouse-ghost-ship-fire.html


----------



## mark handler

After deadly Oakland fire, Southern California artist building is red-tagged
http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/12/...ern-california-artist-building-is-red-tagged/
SANTA ANA – Code enforcement, fire and building safety officials emerged from a Tuesday morning walk-through of the Advertising Arts Building housing artist studios – the third inspection within the past week – and red-tagged the basement with “Do not enter” signs citing substandard conditions.

“We did find violations that make it a life-safety concern,” Alvaro Nuñez, who oversees Santa Ana’s code enforcement division, said after the more than two-hour inspection.

Authorities observed “many violations,” Nuñez said, in the building behind a barbed wire fence on East First Street that is accessible only from a parallel cul-de-sac. He said there was “evidence of some folks living there” – beds, futons, refrigerators, a stove and laundry machines, among other appliances, and food materials.

Further details were not disclosed and the inspection report was not immediately available.

Nuñez said he is not sure if artists occupying the building will need to move out.

Code enforcement officers were on site Thursday and Friday responding to a complaint filed with the city days after a fire claimed 36 lives at the Ghost Ship art colony in Oakland. In Orange County, like the Bay Area, municipalities face balancing safety with allowing industrial and other aging structures to be used by people who can’t afford high rents.

The two-story, wood-and-brick Arts Advertising Building is zoned for industrial and manufacturing uses and is permitted to hold artist workspaces, but not residences.

Inspectors last week could not enter individual units – about 30 – on the first and second floors and posted notices of improper occupancy.

But painter and performance artist Arthur Mendoza, 55, who lives in Fullerton and has worked at the building for more than five years, said artists are only working there.

“When we all signed up, that was part of the agreement,” Mendoza said of the nonresidential lease terms. “I feel safe here. I’ve never worried about the people or anything, or the building, and I’m glad that they are inspecting.”

Property manager Andrew Hart cooperated with authorities, and prior to the walk-through said the building has a full sprinkler system and he’s installed additional fire safety precautions since the Ghost Ship fire.

“We do month-to-month. I put, ‘artist studio,’ so if they are (living there), then they’re violating the lease,” he said, showing Nuñez a copy of the document.

Hart did not allow media to shadow inspectors and did not return calls for comment afterward.

Nuñez said having the property manager present was a “good, good start” and that Hart indicated he is willing to address the violations, most of which can be repaired.

“It worked the way it’s supposed to work. We contacted building safety, Orange County Fire Authority, so it’s actually a good thing,” Nuñez said. “The key thing is, hopefully we won’t have a situation like Oakland.”

A complete inspection report and correction notice will be mailed to the property manager detailing any electrical or mechanical changes required and a compliance timeline, he said. The first violation following notification would generate a $1,000 fine, followed by fines of $2,500 and $5,000 for successive violations..

In the past three years, Santa Ana has changed its municipal code to permit higher fines for code violations and in serious cases, cutting off utilities.

Authorities in Oakland have not yet determined the cause of the Ghost Ship fire, but are looking at the electrical system as part of the analysis.

Mendoza said he had visited the Ghost Ship a couple of times.

“It frightened me,” he said. “But that’s really what it boils down to – affordable housing.”

Contact the writer: 714-796-7762 or jkwong@ocregister.com Twitter: @JessicaGKwong


----------



## conarb

Now this is a good idea, the "artists' community" is going to do it's own "inspections" and repairs so they don't incur the high costs of city inspectors and licensed bondable contractors, what could possibly go wrong?


			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — The artists community in Oakland is not waiting for anyone’s help in the wake of the Ghost Ship warehouse fire, which claimed the lives of 36 people. They are fighting evictions, making safety improvements to industrial spaces and advocating for the preservation of safe, affordable places for artists to live and work.
> 
> Last Wednesday, an estimated 200 people filled the Omni Commons, a community event space in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood, to coordinate efforts and offer help making repairs and renovations to live/work warehouses to make them safer, said David Keenan, a founding member of the Omni and one of the organizers of the event, which is now calling itself the DIY Safety Group.
> 
> The group was quickly split into several working groups, including people who have construction skills, experience with code enforcement, finance and fundraising, communications and legal assistance, Keenan said. Already, he and others with experience in building and fire codes have gone out to do “pre-inspections” of buildings to make sure fire hazards are reduced, interior bedrooms or other structures are built safely, exit signs and fire extinguishers are in place, and exits are clear.
> 
> Then, on Monday, another coalition of artists, established organizations, community leaders and activists announced the formation of We the Artists of the Bay Area (WABA), which is already beginning to petition city leaders to establish a path to legalize nonconforming live/work spaces, said Jon Sarriugarte, one of the group’s members. Like the DIY Safety Group, WABA is also bringing in people with building and fire code knowledge to make improvements inside warehouses where artists live and work, and to fight evictions.
> 
> “We’re making sure we’re all safe to start with, then making sure our communities can help bring these spaces into compliance,” Sarriugarte said. “In other words, we don’t want to bring these up to compliance just to see the very people we’re helping priced out.”
> 
> By Friday, a volunteer from the Omni group was already inspecting one live/work space in West Oakland, said a warehouse resident, who requested anonymity. The unofficial inspection took roughly two and a half hours, while residents gave the volunteer a tour and pointed out wiring and bedroom spaces they were worried might not be up to snuff.
> 
> “We would point out things and ask questions, like ‘Does this look dangerous, does it look old, does it need to be updated?'” she said.
> 
> Another inspector, who connected with residents through friends, came to the same location Sunday, and both volunteer inspectors concurred the group could achieve the fixes relatively quickly, the resident said. She estimates they will be done with their work by the end of the week.
> 
> “Our building was surprisingly well-maintained and really structurally solid,” she said. “Honestly, we weren’t that surprised because … a lot of us are very skilled carpenters, so we (already) felt we weren’t living in an unsafe space.”
> 
> But several artists said they fear that making these upgrades could increase the value of the property for either sale or rentals and that they might be pushed out. Preserving the spaces as affordable housing or work spaces will take the cooperation of not just the city, but property owners as well, Sarriugarte said, and it may involve forming a nonprofit or other associations to buy the building itself.
> 
> “Some of the landlords are, obviously, scared and maybe this a good time for them to get them out of the business,” Sarriugarte said. “It’s pretty clear the city and the people of this city and the Bay Area really care about these spaces and really care about these people.”¹



I can tell you that the "Omni Collective" is a group of loosely described "anti-capitalists" that formed after the Occupy movement, they somehow acquired a vacant Italian American social club and were petitioning the City of Oakland to wave fire sprinkler, seismic, and disability requirements so they could occupy and renovate the structure while living and working there.  Being socialists they firmly believe that the laws that apply to "rich people" shouldn't apply to them since they don't have any money.  What could go wrong?


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...-together-to-stem-evictions-make-spaces-safe/


----------



## conarb

Tony Serra is representing the guy who had the lease on the property, Tony was a buddy of mine in college, we were both pre-law students which meant that your could go into law school a year early, after the LSAT tests none of us were accepted but told to declare a major and we would be accepted the following year, Tony and I decided to declare philosophy, after graduation I got married and Tony took off to tour Europe for a few years, when he returned he enrolled in Boalt school of law at U.C. Berkeley, I hadn't heard from him in years but sometime in the 70s the wife called me to her television where Morley Safer on 60 Minutes was doing a segment on Tony claiming he was the best attorney in the country, that he could bring any jury to tears and he beat the government every time he went against them.  He's been to prison three times for income tax evasion, the last time during the sentencing hearing the DA pleaded with the judge to not to send him back to prison, but to sentence him to training young lawyers in the DA's office since he wasn't a threat to harm anyone, the judge didn't buy it and sent him back to prison. 



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — The attorneys representing Ghost Ship leader Derick Almena went on the offensive Monday, releasing a statement blaming various government agencies for the deadly fire, not the controversial artist collective founder.
> 
> “Our investigation shows that Derick Almena committed no conduct amounting to criminal negligence. He should not be made a scapegoat,” said attorneys Tony Serra, Jeffrey Krasnoff and Kyndra Miller in a joint statement.
> 
> Almena’s attorneys said Alameda County law enforcement and the District Attorney’s office, which is conducting the criminal investigation into the Dec. 2 fire that killed 36 people in the Fruitvale neighborhood warehouse, have a conflict of interest.
> 
> “Undoubtedly, there will be a civil case by decedents’ representatives who will sue for millions upon millions of dollars,” the attorneys said. “The Alameda Sheriff’s Office, (Oakland) Fire Department, (Oakland) building code inspectors, and Child Protective Services could be potential defendants in such a civil suit.”
> 
> Almena’s attorneys said the “deep pockets” in such a case would be those public agencies.
> 
> “It is our fear that improper charges could be brought against Derick and others by Alameda County in order to divert attention away from their own irresponsible agencies,” the lawyers wrote in the statement. “It is our intention, if the need arises, to defend vigorously by showing that the real culprits are the above agencies who didn’t do their jobs.”¹




¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...-almenas-attorneys-warn-not-to-scapegoat-him/


----------



## cda

conarb said:


> Tony Serra is representing the guy who had the lease on the property, Tony was a buddy of mine in college, we were both pre-law students which meant that your could go into law school a year early, after the LSAT tests none of us were accepted but told to declare a major and we would be accepted the following year, Tony and I decided to declare philosophy, after graduation I got married and Tony took off to tour Europe for a few years, when he returned he enrolled in Boalt school of law at U.C. Berkeley, I hadn't heard from him in years but sometime in the 70s the wife called me to her television where Morley Safer on 60 Minutes was doing a segment on Tony claiming he was the best attorney in the country, that he could bring any jury to tears and he beat the government every time he went against them.  He's been to prison three times for income tax evasion, the last time during the sentencing hearing the DA pleaded with the judge to not to send him back to prison, but to sentence him to training young lawyers in the DA's office since he wasn't a threat to harm anyone, the judge didn't buy it and sent him back to prison.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...-almenas-attorneys-warn-not-to-scapegoat-him/




Ok I see the class of people you hang out with him and us?


----------



## conarb

cda said:


> Ok I see the class of people you hang out with him and us?


Yeah, but he went to Cal for law school. They made a movie about him *called True Believer*, I went to see it to see who played me, unfortunately they didn't go back to his college days when he was clean-cut and wore a crew cut all the way through. 

He has a point that will resonate with a jury, here we have firemen with a firehouse less than a block away,  we have building inspectors enforcing ridiculous codes like the color and sizing of parking spaces and the heights of mirrors in bathrooms, while all kinds of serious code violations are allowed to exist that actually cost lives.  We need to get our priorities straight and deploy these services where they will do the most good.

Just look at the deadly fires in rock music venues, when these activities are allowed to persist they should present a red flag for enforcement, take inspectors off bathroom duty enforcing signage telling people where they can and cannot pee and put them to work enforcing life-saving building requirements.


----------



## conarb

Looks like a lot of work for building and fire inspectors, everybody is turning everybody else in:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — The number of anonymous fire and code enforcement complaints in this city spiked in the two weeks following the Ghost Ship warehouse fire that killed 36 people, casting a wide net that targeted legitimate and unpermitted spaces alike.
> 
> From Dec. 5-16, the city received 21 code enforcement complaints about people living in illegal or unpermitted spaces compared with just two complaints in the two weeks before the deadly Dec. 2 fire, according to city code enforcement data analyzed by the Bay Area News Group. Total code enforcement complaints were up 47.5 percent compared with the same time period last year, a marked increase that followed four years of declines.
> 
> And it’s not just live-work spaces that have come under increased scrutiny. At least two community event spaces, Qilombo and Omni Commons, have reported surprise inspections from city officials, the former of which was spurred by a complaint filed with the fire department not captured in the city’s code enforcement data.
> 
> In Omni’s case, the new complaint was attached to a code enforcement complaint lodged in May. According to data provided by the city, the fire department received 20 complaints from Dec. 5-16, compared with zero the week before the fire and just one during the week of Nov. 14-18 (no data was provided for the week of Thanksgiving).¹



I mentioned Omni above, they are groups of anticapitalists and various activist groups who bought an old Italian Social Club and were asking the City of Oakland to waive structural, fire, assessable standards so they could start living in the building as they remodeled it, I don't know if they were successful but the city is sure not telling us now. 



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> The spike in evictions and inspections has prompted grass-roots efforts to help artists and others living in communal warehouses make their spaces safer. And a petition aimed at city leaders in Oakland and San Francisco asking to halt all fire inspections had gathered more than 12,000 signatures by Wednesday.
> 
> People interviewed by this newspaper say it’s not that they don’t want to make their spaces safe, they just want a reasonable amount of time to bring their buildings up to code.
> 
> And that can take time, said Leighton Kelly, who helps rent out studio spaces at the West Oakland warehouse. He said no one was present for their annual fire inspection just two days before the Ghost Ship fire, and although one inspector came out the following week, Kelly was told they would need a different fire inspector to check out the space. As of Tuesday, Kelly said he has been working diligently to figure out which inspector he needs but hasn’t heard back from anyone in the city.
> 
> “I wanted to have them come over and check out the space to be proactive and to show them that we want to work them,” Kelly said. “Nobody wants blood on their hands.”¹



Maybe the city should suspend all inspections until they can evict these people and get their buildings legalized?  Maybe apply the same discipline to these activists that you apply to us builders? 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...re-code-enforcement-complaints-cast-wide-net/


----------



## conarb

This is getting exciting, people are playing amature building inspectors comparing themselves to the Nazi Schutzstaffel turning in the radial leftist groups that listen to rock music, others are calling themselves "tightie-righties"



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — In the wake of the Ghost Ship fire, some individuals banded together to save warehouses and artists’ spaces by fixing them; another group’s end goal was to shutter spaces in an effort to “crush the radical left.”
> 
> The group has called itself Right Wing Safety Squad but colloquially calls itself the SS, and claims to have contributed to shutting down 16 artists’ live-work spaces across the country. They claim responsibility for the crackdown on Burnt Ramen and Bridge Art Space in Richmond as well as Qilombo and Peralta Studios in Oakland, although they also admit they have no proof of their participation.
> 
> The call to action began Dec. 7 on 4chan, an anonymous online message board that birthed both the hacktivist group Anonymous as well as the practice of “Rickrolling,” an internet prank that sends people to a video by Rick Astley. The anonymous poster claimed that all “artspaces and illegal venues” were “hotbeds of liberal radicalism and degeneracy,” and requested others to report any code violations in an effort to “Make America Safe Again.”
> 
> Long forum discussions are accompanied by photos from inside DIY warehouse spaces and music venues, where amateur code inspectors point to what they say is evidence of hazards.
> 
> References to President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign slogan shared space with photos of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character the Anti-Defamation League said has been increasingly co-opted by white supremacists, and Nazi imagery and references.
> 
> The group’s nickname, the SS, uses the same double lightning bolt runes that the Nazi paramilitary organization used. Even the name, Safety Squad, elicits comparisons to the Nazi’s Schutzstaffel, which translates to “protection squadron.”
> 
> Burnt Ramen, an underground music venue in Richmond, was shut down by the city’s code enforcement officers on Dec. 16. Mayor Tom Butt initially wrote on his website that he was alerted to Burnt Ramen’s purported code violations by a “social media author,” but later retracted that statement, saying it was an email from a concerned resident.
> 
> Sadaf Zahoor lived at Burnt Ramen until Dec. 16 and has said the residents are now sleeping on friends’ couches. She was upset that Butt had published the address of her home along with photos of the inside. Afterward, she said friends had alerted her to threatening statements and photos of her home on 4chan.
> 
> “It’s weird that people who have never heard of us are doing research (on our home), where it is exactly and how can you get there,” Zahoor said. “There were already people making allusions that we didn’t deserve to live and that they should burn the house down.”
> 
> The exact nature of the individuals within the group is mutable. Some soften their statements, saying they are protecting “unwitting leftists from getting themselves killed.”
> 
> On Monday, a 4chan manager posted on behalf of owner Hiroyuki Nishimura that the safety squad discussions would no longer be allowed on the political message board because they are off-topic. An additional warning was made that those types of discussions were risky, repeating the mantra that “4chan is not your personal army.”
> 
> The group has since moved on to a darker corner of the internet, 8chan, which Google had at one point banned from its searches. From there, groups such as the Watchdog Society: United Musicians Against Hate have started to harass the Right Wing Safety Squad, even into their newer home, on the on the Discord chat app.
> 
> Although officers in the Safety Squad have continued their organization, recent discussion touched on the “low energy” nature of the movement now and whether activities would be slowing down during the holidays.¹




¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...ome-to-battle-over-diy-spaces-around-country/


----------



## cda

And the lawsuits have begun


----------



## mark handler

cda said:


> And the lawsuits have begun


There is also talk of trying to sue the Fire Department for gross negligence.


----------



## fatboy

mark handler said:


> There is also talk of trying to sue the Fire Department for gross negligence.



Of course, someone has to be responsible, after all, we can't be expected to think for ourselves........

I'm very sorry people died, but at the end of the day, they were in that building of their own free will, not like they were held captive.

Probably won't be a popular opinion.


----------



## Pcinspector1

conarb said:


> They made a movie about him *called True Believer*, I went to see it to see who played me, unfortunately they didn't go back to his college days when he was clean-cut and wore a crew cut all the way through.



I heard that the original actor that was cast to play conarb was....Richard Dreyfuss but he was doing Alway's! And Robert Shaw turned them down.


----------



## cda

Pcinspector1 said:


> I heard that the original actor that was cast to play conarb was....Richard Dreyfuss but he was doing Alway's! And Robert Shaw turned them down.




Thought it was Nick Nolte??


----------



## conarb

I posted this over on The Journal of Light Construction, one guy replied:



			
				JLC Forum said:
			
		

> Beezo, its all about priorities. Liberals don't measure the merits and success of code enforcement by how many ravers are burned to death but rather by the compliance rate for the more stringent California ADA residential thresholds.¹



I'm sure this will come up in the civil action against the city, the time and resources expended enforcing ridiculous code requirements while allowing serious conditions to persist. 


¹ http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/...-peer-forums/trade-talk/1066712-schutzstaffel


----------



## conarb

I think the question here is whether self inspection is a viable option in areas that firemen and inspectors don't dare go?


----------



## steveray

conarb said:


> I think the question here is whether self inspection is a viable option in areas that firemen and inspectors don't dare go?



NO!....I don't even trust most special inspectors to do what I can't and they are supposed to.

If I won't go there, it would be very easy to declare unsafe and post it as such.


----------



## conarb

Maybe these areas should send cops, inspectors, and fire marshals as teams on sweeps red tagging unsafe buildings? I posted this on the JLC and one guy responded:



			
				JLC said:
			
		

> Beezo, its all about priorities. Liberals don't measure the merits and success of code enforcement by how many ravers are burned to death but rather by the compliance rate for the more stringent California ADA residential thresholds.¹



I guarantee that in the civil cases against the city the subject of misplaced priorities will come up. 


¹ http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/...-peer-forums/trade-talk/1066712-schutzstaffel


----------



## steveray

If I am concerned, I will take fire and/or PD with me, but the legal argument will be whether or not they had a ministerial duty to perform an inspection and didn't. That will be the decider of negligence...If it is a required inspection based on a valid complaint and it was ignored they are in deep. It doesn't matter how much else you have to do or would rather do.


----------



## CityKin

conarb said:


> Maybe these areas should send cops, inspectors, and fire marshals as teams on sweeps red tagging unsafe buildings?



We bring the police whenever we think the situation may be dangerous, and we bring the fire department if there is an issue such as nightclub over-crowding in which they may want to order everyone out immediately.  If we see unsafe construction without a permit, we post it with a big sticker saying "Not Approved For Occupancy - This Seal Is Not To Be Removed Except By Consent of the Director or Buildings and Inspections" and inform the police to enforce.


----------



## conarb

In the paper today the City of Oakland has done something, they have gone to the root of the problem, the Omni Commons, the heart of the Communist, Socialist, Anti-capitalist, activist community in the East Bay.  I've mentioned this before since the remnants of the Occupy movement bought the building and were grouping various activist groups there and were requesting that the city waive structural, fire, sprinkler, and disability requirements, interestingly enough this article makes no mention of the status of those waivers, but they are shutting them down on a legal technicality, Tiger supposedly took a 36 day vacation, you don't suppose Oakland hired the tiger to clean up there mess? .



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Oakland’s top building official last week sent city employees to shut down the Omni Commons, home to a collection of artists, hackers, educators and activists — but not for any concerns over safety or the illegal conversion of a warehouse into housing.
> 
> Rather, the alleged violation hinged on two words written on an obscure insurance map dating to 1951, which Tim Low, a senior engineer and the city’s acting building official, used as evidence the structure had, at some point, undergone a change of use, which automatically necessitates the building come up to modern fire and building codes.
> 
> The space is saved for now, but *Omni founding member David Keenan said the experience calls into question public statements from Mayor Libby Schaaf that city officials would not be conducting a “witch hunt” and would be using “compassion” in their handling of fire and code enforcement complaints. Those types of complaints spiked in the two weeks after the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood earlier this month.
> 
> Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan called the city’s treatment of the Omni “outrageous” and “Trumpian.”
> *
> “Why is the administration directing senior level staff to go digging through old maps to find a technical detail that has nothing to do with life safety?” Kaplan said. “What we need to fix are the actual fire dangers.”
> 
> Because the space has operated for several years as a public venue, Keenan said he had to familiarize himself with city and state regulations long ago. And because the space is collectively run, he keeps meticulous records of past inspections and reports.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Oakland fire inspector Terrence Spencer found no violations at the Omni Commons on Dec. 16.
> So, last Wednesday, when a city employee told him fire officials were on their way to shut the Omni down, Keenan was shocked. Only five days earlier, on Dec. 16, building and fire officials walked through the building and found no violations. They had been following up on a complaint filed Dec. 8 with the city’s building department that the space was illegally being used as a residence. Aubrey Rose, a city planner who handles special events permits, said he notified Keenan of the outstanding complaint after Omni filed for a special event permit to host a memorial for three victims of the Ghost Ship fire.
> 
> Following the Dec. 16 inspection, fire inspector Terrence Spencer wrote in his report, “no sign of residential use,” and marked that line with an asterisk. At the bottom, Spencer wrote, “no violations noted/proper use in place.”
> 
> Erica Terry Derryck, a spokeswoman Schaaf, said city officials were acting out of “an abundance of caution.”
> 
> “(The) visit on (the) 16th raised some issues that inspectors wanted to go back to look at, given that this is an assembly space and will likely be used for future gatherings,” Derryck said.
> 
> Despite multiple requests for comment, city officials have yet to identify what issues remained that allowed building and fire officials to clear the site of any violations but necessitated the building’s closure.
> 
> Emails exchanged between Low and Keenan, which were obtained by the Bay Area News Group, reveal the near shut-down on Dec. 21 relied on two words, “heat – stove,” that appeared below the bold-face “Ligure Club” label of the building on a Sanborn insurance company map from 1951. Low claimed the words indicated the space was being used as a store to sell stoves, rather than as an Italian social club, despite multiple public documents indicating otherwise.
> 
> “There’s no way Tim Low can tell me with a straight face he misread the simplest of city maps,” Keenan said. “And the impact is huge. It’s not like getting a traffic ticket; it’s the closure of our space.”¹



Note the bold by me, can you imagine a Mark Handler handling a disability complaint that "would not be conducting a “witch hunt” and would be using “compassion” in (his) handling of (Disability) complaints"?

JFYI here are several pictures of Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan: I have no idea what "it" is.





¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...ands-heavy-handed-approach-for-artist-spaces/


----------



## Pcinspector1

I think tiger was finishing up that "Thomas Kincade" puzzle while on a home va ca!

Oakland's out of his jurisdiction I bet!


----------



## steveray

Conarb....I am sure Mark can use compassion just like I do, I tell them: "I'm sorry you suck and don't know the laws or your job. Maybe you should hire someone who knows what they are doing!"

First I sympathize and then offer a solution. How much better can you get?


----------



## cda

steveray said:


> Conarb....I am sure Mark can use compassion just like I do, I tell them: "I'm sorry you suck and don't know the laws or your job. Maybe you should hire someone who knows what they are doing!"
> 
> First I sympathize and then offer a solution. How much better can you get?




Theme park logic


----------



## conarb

Pcinspector1 said:


> I think tiger was finishing up that "Thomas Kincade" puzzle while on a home va ca!
> 
> Oakland's out of his jurisdiction I bet!


Yeah but Oakland could have borrowed Tiger, who better if you wanted to conduct a "witch-hunt"? In other news I think he's been moonlighting for the State Department of Alcoholic Beverages, who else could you get to arrest people for driving under the influence fo coffee? 



			
				Guardian said:
			
		

> Almost 18 months later, Schwab is preparing to go to trial. The only evidence the DA has provided of his intoxication is a blood test showing the presence of caffeine.
> 
> Shcwab was driving home from work when he was pulled over by an agent from the California department of alcoholic beverage control, who was driving an unmarked vehicle. The agent said Schwab had cut her off and was driving erratically.
> 
> The 36-year-old union glazier was given a breathalyzer test which showed a 0.00% blood alcohol level, his attorney said. He was booked into county jail and had his blood drawn, but the resulting toxicology report came back negative for benzodiazepines, cocaine, opiates, THC, carisoprodol (a muscle relaxant), methamphetamine/MDMA, oxycodone, and zolpidem.
> 
> The sample was screened a second time by a laboratory in Pennsylvania, according to documents provided to the Guardian, where the sole positive result was for caffeine – a substance likely coursing through the veins of many drivers on the road at any given time.¹



I know, you are going to say we have gone crazy here, look at the way we enforce disability laws, and we did vote overwhelmingly for Hillary, despite the fact that the Podesta emails show that she smells like a *combination of boiled cabbage, urine, and farts. *


¹ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/24/california-dui-caffeine-lawsuit-solano-county


----------



## Pcinspector1

steveray said:


> Conarb....I am sure Mark can use compassion just like I do, I tell them: "I'm sorry you suck and don't know the laws or your job. Maybe you should hire someone who knows what they are doing!"
> 
> First I sympathize and then offer a solution. How much better can you get?


----------



## Pcinspector1

steveray, have you been watching those Dale Carnegie video's again?


----------



## steveray

Pcinspector1 said:


> steveray, have you been watching those Dale Carnegie video's again?



Carlin at Carnegie....


----------



## cda

31 fire inspectors WOW!!  I know San Diego is big, but I see they put some importance in prevention::





In the wake of a deadly fire at an Oakland warehouse, authorities in San Diego are cracking down on two art venues in Barrio Logan for fire code violations.

San Diego Fire Marshal Doug Perry said the Dec. 2 blaze that killed 36 people served as a wake-up call to officials in San Diego.


“It did heighten our awareness and made us maybe a little more critical or suspicious,” Perry said. “But a lot of these places are inspected annually and have no issues.”

There are, however, problems at two buildings.
Inspections of Barrio Logan’s La Bodega and The Glashaus uncovered a lack of safety features considering the large public events the venues host, Perry said. Inspectors have prohibited large events at the venues until the violations are addressed.

At La Bodega, fire alarm and sprinkler systems are absent, and the building needs one more emergency exit, Perry said. San Diego fire marshal and city code inspectors are finalizing a list of violations that will be given to the owner.

La Bodega, which opened its doors in 2011, was inspected after the fire department received an anonymous tip shortly after the Oakland fire, Perry said.

Before that, the gallery, which includes 10 art studios, hadn’t been on inspectors’ radar because they typically check up on buildings with fire alarm and sprinkler systems — features that were not required before the Logan Avenue spot became an art gallery.


“Little by little we were doing what we thought was right, or what we thought was safe," said Sony Lopez Chavez, assistant manager of La Bodega. “We never really knew the extent of what codes were or what the city demanded."

Lopez Chavez said La Bodega is committed to being in compliance.

“We do understand and do agree that safety is a priority for any venue that is hosting art shows — or any event,” she said.

The Glashaus, which was inspected before the Oakland fire, has been making needed changes, such as adding exit signs and improving emergency exits. Inspectors   more recently have pressured to the venue to meet code requirements, Perry said.


The art galley includes 15 studios, according to its website. The venue did not respond to a request for an interview.


Unlike Oakland’s Ghost Ship warehouse, neither of the two San Diego art venues serve as live-work spaces, which is commonplace for artists and musicians who disregard danger for cheaper rent in desirable cities.


The conditions in La Bodega and The Glashaus are “nothing like Ghost Ship,” Perry acknowledged.


The Oakland warehouse was a clear fire hazard, according to those who frequented the spot. City officials have said inspectors had not been in the structure for the past three decades even though complaints had been made for years.


Perry said San Diego is better suited than Oakland to enforce safety regulations. There are 31 fire marshal inspectors here compared to Oakland’s two full-time inspectors.


Typically, when inspectors show up at the door of a business, most owners or managers are amendable. In the five years as a fire marshal, Perry can recall only one instance in which inspectors had to obtain a warrant. 


The tip about La Bodega was the only one officials have received since the Oakland blaze, Perry said. While most places seem to be up to code, the fire marshal said he “re-committed” himself to cracking down on unsafe structures and investigating complaints from the community.


“We do not want to repeat what happened up in Oakland," Perry said. “We would much rather take 15 minutes to half hour to get in our vehicle and go look at (a building) than to have something happen like it did in Oakland.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-venues-crackdown-20161226-story.html


----------



## mark handler

cda said:


> 31 fire inspectors WOW!!  I know San Diego is big,




San Diego City         372.4 mi²
San Diego County   4,526 mi

He is with the City  372.4 mi², 1.356 million (2013) Official population


----------



## cda

Ex


mark handler said:


> San Diego City         372.4 mi²
> San Diego County   4,526 mi
> 
> He is with the City  372.4 mi², 1.356 million (2013) Official population





Ex surburan san diegoian

Still about one inspector per 12 sq miles

And minus the freeway and non build able area, kind of reduced it.

Still a better staff than normal


I worked in a city 450 sq miles and we had 10-12 inspectors
A little less population and not as many high rises


----------



## conarb

The local paper's editorial yesterday was about corruption in the fire department, will the building department be next?


			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> She (the mayor) refused to answer our reporters’ questions about the botched hillside inspections. And her comments to The New York Times about the warehouse fire indicate she simply doesn’t get it.
> 
> “We’ve been doing what we always did, and up to this point it worked,” she said. “But now we’ve discovered that maybe what we’ve been doing is not working.”
> 
> Apparently, she’s just discovered what the grand jury, the city auditor and hills residents have been saying for years. The department is broken. Its job is not just to put out fires but to prevent them. At that it has utterly failed.¹



With their mandate to hire minorities, women, and the disabled it's difficult to run a department. 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...-exposes-oakland-fire-department-dysfunction/


----------



## linnrg

Self Inspection by building Owners and Tenants should be encouraged and my opinion they should be required on some frequency.  My opinion also extends to the fact that they should understand basic building code concepts such as so many people so many doors, or when they would be required to add fire sprinklers, alarms etc.  For building departments or fire departments to enter the property and immediately condemn/close down/shutter/evict etc. ain't no way as easily done as maybe some of the press makes it out to be or the public outcry seems to expect.

There are lots of communities that do not have a fire department staffed to be able to "provide" annual fire inspection "services".  If they do, at best a fire department might get to a percentage of the structures/occupancy's but in no way should be held to beas  "the only credible" resource to contain the problems of these types of facilities being so dangerous.  And if that fire inspector did not crawl into every nook and cranny or destruct a portion of the building each time are we going to lay the blame down on them when there is a structural collapse?

Lots of owners grumble about costs of fire sprinklers and fire alarm recurring re-certifications.  Well those are just two things that do get some attention.
But owners of buildings that have obstructed exits, lack of egress components, or a dangerous/hazardous occupancy should get into the game about how to maintain their facility, and how to upgrade the facility to additional requirements. AND they should know how and when to properly get permits and inspections that hold them to installing the requirements.  If they do there is a better chance to minimize losses.  The correct thing to do is to NOT expect the public entities to be there for them at every turn.  The owners should be liable.

There are many communities that offer help to landlords/owners/tenants etc. in the form of courtesy inspections.

Just as a car owner needs to maintain their car so does a building owner need to know about their building.

Rant over


----------



## cda

One alternative papers perspective :::


http://www.dallasobserver.com/music...n-attitude-toward-dallas-fire-marshal-9013629


----------



## conarb

CDA's Dallas Observer link said:
			
		

> *“Before I was like, the fire marshal needs to **** off and leave our spaces alone …* obviously I feel very differently about it now.”
> 
> No stranger to the underground music and art scene in North Texas, she advises that the communities not stop operating in the wake of the tragedy but rather learn from it. Part of that is holding each other accountable as questions have been raised recently whether there was criminal negligence on the part of the “master tenant” of the Ghost Ship warehouse, Derick Ion Almena, and other tenants who allegedly knew of safety hazards and electrical malfunctions.
> 
> “Spaces need to stay under the radar and keep it word of mouth, but make sure they're in line with the fire code for safety reasons. We need to hold each other accountable, keep each other safe and try to keep each other legal when possible,” says Ashlyn. “The only thing worse than being shut down by the fire marshal is having a building burn down and losing lives.”



These are counterculture people, they aren't going to symphonies or Beethoven string quartets, the Omni that is proposing the self-inspection/repair is a communist collective, in a true Marxist society the government "withers away" and they govern themselves, they are intent on destroying our system and deliberately are out to violate all kinds of laws, the reason these events "pop-up" is they don't want to get caught being involved in illegal activity, now they are starting to see the advantages of complying with fire codes, but they are still rejecting drug law compliance, they are going to have to start obeying all laws, like them or not, what I can see coming are demands for their "safe spaces" where they are free to violate the laws of their choices, and seeking (demanding?) inspection without notification to the authorities of other legal violations.

I just read an article yesterday about the early deaths of rock musicians, it's not jsut fire that kills and maims these lower-class people:


----------



## cda

Sanctuary art buildings ???

Hum interesting concept free of any enforcement or enforcement people.


----------



## cda

conarb said:


> These are counterculture people, they aren't going to symphonies or Beethoven string quartets, the Omni that is proposing the self-inspection/repair is a communist collective, in a true Marxist society the government "withers away" and they govern themselves, they are intent on destroying our system and deliberately are out to violate all kinds of laws, the reason these events "pop-up" is they don't want to get caught being involved in illegal activity, now they are starting to see the advantages of complying with fire codes, but they are still rejecting drug law compliance, they are going to have to start obeying all laws, like them or not, what I can see coming are demands for their "safe spaces" where they are free to violate the laws of their choices, and seeking (demanding?) inspection without notification to the authorities of other legal violations.
> 
> I just read an article yesterday about the early deaths of rock musicians, it's not jsut fire that kills and maims these lower-class people:






There is hope for California:::

http://www.usnews.com/news/politics...res-eric-holder-to-fight-trump-administration


----------



## conarb

Holder should be disbarred, as a reminder *Holder made history back in 2012 when he became the first Attorney General ever to be held in contempt of Congress over his failure to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal which involved selling guns to Mexican drug cartels.*  The scandal erupted on the national stage when one of those guns was confirmed to have been used to kill a U.S. border control agent, Brian Terry.

Meanwhile, the retention of Holder follows Jerry Brown's appointment of Representative Xavier Becerra to replace Kamala Harris as California's attorney general.  Becerra is expected to vehemently fight the Trump administration on any efforts to enforce immigration laws.

The move by Mr. de León and his Democratic counterpart in the Assembly, Anthony Rendon, *follows Gov. Jerry Brown’s appointment of Representative Xavier Becerra as attorney general last month*, to succeed Kamala D. Harris, who was elected to the United States Senate.

That appointment made Mr. Becerra one of the highest-ranking Latino officials in this state, and *he is expected to be instrumental in battling with the Trump White House over any attempt to enforce stringent measures aimed at immigrants.* Mr. Brown has made clear that he intends to challenge the administration on global warming and that his attorney general will be a key to that battle.

If the state is going to thumb it's nose at federal law why should any of us obey state law?  The state is broke with cities unable to pay their health and pension obligations, it's green industries all run on federal grant monies, all Trump has to do it cut off all federal funds including Pell grants to it's students and Brown will be forced to come begging on his knees.

Just Friday an appellate court has ruled that state employees do not have a vested right to a huge pension.


			
				Zero Hedge said:
			
		

> “While a public employee does have a ’vested right’ to a pension, that right is only to a ’reasonable’ pension-- not an immutable entitlement to the most optimal formula of calculating the pension.”¹



Maybe we'll be seeing school teachers rioting in the streets?

¹ http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...a-court-rules-pension-benefits-can-be-reduced


----------



## fatboy

Let's dial this back into the OP of this thread, building collapses, we have ventured far off course. 

Start a new thread, this one is worth keeping open, if it stays topic centered. 

JMHO


----------



## conarb

fatboy said:


> Let's dial this back into the OP of this thread, building collapses, we have ventured far off course.
> 
> Start a new thread, this one is worth keeping open, if it stays topic centered.
> 
> JMHO



Why Fatboy, this is at base a socioeconomic problem?  Oakland, like many cities in the nation, has blighted areas as well as people who can't afford market rate housing and work spaces, included in those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder are people afflicted with drug and other mental problems, with those people it's either live in makeshift housing or go to the streets, and the streets around them are already filled with homeless people pushing shopping carts, as a matter of fact the daily reports we get about the fire are not about safety at all, but rather about losing their living spaces, in a forum yesterday the concern wasn't protection from fire but protection from being evicted since slum landlords are already evicting them for fear of liability and now they fear inspectors evicting them. 



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> Oakland saw a wave of evictions at commercial and industrial spaces after a fire last month inside a Fruitvale warehouse killed 36 people. And the forum, which Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan hosted, served to place the recent tragedy in the context of the Bay Area’s larger housing affordability crisis.
> 
> “Fire doesn’t wait. And right now, this housing crisis is a fire that is ripping through our city and it’s not going to wait,” Brito said. “Work as fast as you can and do as much as you can.”
> 
> The proposed ordinance would place an emergency moratorium on evictions of tenants in properties that are not zoned for residential use, provide a 14-day advanced notice of any city inspections for violations not considered life-threatening, provide amnesty for past permitting violations at live/work spaces, apply the city’s Just Cause for Eviction ordinance to commercial properties being used as residences and strengthen other tenant protections.¹



Codes being what they are the costs to bring these drug houses up to code would be so high that it would be cheaper to tear them down, if the landlords did bring the buildings up to code nobody could afford to live and work there, yet the neighborhoods are too unsafe for people who could afford to live there to actually rent there.  As a matter of fact rents are so high in San Francisco and the Peninsula that major tech companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook are running daily commute buses into other areas of Oakland, the current residents are screaming bloody murder about gentrification displacing them so they can't afford to live in Oakland anymore.  

Send code enforcement around and red tag most buildings in town and see what happens.  I don't know the answer, we can't have two codes, one for wealthy people and another for poor people who can't afford to live in code-compliant buildings, but that is the question that should be addressed.  Codes are responsible for a lot of this, "Do-Gooders" go to code hearings proposing and passing all kinds of life safety codes, and now social engineering codes, we've reached the point that only the rich can live in code-compliant  buildings. 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/01...discuss-evictions-in-wake-of-ghost-ship-fire/


----------



## fatboy

conarb said:


> Why Fatboy, this is at base a socioeconomic problem?



Because I for one,and at least one other person that filed a report, don't want to go down this philosophical path with you. This thread topic started about building collapse issues, not "sociaeconimic problems". I continue to come back to this thread, thinking that it maybe is about a building collapse issue, and find a continuation of this off topic nonsense.

Start another thread of your own.


----------



## conarb

Fatboy:

First of all it wasn't a building collapse, it was a fire and what structure collapsed was secondary to the fire.  The point is, what can be done about it and that's what Oakland is facing now, all the people demanding hearings are not demanding something be done about the fire, they are demanding protection from eviction, even protection from building inspectors: *"...provide a 14-day advanced notice of any city inspections for violations not considered life-threatening, provide amnesty for past permitting violations at live/work spaces, apply the city’s Just Cause for Eviction ordinance to commercial properties being used as residences and strengthen other tenant protections".*

As a matter of fact I received a call from my son who lives and works in the adjacent City of Berkeley, if you recall I posted a picture of the soft-story building he works in that the city came in and forced a $60,000 seismic upgrade, he said friends had asked him if his father knew if they could bar building inspectors from entering their live/work lofts as a result of the Oakland fire?  That's how much interest there is here in keeping inspectors out, JFYI I told him something to the effect: "Maybe, maybe not, if there is a public area they can come in and cite anything they see, they can't go into private areas unless they are invited; however, it would be routine if they are denied entry to notify their City Attorney and any attorney can go into any courthouse, look for an empty courtroom, approach the court's clerk and ask the clerk to have the judge sign a court order allowing them to enter for health and safety reasons, so they might just as well let them in and cooperate.".


----------



## tmurray

The media always jump on "over zealous" FPOs that are doing their job and in this case, when they aren't, they jump all over them again. I understand that this is just what gets readership/viewership, but it shows a serious lack of intergrity.


----------



## cda

Conarb, hope you have a place to stay,,,



''''''
In October 2015 and again last September, residents complained that the heat didn’t work in their units. Code enforcement staff did not follow up to ensure the heat was fixed or check the heat in other units.'''''''''''


By Andrea Castillo

acastillo@fresnobee.com

Fresno officials red-tagged a central Fresno motel Thursday after deeming it a fire hazard, effectively shutting it down.

City Manager Bruce Rudd said bad wiring has made Hotel California, near Roeding Park at 530 N. Weber Ave., unsafe. The hotel owner must relocate residents by Monday. Otherwise, the city will work with local agencies to find them new shelter and charge the owner for any costs.


It is the latest problem for the hotel’s residents, many of whom have lived without working heat for more than a year.
Kumar Sharma of Los Angeles County and his wife have owned the 49-unit complex since September 2015. A local housing advocate alerted city leaders last month about the lack of heat and other substandard conditions there.

Sharma, who lives most of the time on the property, complied with the city’s demands for heat. Rudd said that as of Wednesday, all but six units have working heaters. But when a building inspector visited the property that day to ensure the work was being done correctly, he noticed the units had the wrong subpanels (breaker boxes), which were installed without a permit before Sharma bought the building.

Rudd said these subpanels don’t provide protection against electricity overloads. Breaker boxes that work correctly shut off power if too much electricity is being used because, for example, someone is blow-drying their hair while watching TV with the lights on and running the heater and refrigerator.


“The panels that were installed don’t have that, so you could literally pull 100 amps (of electricity) through that panel,” he said. “And when you start pulling that kind of amperage, there is the possibility of a fire occurring within the walls.”

Sharma also had to hire a security guard to keep constant watch on the motel in case a fire breaks out. He was directed to unplug all appliances he allowed, including refrigerators, hot plates and air conditioning units.

Paul Salazar, who has lived at the motel for a year and a half, complained about having to unplug his refrigerator, which is stocked with $150 in groceries, now even though he doesn’t have to move out until Monday. “I feel like I’m being burned,” he said.

Sharma said he will ask the previous owner if she can complete the repairs. He said he isn’t sure how much it might cost to repair but estimated around $30,000.


“This is not my mistake,” he said. “I am not doing anything illegal.”
Elaine Robles-McGraw, the city’s community revitalization manager until 2015, said she told city officials a month ago to inspect the building’s electrical and plumbing systems. And residents told code inspectors the system short-circuits when they have too many appliances on at once. But Rudd said building inspectors have different expertise than code enforcement inspectors.

Rudd has a list of 10 other motels, many along Blackstone Avenue or North Parkway Drive, that likely have health and safety violations. He said he doubts Sharma will operate Hotel California strictly as a motel in the future.

“He may be willing to address code issues, but he would need to address the underlying issue that it’s not actually operating as a motel,” he said. “We have to come up with a long-term strategy to address this and all the other substandard housing challenges.”

Sharma said he won’t convert the motel into an apartment complex. Instead, he’ll allow people to stay for no longer than 28 days. On Thursday, one woman said she was recently told to stay at another motel for one night after 28 days at Hotel California. She said Sharma allowed her to come back the next day.

The Hotel California situation is the latest problem with low-income housing stock to come to light in Fresno. The Bee’s series “Living in Misery” showed how many renters live in unsafe housing in the city.
*Moving forward *
Rudd and other city officials met with low-income housing advocates Wednesday and Thursday, including the Housing Authority, Live Again Fresno, Faith in Community, WestCare Foundation and Fresno Madera Continuum of Care. The city needs help coordinating relocation of the motel residents.

This isn’t the first time motel residents in Fresno have had to be relocated. In 2014, the city shelled out almost $30,000 to temporarily relocate tenants of the condemned Fresno Inn after owners failed to provide the money. And in 2009, city officials condemned the Storyland Inn. Some tenants were relocated to Hotel California, then called the Sahara Motel.

Rudd said the city won’t do what has been done in the past – move long-term residents from one motel to another. Instead, the city is reaching out to landlords willing to waive deposits and get the residents what they truly need: permanent housing.

“Doing what we’ve done in the past doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “We’re just contributing to the problem.”

City officials don’t have much time to make that happen. Thursday morning, code enforcement officials taped red-and-white signs to each door that read, “Cease occupancy by 9 a.m. on Monday 1-9-17.”
Nearly 20 residents also met with attorneys for Central California Legal Services, who explained their rights as tenants. Attorney Marcos Segura said they are owed one month’s rent plus enough money for a down payment on utilities and a security deposit.

The residents said Sharma had offered to refund that month’s rent if they move out. Segura advised against it.

“If you take that money, whatever he’s trying to give you, he might have an argument saying, ‘Well, I gave them their money back and that’s the relocation they accepted, so I don’t owe them the other amount.’ ”
The Hotel California has had a history of trouble, including drug dealing and two murders since 1990. Records for 26 cases illustrate the motel’s code-enforcement history as far back as 1996. The same issues come up again and again: inoperable heat, water leaks, vermin including bed bugs, and electricity and water services shut off because the owner didn’t pay the bills. In 2005, the city sued the owners because the motel was the site of frequent crimes, such as prostitution and drug violations, and because conditions were substandard.

In October 2015 and again last September, residents complained that the heat didn’t work in their units. Code enforcement staff did not follow up to ensure the heat was fixed or check the heat in other units.

Motel residents say they’d live elsewhere if they could. Some have disabilities.Some have children.Some have lived there for months or several years. Many say they arrived at the motel seeking temporary shelter until they could find an apartment, but fixed incomes, bad credit or a history of evictions keep them from finding better housing.

Andrea Castillo: 559-441-6279, @andreamcastillo

http://www.fresnobee.com/news/special-reports/housing-blight/article124733654.html


----------



## CityKin

Maybe the problem is California law.  Our fire department enters *every* single commercial building in the city *every* year.  True, they do not enter residences, but every warehouse, retail store, office, hospital, school, factory, artist studios, whatever...  Rarely does anyone refuse, and if they do, they can get a warrant.  Sometimes a place appears vacant and locked, and then it is put on a watch list and the police and the building dept keep an eye on it from the outside.  

It does seem that the price of living space in the bay area is a driving force.  Here in the midwest, there are tons of cheap houses and that is not really a problem.  

It also seems that prioritizing Fire Dept budget to have inspectors is an issue.


----------



## conarb

I think you guys are misinterpreting me, I suppose it's my confrontational legal writing style, but I'm on your side on this. 

I'm familiar with the area and read the local paper, today for the first time in days there were no articles about the Ghost Ship, it's fire or it's dislocated people. The only thing close was an article about a landlord's group filing suit in Richmond, a few miles north, challenging a rent control ordinance that passed November 8th, one of their contentions is that landlords have to bear the costs of code mandated upgrades.
None of the articles lately have been about the cause fo the fire, I guess it's been determined that it was electrical since the building had no electric meter but was served by a small extension cord run from an adjoining property, all of the articles have been about the fear of 1) landlords evicting them out of fear of liability (already happening) and 2) inspectors condemning their buildings.  Oakland's, and surrounding city's, major concerns these days is affordable housing.
We have a problem, bring the buildings up to code and you will increase the rents displacing people, don't bring the buildings up to code and disasters like this can and will happen. There are problems with a compromise approach, what if the city decides to enforce fire codes only?  That may not even be legal to send inspectors in and ignore other code violations, and from a liability standpoint what if an inspector forces a fire code upgrade and then there is a major earthquake causing a structural collapse?  If the building is brought up to fire and seismic requirements and a disabled guy rolls in and sues the city for not making handicap  upgrades? Surly some of those rock music are environmentalists, what if they sue the city for not enforcing the Green Code?  What if somebody spots asbestos on the pipes, or suspects lead in the paint?  

The problem appears irresolvable to me, do nothing and potentially let people die, or force code compliance and the city becomes a Detroit with many square miles of abandoned buildings and people sleeping on the streets. The city sees it's number one priority as affordable housing.


----------



## CityKin

Once a building is built and has a certificate of occupancy the building department is done.  It should only be the Fire Department doing the annual saftey inspections and they should be looking only to enforce the Fire Code.  

True, if they see work obviously done without permit, or a change of use, then all bets are off and the Building Official must decide if he will vacate the structure or issue orders etc.  

A change of use triggers full upgrade, there is no way around it.


----------



## conarb

CityKin said:


> Once a building is built and has a certificate of occupancy the building department is done.  It should only be the Fire Department doing the annual saftey inspections and they should be looking only to enforce the Fire Code.
> 
> True, if they see work obviously done without permit, or a change of use, then all bets are off and the Building Official must decide if he will vacate the structure or issue orders etc.
> 
> A change of use triggers full upgrade, there is no way around it.


There is a firehouse less than a block away, they couldn't miss the coming and goings all hours of the days and nights, plus they had numerous complaints of junk and garbage piling up in an adjacent vacant lot. I don't blame them for locking themselves in the firehouse, there are sounds of shooting going on around there at all hours, the cops won't roll their windows down or get out fo their cars there.  Also it's noticeable that there was no toxic foam burning like most rock music venues (think Station House in Rhode Island), the noise of that electronic music blaring with no sound insulation  would wake the dead.

There is a small community named Canyon on the back (east) side of the Oakland Hills, Canyon was populated by Hippies in the 60s and many are still there in shacks, I called for a final on a home in Moraga which is the last "civilized" community on the road to Canyon, the inspector was a pretty gal with short pants on that day, after walking the house with me she said: "Tell you what Dick, I'll sign you off but you have to accompany me to my next stop to red tag a house in Canyon", I said:  "You don't want me, you want a cop with a gun, those Hippies are growing pot and have guns."  She  said: "No they won't give me a cop," I said: "Okay get in my truck and when we get there run up and tape your red tag on the shack and get right back into my truck and I'll get you out of there."   Dealing with druggies is very dangerous, I wouldn't send Tiger to inspect the Ghost Ship.


----------



## Pcinspector1

Wow, after reading that tale, cda was right diffidently "Nick Nolte" would be cast to play conarb


----------



## sergoodo

Reminds me of a story except there were no victims.  The Three Little Pigs choices determined the fate of their housing choices.


----------



## cda

sergoodo said:


> Reminds me of a story except there were no victims.  The Three Little Pigs choices determined the fate of their housing choices.



They did not have seismic or hurricane standards back then


----------



## conarb

sergoodo said:


> Reminds me of a story except there were no victims.  The Three Little Pigs choices determined the fate of their housing choices.


Well I can't say that I disagree, those who make bad lifestyle choices deserve their fate.  This all comes from the Hippie saying: "Turn on, tune in, drop out." (Take drugs, listen to rock music, don't work).  If that's the case why do we make special provisions for disabled people who eat themselves into obesity, or for that matter dumb people who choose to build a poor quality house, or fall for the solar panel scam?  

The problem is if the city goes around condemning all these substandard buildings the owners will just abandon them, nobody is going to pay the price of legalizing them, the occupants will live on the streets or squat in the buildings, and the city will end up like Detroit with acres of dilapidated buildings.


----------



## tmurray

conarb said:


> The problem is if the city goes around condemning all these substandard buildings the owners will just abandon them, nobody is going to pay the price of legalizing them, the occupants will live on the streets or squat in the buildings, and the city will end up like Detroit with acres of dilapidated buildings.



We do this and have the power to demolish if the owner does not mitigate the hazard to public safety. Typically, the land the building is sitting on is worth more than the building and the land together. Once the building has been demolished, we usually see people want to come develop the lot. The end result is code compliant buildings and a bigger tax base. There is a rigorous appeals process and the costs of the demolition get applied to the property tax. If the tax goes unpaid, it is simply sold at a property tax auction.


----------



## conarb

tmurray said:


> We do this and have the power to demolish if the owner does not mitigate the hazard to public safety. Typically, the land the building is sitting on is worth more than the building and the land together. Once the building has been demolished, we usually see people want to come develop the lot. The end result is code compliant buildings and a bigger tax base. There is a rigorous appeals process and the costs of the demolition get applied to the property tax. If the tax goes unpaid, it is simply sold at a property tax auction.


T Murray:

That's undoubtedly true for Canada and better neighborhoods here, but the reality is that in "bad" neighborhoods, like the Fruitvale District in Oakland, the land is still worthless after the building is demolished.  It's ironic that residents fight gentrification on the basis that it drives up values displacing the poor that live there, this is a huge issue for Oakland since tech companies like Google and Apple are running daily commute buses into Oakland, these lower level tech workers earn about $125,000 a year and are able to buy up older buildings and fix them up, even willing to move into a high crime area to own property,  the current minority population is fighting gentrification because they are no-longer able to afford to live there and there is nowhere else for them to go.


----------



## tmurray

conarb said:


> T Murray:
> 
> That's undoubtedly true for Canada and better neighborhoods here, but the reality is that in "bad" neighborhoods, like the Fruitvale District in Oakland, the land is still worthless after the building is demolished.  It's ironic that residents fight gentrification on the basis that it drives up values displacing the poor that live there, this is a huge issue for Oakland since tech companies like Google and Apple are running daily commute buses into Oakland, these lower level tech workers earn about $125,000 a year and are able to buy up older buildings and fix them up, even willing to move into a high crime area to own property,  the current minority population is fighting gentrification because they are no-longer able to afford to live there and there is nowhere else for them to go.



That's interesting. The only thing close to that is we saw a large out-migration of workers to Alberta for jobs in the oil and gas industry. This coupled with some major industry closure left some of our small communities in shambles. Some people were unable to find local employment and had to head out west to find jobs. They would leave their house unlocked and the keys on the kitchen counter for the mortgage company. This was most typical in Newfoundland with the collapse of the cod fishing industry.


----------



## Paul Sweet

T Muray said "We do this and have the power to demolish if the owner does not mitigate the hazard to public safety. "

Unfortunately, asbestos & lead-based paint have to be abated first, and that often costs more than the actual demolition.


----------



## conarb

Paul Sweet said:


> T Muray said "We do this and have the power to demolish if the owner does not mitigate the hazard to public safety. "
> 
> Unfortunately, asbestos & lead-based paint have to be abated first, and that often costs more than the actual demolition.


They're facing this with the United Nations headquarters in New York City now, since its' international they can't force them to abate the lead and asbestos, groups that want them out of this country tried to use that as an excuse but if they condemn the buildings they still have to go through the expensive abatement procedures.


----------



## Phil

Conarb,
What asbestos in the New York UN Headquarters? A $2 billion renovation project completed in 2015 included asbestos abatement. http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/united-nations-headquarters-renovation


----------



## conarb

Phil said:


> Conarb,
> What asbestos in the New York UN Headquarters? A $2 billion renovation project completed in 2015 included asbestos abatement. http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/united-nations-headquarters-renovation



Phil:

Thanks for that, I didn't realize that they had gone ahead and done it, several groups wanted to use asbestos and other problems to get the United Nations out of the Untied States, the most vocal were New Yorkers who were complaining that United Nations employees with diplomatic license plates were taking up all the parking places, shooting red lights, speeding etc. without ever paying fines, there were also anti-war groups that want them out because of their constant wars, and of course those who hate the Rockefellers and their push for one-world-government.


----------



## conarb

Oakland is proposing ways to improve safety while protecting building occupants from eviction and building inspectors. 



			
				Mercury News said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Mayor Libby Schaaf on Wednesday issued an executive order aimed at improving safety at unpermitted warehouses while ensuring residents living in the buildings are not displaced.
> 
> The mayor’s order addresses warehouse and industrial buildings illegally converted to living spaces, such as the Ghost Ship building where 36 people were killed in a fire in December.
> 
> “Buildings in Oakland should be safe places to live, work and play,” Schaaf said in a statement. “In the wake of the Ghost Ship tragedy, unpermitted living, assembly and work spaces are under heightened scrutiny.”
> 
> Under Schaaf’s order, property owners of buildings that are not zoned for residential use, but in which people are living, can enter into an abatement and compliance plan with the city within 60 days to correct building and code violations. One exception is buildings where hazards are considered life threatening.
> 
> Residents must receive a five-day warning before any building, housing or fire inspectors enter the premises, according to the order. It also calls for review of funding available to assist in legalizing buildings, and a review of the city’s Just Cause for Eviction Ordinance and Tenant Protection Ordinance to see if any amendments could be made to better protect residents from displacement.
> 
> Jonah Strauss of the Oakland Warehouse Coalition, which formed after the fire, called the mayor’s order “a good start.” The coalition has submitted its own ordinance to city leaders, calling for an eviction moratorium. Strauss, who lost his home in a warehouse fire in 2015, said community collaboration “is probably not going to happen until better tenant protections are codified.”
> 
> “I don’t pretend to speak for all warehouses, I just know how people function, and they’re not going to suddenly jump out of the woodwork to collaborate,” Strauss said. “Any effort to force them to do so will not be received well by the underground community.”¹



Notice that he calls these people the "underground community", do we really need to protect those in the "underground community" who have dropped out of life and don't want protection? 

¹ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/...der-to-protect-tenants-after-ghost-ship-fire/


----------



## tmurray

I would be okay with leaving people to their fate as long as they know what they are signing up for. That is not the case for a lot of these people. Doing that is kind of like saying the police shouldn't be enforcing speed limits on the road, I mean after all, the only people getting hurt are the ones foolish enough to drive over the speed limit! Except that's not the case. Speeding drivers regularly injure or kill others from their negligence and the same is true here. It may be fine for someone who flouts the building and fire requirements to suffer the consequences, but may times they endanger their family, friends, neighbours, and first responders. As officials, we have a responsibility to provide the public with a certain level of safety. It's not fair to assume members of the public will notice missing life safety elements of a building until they need them most.

Non-compliance can and should be dealt with through varying strategies depending on the offender. Most people just honestly don't know, so we can give them the information to do things right. Some people can't, or choose not to be able to afford to do things right, we can help those people access government programs or financial counseling. The rest are the people who just don't want to. These people sign themselves up for the hard knocks approach, and usually receive it.

Psychology tells us it's a lot easier to have a group make many small changes in lifestyle/behavior than one big change. This is likely just the first of many small changes.


----------



## mark handler

What we need to do is to hold the property owner and the business operator responsible for the deaths.
They need to take responsibility for their actions. They cannot deny knowledge since they knew they were doing wrong. Thats why they denied access to inspectors.


----------



## linnrg

I agree


----------



## conarb

tmurray said:


> Psychology tells us it's a lot easier to have a group make many small changes in lifestyle/behavior than one big change. This is likely just the first of many small changes.



T Murray:

You make a good point, and therein is the problem, codes are now political, they are driven by commercial and activist interests, note the current discussion about the fire sprinkler mandate and the recent election where George Soros supported Hillary to the tune of one billion dollars to implement his "Open Society", a world without borders and one world government, in Wikileaks she made a speech to a bank in Brazil in which she said her dream *was open borders in the hemisphere*. At that point you too will be getting the International Codes, even though your codes seem much more reasonable than the I Codes.

In the JLC board there is a discussion of a first step to a residence abutting a sloping sidewalk, this morning a very small remodeling contractor in St. Louis stated:



			
				JLC M Beezo said:
			
		

> Now as for "cost is not my problem". I work on mostly older homes, 80 plus years old. Lots of things don't conform to new codes. There is often a struggle between me, the homeowners and the inspectors as to how to solve issues. It seems like a lot of the codes are for new construction not how do you get something done in an old house with nice plaster walls or 3 wye brick walls. I have never really asked before but is there a code book or subset of the existing codes that say section 317.5 is for new homes and 317.6 is for old homes. Truthfully, I am not sure if and when I have actually seen a code book and read thru one.¹



Here is a small guy working near the epicenter of the New Madrid quake who has never seen a code book, but the inspectors apparently work with him, it appears that they have a more reasonable approach than we do.



			
				Mark Handler said:
			
		

> What we need to do is to hold the property owner and the business operator responsible for the deaths.
> They need to take responsibility for their actions. They cannot deny knowledge since they knew they were doing wrong. Thats why they denied access to inspectors.



We already do, it's called the civil law, relatives of the deceased have already lawyered up, the problem is do the culprits have any assets or insurance?  The owner is an elderly Chinese woman, the man who leased the building from her and sublet the spaces does not appear to have any assets, we will soon know.  For all we know the elderly woman may be a slum landlord with many properties, but the question remains as to whether any of them are worth anything in light of the current situation when old abandoned properties cannot be used without the investment of substantial sums of money that can never be recouped in rents. I guess it would be legal for a city to require liability insurance prior to renting a property, of course the amount of the insurance would have to be commensurate with the risk, and insurance companies may be reluctant to write such policies and if they did it would again drive up rents even further to cover the costs. 

The tenants in these buildings have no money, they refer to themselves as the "underground community", they cannot afford to pay the costs of living in code compliant buildings, if they are kicked out on the street Oakland becomes Detroit. 




¹ http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/...ng-science/1066882-step-onto-sloping-sidewalk


----------



## conarb

Today's front page article about the fire:



			
				Mercury News said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — In December 2015, after two years working for the Oakland Fire Department fire inspection bureau, Mark Grissom walked out for lunch and never went back.
> 
> Overwhelmed by the dysfunction and ineptitude of what the wildfire veteran called a “broken” inspection system, he’d had enough. For two fire seasons he complained about fabricated inspections to his boss, the mayor and the city administrator. He even drove the city auditor up to the Oakland hills for half a day to point out evidence that firefighters had fudged their reports, but little changed.
> 
> “People were there to collect a check. It seemed to me a lot of (inspectors) just didn’t get fire inspection,” he said. “The (bureau’s) culture was tremendously broken.”
> 
> Grissom admitted he was an “intense” inspector, unafraid to anger people if that’s what it took to make their property safe. A few complained, he said.
> 
> Grissom isn’t the only one making correlations between the Ghost Ship fire and a larger dysfunction in the department’s fire-inspection services. After the deadly warehouse fire, the North Hills Community Association wrote a letter to city leaders complaining about the quality of fire inspections of hills properties. It was almost identical to one they had written a year earlier.¹



An "intense inspector", sounds like our Tiger.  The truth of the incompetence of the Oakland Fire Department is that the city has long used it as a vehicle for minority employment, the color of the skin and the gender of the employees means more to them than the quality or the employees.  

The "North Hills Community Association" is a group formed after the Oakland Hills fire in 1991 that formed a special assessment district voting to pay more taxes for better fire protection, only to have those funds used to pay the absurd pensions of retired firemen.


¹ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/...two-years-complaining-about-fire-inspections/


----------



## tmurray

conarb said:


> Today's front page article about the fire:
> 
> 
> 
> An "intense inspector", sounds like our Tiger.  The truth of the incompetence of the Oakland Fire Department is that the city has long used it as a vehicle for minority employment, the color of the skin and the gender of the employees means more to them than the quality or the employees.
> 
> The "North Hills Community Association" is a group formed after the Oakland Hills fire in 1991 that formed a special assessment district voting to pay more taxes for better fire protection, only to have those funds used to pay the absurd pensions of retired firemen.
> 
> 
> ¹ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/...two-years-complaining-about-fire-inspections/



In Canada, I can be held accountable if I am negligent in my inspection. I the same true for the US? It's not super common up here right now, but it helps in that it's not just the municipality I represent that is held accountable for the job I do. It is usually reserved for cases where negligence was completely obvious, where the inspector has shown an obvious disregard for the safety o the public, not just honest mistakes.


----------



## cda

So are we at least killing less people, than in the past???

Is that a good "measuring stick"??????????






In 1876, fire claimed the lives of at least 278 civilians at the Brooklyn Theater in New York. In 1903, fire struck the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, killing at least 602 innocent civilians. In 1908, the Rhoads Opera House fire in Boyertown, PA, claimed 171 lives. In 1940, 209 civilians were tragically lost in the Rhythm Club fire in Natchez, MS. In 1942, fire tore through the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, killing 492. In 1978, 165 civilians were lost at the Beverly Hills Super Club in Southgate, KY. In 1990, 85 civilians were killed at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV. Also in 1990, an arsonist set fire to the Happy Land Social Club, killing 87 civilians in the Bronx, NY. In 2003, the Station Night Club claimed 100 lives in West Warwick, RI. And most recently, in December 2016, the Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland, CA, claimed the lives of 36 civilians.


----------



## Rick18071

tmurry Maybe it's different in Canada but around here the Property Maintenance Code or Fire Codes are not adopted so we have no power in doing anything about neglected buildings..


----------



## conarb

cda said:


> So are we at least killing less people, than in the past???
> 
> Is that a good "measuring stick"??????????
> 
> In 1876, fire claimed the lives of at least 278 civilians at the Brooklyn Theater in New York. In 1903, fire struck the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, killing at least 602 innocent civilians. In 1908, the Rhoads Opera House fire in Boyertown, PA, claimed 171 lives. In 1940, 209 civilians were tragically lost in the Rhythm Club fire in Natchez, MS. In 1942, fire tore through the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, killing 492. In 1978, 165 civilians were lost at the Beverly Hills Super Club in Southgate, KY. In 1990, 85 civilians were killed at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV. Also in 1990, an arsonist set fire to the Happy Land Social Club, killing 87 civilians in the Bronx, NY. In 2003, the Station Night Club claimed 100 lives in West Warwick, RI. And most recently, in December 2016, the Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland, CA, claimed the lives of 36 civilians.



Note the common denominator is that they are all some kind of rock music venues, what isn't said is that drugs invariably are used in these concerts, some of these rock music performances actually use fireworks indoors as part of their performance.  If you try to ban these types of performances you will just drive them further underground into perhaps more unsafe structures.  An exception to this is the 1908 Rhoads Opera House fire, it was a play being performed when a kerosene lamp was knocked over:



			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> The "Rhoads Opera House" was not a structure normally described as an opera house. It was a three story commercial brick building which contained a hardware store and bank on its first floor, an auditorium ( the "opera house" ) and offices on its second floor, and several meeting rooms and offices on its third floor. The auditorium was a rental facility made available for public and private events such as business meetings, lectures, school graduations and public entertainment events. The auditorium included a small stage located at the back end of the auditorium. It is doubtful that any opera was ever performed on this stage.¹



The Oakland mayor has issued an order protecting residents from eviction by mean old fire or building inspectors for 5 days after giving notice of entry, I don't think much can be done to clean up these venues in 5 days, but as I've said the main concern in Oakland is eviction and not safety.  Furthermore, Oakland does not want to change, it wants to maintain it's 'diversity'. 



			
				Mercury News said:
			
		

> “There didn’t use to be three-block long homeless encampments near downtown Oakland,” said María Poblet, executive director of local nonprofit Causa Justa/Just Cause. “If you talk to people who are living in tents, who are living on the streets, who are living on a friend’s couch, a lot of them were housed very recently. …The crisis is pushing people into the streets, literally.”
> 
> And Oakland’s residents of color are fleeing. Between 1990 and 2011, the percentage of African-Americans living in the city dropped from 43 to 26, according to a report by Causa Justa, compiled with data from the Alameda County Public Health Department.
> 
> The Airbnb controversies in both Oakland and San Francisco are taking place against a backdrop of broader tension between the growing tech industry and traditional communities. In San Francisco, activists have organized several protests over the years blocking the buses that shuttle tech workers between the city and the South Bay; the ubiquitous tech buses have become a symbol of the area’s income inequality. And a handful of San Francisco supervisors last year tried and failed to place a measure on the November ballot that would have imposed an extra tax on tech companies.
> 
> The Airbnb controversies in both Oakland and San Francisco are taking place against a backdrop of broader tension between the growing tech industry and traditional communities. In San Francisco, activists have organized several protests over the years blocking the buses that shuttle tech workers between the city and the South Bay; the ubiquitous tech buses have become a symbol of the area’s income inequality. And a handful of San Francisco supervisors last year tried and failed to place a measure on the November ballot that would have imposed an extra tax on tech companies.²




¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoads_Opera_House_fire
² http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/16/oakland-airbnb-issue-highlights-citys-gentrification-fears/


----------



## cda

Two forward thinking interesting ideas:::



1. . Under the proposal, companies that monitor residential buildings would have to notify the fire department immediately if they notice any communication failures.

http://wwlp.com/2017/01/17/holyoke-...e-ordinances-after-deadly-new-years-day-fire/


2. Additionally, City Councilor Gladys Lebron-Martinez is proposing a change that would require residential buildings to get inspected for health and other safety codes before being granted a permit.

http://wwlp.com/2017/01/17/holyoke-...e-ordinances-after-deadly-new-years-day-fire/


----------



## steveray

I watched sooo much of Holyoke burn as a kid.....


----------



## cda

steveray said:


> I watched sooo much of Holyoke burn as a kid.....



First I heard of this fire


----------



## CityKin

conarb said:


> Note the common denominator is that they are all some kind of rock music venues, what isn't said is that drugs invariably are used in these concerts, some of these rock music performances actually use fireworks indoors as part of their performance.  If you try to ban these types of performances you will just drive them further underground into perhaps more unsafe structures.  An exception to this is the 1908 Rhoads Opera House fire, it was a play being performed when a kerosene lamp was knocked over:


In the 1978 Beverly Hills Supper Club, John Davidson was singing that night.  Not rock and not drugs.  Cocktails yes.  I remember that night well.  A friend lost both of her parents in the fire.  I was 13 and babysitting while my parents were out; ...fortunately they were not at that club.


----------



## CityKin

*Ghost Ship fire mystery: What did fire officials know and when did they know it?*

One of the biggest mysteries to come out of the deadly Ghost Ship fire is why authorities didn’t do more to address safety and health concerns about a warehouse that some former residents described as a “death trap.”

Fire officials said they had no record of their inspectors or firefighters going inside the building in at least 12 years, and city building code inspectors had not for more than 30 years.

But there are growing indications that some fire officials knew of at least some of the Ghost Ship’s problems.

Walker Johnson, an Oakland artist, said* he saw firefighters inside the Ghost Ship on Sept. 27, 2014, during a concert*.

Johnson said he didn’t know why they were there but that it should have been clear the warehouse, where 36 people would die in a fire two years later, had serious safety issues.

“They couldn’t miss the danger of it all,” he said.

Johnson said he saw firefighters on the first floor but could not tell whether they went to the second floor during their visit.

The visit came as officials were hunting for an arsonist who had set several fires in the neighborhood, but it’s unclear whether it was connected to the search.

A spokeswoman for the city of Oakland said officials are looking into Johnson’s claims but could not confirm them at this time.

“We are still combing through records of service calls to the property from our various departments and will release those records as soon as we’re able,” she said.

One Fire Department source said firefighters did visit the building in the last two years but could not say whether any of the firefighters entered the structure. *Station 13 sits about 500 feet from the Ghost Ship warehouse*. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Oakland officials are under growing scrutiny over why the warehouse was able to operate as an illegal housing complex for artists without inspections or action from the city.

Last week, officials said building code enforcement inspectors had not been inside the warehouse in at least 30 years despite the fact that the property and the lot next door had been the focus of nearly two dozen building code complaints or other city actions.

Oakland fire officials said Tuesday that they had no complaints in their records about the warehouse and that fire officials had not been dispatched there in the last 12 years.

Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed said a review of city records showed that the Fire Department never had any triggers to inspect the property because it did not receive any complaints, calls for service or permit applications.

She said *a warehouse is an empty structure that would not ordinarily be subject to a Fire Department inspection*. “There were no indications this was an active business,” she said. 

But the city later acknowledged the owner of the warehouse had a business license for the location.

A spokeswoman for Oakland said owner Chor Ng obtained the license in 1995 to use the warehouse as rental property. Ng, who owns other properties in Oakland's Chinatown district, was up to date on city tax payments, said spokeswoman Karen Boyd.
Ng owned the warehouse through a trust and managed it and other properties through her daughter, Eva Ng. She has not returned calls and messages in recent weeks. Eva Ng told The Times the day after the Dec. 2 fire that her mother had no idea the warehouse was being used for housing.

Boyd said a business license alone would not trigger a fire inspection. An inspection would occur if an owner applied for an operating or occupancy permit, she said.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that there is some kind of disconnect between city officials and some residents over the warehouse’s problems. Several former tenants as well as neighbors have said they complained to various city agencies about filthy conditions as well as unsafe structural and electrical systems. It’s unclear why these complaints did not prompt more aggressive action.

At the time of the fire, Oakland building officials had an open investigation of the warehouse. They said an inspector attempted to examine the interior of the building but could not get in.

*Typically, if inspectors couldn’t get inside, they’d come back later with a warrant to gain access*, according to Oakland Councilwoman Desley Brooks. 

The Oakland Police Department had also entered the building, including one such visit documented in a 2015 police report.

Fire Lt. Dan Robertson, president of the union that represents Oakland firefighters, said he constantly trains new recruits to keep an eye out for conditions that would make it tough to fight a fire, like clutter in the doorway, heavy locks on gates and bars on windows.  

“I’ve been doing this for 27 years, and any structural firefighter that works for a big city that’s worth their paycheck profiles buildings all the time,” Robertson said. “We don’t necessarily need to step inside a building to know it’s going to be difficult to fight a fire.”

*On his way to fight the Ghost Ship fire, a fellow firefighter told Robertson he knew the place and that it was like a maze, cluttered with obstacles*. We’re going to have to get defensive early, he told Robertson.

Questions about the competence of Oakland’s building inspection agency arose five years ago. An Alameda County Grand Jury in 2011 released a scathing report accusing the city’s building services division of mismanagement and having haphazard policies about conducting building inspections.

The grand jury found the agency was riddled with “poor management, lack of leadership, and ambiguous policies and procedures.” It added that the agency had inconsistent standards on code violations and that the violation notices sent to property owners were late and hard to understand. In addition, inspectors treated property owners in an “unprofessional, retaliatory and intimidating” manner, the grand jury report stated.

Federal investigators said Tuesday they were still working to determine the cause of the deadly fire.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ghost-ship-fire-20161217-story.html


----------



## conarb

LA Times article above said:
			
		

> The grand jury found the agency was riddled with “poor management, lack of leadership, and ambiguous policies and procedures.” It added that the agency had inconsistent standards on code violations and that the violation notices sent to property owners were late and hard to understand. In addition, inspectors treated property owners in an “unprofessional, retaliatory and intimidating” manner, the grand jury report stated.



Wow, a grand jury report ignored by the building department!  BTW, the property owner Chor Ng held the property in trust administrated by her daughter Eva Ng, sounds like this is a retirement trust and all assets are immune from seizure or attachment, if you recall the famous OJ civil case, even though the Brown family got a sizable judgment against OJ they couldn't touch his retirement monies. It looks like the city is the only deep pockets here and that's where the attorneys will focus.

In the local paper today the editorial is indicting the city for stonewalling the paper's demands to produce records, the mayor said that she  "will not scapegoat city employees in the wake of this disaster.”



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> 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.¹



It appears that the mayor is illegally protecting employees.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/04/editorial-oakland-must-turn-over-ghost-ship-records-now/


----------



## tmurray

Fire fighters, in my experience, generally do not know the fire or building codes. They know how to fight fires. Expecting them to be able to spot violations is an unreasonable expectation. A fire prevention officer, yes, but fire fighters....that doesn't hold water for me.


----------



## cda

tmurray said:


> Fire fighters, in my experience, generally do not know the fire or building codes. They know how to fight fires. Expecting them to be able to spot violations is an unreasonable expectation. A fire prevention officer, yes, but fire fighters....that doesn't hold water for me.




Disagree,

Yes minute or technical stuff

But, a total mess that they see from thier station grow over years, and concerts going on.

Plus sometimes lieutenants and captains sometimes have to rotate through fire prevention, because that is where an opening is.

Plus, they do spend an whole hour in the academy on fire codes!!!  Kind of like the requirement for an hour over fire codes in architect school.


----------



## cda

conarb said:


> Today's front page article about the fire:
> 
> 
> 
> An "intense inspector", sounds like our Tiger.  The truth of the incompetence of the Oakland Fire Department is that the city has long used it as a vehicle for minority employment, the color of the skin and the gender of the employees means more to them than the quality or the employees.
> 
> The "North Hills Community Association" is a group formed after the Oakland Hills fire in 1991 that formed a special assessment district voting to pay more taxes for better fire protection, only to have those funds used to pay the absurd pensions of retired firemen.
> 
> 
> ¹ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/...two-years-complaining-about-fire-inspections/





That and their fire chief does not have a clue


----------



## tmurray

cda said:


> Disagree,
> 
> Yes minute or technical stuff
> 
> But, a total mess that they see from their station grow over years, and concerts going on.
> 
> Plus sometimes lieutenants and captains sometimes have to rotate through fire prevention, because that is where an opening is.
> 
> Plus, they do spend an whole hour in the academy on fire codes!!!  Kind of like the requirement for an hour over fire codes in architect school.



I walked into a new restaurant under construction right after the local fire boys did their walkthrough. The contractor was in a great mood when he told me that they had just done their fire inspection. I said "so they told you your entrance door is swinging in the wrong direction right?". He immediately became crestfallen.

If they can't tell a door swings in the wrong direction, why would I expect them to be able to see other violations. Maybe it's just our local FFs. We don't do fire prevention locally...


----------



## conarb

cda said:


> That and their fire chief does not have a clue


CDA:

You can't say that, the chief is in two protected classes, she's black and she's a woman, say anything, especially in Oakland California, and they'll be rioting in the streets screaming racist and misogynist, they've been screaming racist for years but now they've learned to say misogynist, homophobic, and xenophobic, even if they can't spell them or understand what they mean. Oakland employs it's civil servants based upon an elusive diversity standard so that the city workforce mirrors the population as a whole. Americans have become screaming idiots, but that's okay since idiots are now a protected class under our all time favorite ADA.


----------



## conarb

The chief has disappeared!



			
				Mercury News said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Embattled Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed, who has been heavily criticized since 36 people died in the Dec. 2 Ghost Ship warehouse blaze, is on leave from the department tending to a sick relative, according to a fire official.
> 
> Deputy Chief Mark Hoffmann said he was told Reed was out due to a sick family member, and that he and Deputy Chief Darin White have been rotating as interim fire chief. Reed has been checking in with the department during her absence, Hoffmann said.
> 
> Oakland firefighters union Vice President Zac Unger said that the rank-and-file has not heard a reason for her absence and she’s been gone for weeks.
> 
> “All I will say is we’ve had no official notification that she’s gone but we haven’t seen her in weeks,” Unger said. “We have also had no official notification of when she’s coming back.”
> 
> Each morning, City Administrator Sabrina Landreth, who has been overseeing the administrative duties of the Oakland Police Department since June, has met with fire administrators in meetings normally held by Chief Reed, Unger said.
> 
> Mayor Libby Schaaf’s spokesperson Erica Derryck declined to comment. Reed’s executive assistant Angela Robison Pinon said “the city does not comment on the leave status of employees.”
> 
> The chief’s departure was apparently near the time that this newspaper reported on Jan. 20 that Reed went on a 10-minute rant at a Oakland hills fire protection meeting, which included audio with the chief threatening to sue a homeowner for defamation and accusing the citizen’s board of “bias” against her.
> 
> Meanwhile, Deputy Chief White is a finalist for the open fire chief job in Carson City, while Oakland’s other second-in-charge, Hoffmann, has worked for more than three decades and has maxed out his pension and could leave any day, Unger said.
> 
> “It’s not inconceivable that in one week we’ll have vacancies in all three top jobs in this department and I have no idea if there’s a plan to deal with it,” Unger said.
> 
> The Oakland firefighters union has been at odds with Reed frequently during her five-year tenure in Oakland.¹



"Tending to a sick relative" is code for "disappeared", just like "retiring to spend time with family" is code for "getting out before the indictments come down". 


¹ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/07/oakland-fire-chief-teresa-deloach-reed-out-on-leave/


----------



## linnrg

tmurray said:


> Fire fighters, in my experience, generally do not know the fire or building codes. They know how to fight fires. Expecting them to be able to spot violations is an unreasonable expectation. A fire prevention officer, yes, but fire fighters....that doesn't hold water for me.



Our local fire department has been going into our new projects similar to responding to the scene except without the gear.  We have had them walking through during framing and rough in and prior to final. They use this as a training opportunity. The chief and fire marshal are both reasonable at the fire and building codes but all of the firefighters are not.  Our local also still relies some on volunteers.  I personally hope that the fire fighters know a great deal about how to fight fires and rescue people but to not have to know in detail all of the provisions of the building code.  I think they should have a general knowledge of the fire codes and other specific NFPA codes.


----------



## conarb

Finally there is a whistle-blower in the Oakland Fire Department: 


			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> But the biggest shock to firefighter Zac Unger came a week later. He filed a California Public Records Act request to his own department for 2014 and 2015 inspection records of properties on Elverton Drive. What he received led Unger to wonder whether the documents he received were created to appease his curiosity.
> 
> While the 2014 records included copies of inspection reports filled out by firefighters on scene, there were no such records for 2015. Instead, the department released six puzzling documents labeled fire clearance certificates, which Unger had never seen before, dated the day after he submitted his public records request.
> 
> The documents, addressed to homeowners, claimed five properties had passed inspections a month earlier. The sixth claimed a property had passed inspection in early 2014 but informed the homeowner they were cleared through the 2015 fire season, despite no annual inspection that year. Although unsigned, the forms listed the author as former Oakland fire Marshal James Williams, who had left the department two years earlier.¹



I would encourage all of you who work in corrupt fire or building departments to become whistle-blowers, in California anyway we have a whistle-blower protection law:



			
				California State Auditor said:
			
		

> The California Whistleblower Protection Act authorizes the California State Auditor to receive complaints from state employees and members of the public who wish to report an improper governmental activity. An "improper governmental activity" is defined as any action by a state agency or any action by a state employee directly related to state government that violates the law, violates an Executive Order of the Governor, violates a Rule of Court, violates the State Administrative Manual or State Contracting Manual, is economically wasteful, or involves gross misconduct, incompetency, or inefficiency. The complaints received by the State Auditor shall remain confidential, and the identity of the complainant may not be revealed without the permission of the complainant, except to an appropriate law enforcement agency conducting a criminal investigation.²



Don't worry about getting fired, if they try that you'll probably retire with many millions in damages. 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02...t-did-administration-cover-up-near-miss-fire/

² http://www.bsa.ca.gov/hotline


----------



## CityKin

If this kind of crap was going on in my jurisdiction, I would be the first one to blow the whistle. This kind of laziness and disregard for public safety gives all public servants a bad name.


----------



## cda

Should because some of the codes are designed for thier safety and make thier work easier


----------



## conarb

CityKin said:


> If this kind of crap was going on in my jurisdiction, I would be the first one to blow the whistle. This kind of laziness and disregard for public safety gives all public servants a bad name.


I think two things are going on:

1) Codes have exploded well beyond health and safety into social engineering and political objectives making them harder to understand and apply, the objective also has switched from health and safety to bringing in money.

2) Public servants are hired on the basis of diversity and filling quotas is more important than hiring the most competent people for the jobs,


----------



## conarb

The city has finally released the files under threat of litigation:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — In the two and half years before a deadly warehouse fire killed 36 people, Oakland police made regular visits to the Ghost Ship artists’ collective. They investigated an illegal rave, a pistol-whipping incident, thefts, reports of child abuse, a stabbing, threats with guns, drug sales, illegal housing, storing stolen property, allegations of rape, even reports of people barricaded inside.
> 
> Records released Wednesday show that police visited the building and associated properties 35 times between mid-2014 and the Dec. 2 fire. Yet never did officers take action to shutter the dangerously cluttered, illegally converted warehouse — or make referrals to other city departments empowered to shut it down.
> 
> The 600 pages of records, which Oakland released Wednesday under threat of a lawsuit by this news organization, tell a story of frequent and often tense interactions between Ghost Ship proprietor Derick Almena, his artist tenants, and police, fire, public works and building department personnel. Only some of these contacts have been previously reported.
> Related Articles
> 
> The new records also show that the city was well familiar with the two-building complex and adjoining vacant lot owned by Chor Ng even before the Ghost Ship came to be: Police, fire, public works and building department employees had visited at least 245 times since 1988, most of them after 2007.¹



Of course the city building inspectors were probably too busy enforcing the heights of handicap signs. 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/08/oakland-warehouse-fire-city-releases-thousands-of-records/


----------



## linnrg

Oh **** CONARB you have doomed another thread

I mean this in a funny ha ha way


----------



## conarb

linnrg said:


> Oh **** CONARB you have doomed another thread



Don't you think that inspectors will want to know where they are going wrong? 

In a better day Oakland inspectors were my buddies, I went to their retirement parties and invited them to my builders' association dinners, at least two always moved my appointments to lunch time so we could go to lunch after.  I recall once I had to leave and left a concrete pour on a warehouse to my foreman, I came back that afternoon and since they were pouring I said to my foreman: "You're pouring so Warren signed you off with no problems?"  He said: "No, he said go ahead and pour but tell Dick I'll be here at 12:00 sharp tomorrow to sign the card." We got along and everything got done to code.

You've got to realize that a builder has owners and architects on one side trying to get as much out of him as possible without paying for it, on the other side he has tradesmen and subcontractors trying to milk as much out of him as possible, the inspectors are in the middle with me usually my only friends on the job.


----------



## JCraver

conarb said:


> The city has finally released the files under threat of litigation:
> 
> 
> 
> Of course the city building inspectors were probably too busy enforcing the heights of handicap signs.
> 
> 
> ¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/08/oakland-warehouse-fire-city-releases-thousands-of-records/




Wouldn't it be easy to require all police officers / fire fighters to have a basic course on property maintenance as part of their continuing training?  It wouldn't take a couple hours or so, but run them through what they should be looking for while they're doing their regular jobs.  I think it'd help, especially in larger municipalities who have understaffed code enforcement dept's.  Public Works guys should have the same course, too.  Any muni. employee who is out and about the streets everyday ought to be able to call the code enforcement office and tell them about a jacked up house/business/warehouse whatever.

If you ask them, they're too busy.  I know.  But if the goal is to prevent this kind of stuff from happening, and to keep the city clean/up to code, shouldn't all the different dept's work together to make that happen?


----------



## mark handler

JCraver said:


> Wouldn't it be easy to require all police officers / fire fighters to have a basic course on property maintenance as part of their continuing training?  It wouldn't take a couple hours or so, but run them through what they should be looking for while they're doing their regular jobs.  I think it'd help, especially in larger municipalities who have understaffed code enforcement dept's.  Public Works guys should have the same course, too.  Any muni. employee who is out and about the streets everyday ought to be able to call the code enforcement office and tell them about a jacked up house/business/warehouse whatever.
> 
> If you ask them, they're too busy.  I know.  But if the goal is to prevent this kind of stuff from happening, and to keep the city clean/up to code, shouldn't all the different dept's work together to make that happen?


Some do.


----------



## fatboy

Both our PD and FD are very good about cluing both Building and Code Compliance folks in on problem properties. To good sometimes.


----------



## conarb

Today's report, they are now trying to pin the blame on the owner, that's foolish since the property is in trust and the owner can't be touched. 



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Chor Ng, the owner of the Ghost Ship building, was cited at least three times since 2009 for people living illegally inside a half-block of other properties she owned in East Oakland — the last of which occurred a week after 36 people died in the Fruitvale artists’ collective on Dec. 2.
> 
> On Dec. 11, building inspectors found at least 15 violations of an illegal living space at 3073 International Blvd., which adjoins the Ghost Ship warehouse. The other two citations were for illegally housing people in 3071 International, according to records released Wednesday.
> 
> On Wednesday, Oakland released more than 600 pages of documents, under threat of a lawsuit by this newspaper group, detailing the city’s history with the Ghost Ship warehouse and the neighboring businesses on that Fruitvale district corner. Police records show officers responded to to an illegal rave and were warned that people were living at the warehouse almost two years before the deadly fire, yet did not cite anyone or forward the complaints to other city departments.
> 
> Those records also show 222 contacts were made by the city’ s police, fire, building and public works departments while answering medical and fire calls, and blight-related complaints and inspections at Ng’s properties on 31st Avenue and International Boulevard. Those consisted of:
> 
> 
> 99 calls for service by Oakland police dating back to 2007.
> 95 code enforcement complaints and inspections by the planning and building department dating back to 1988.
> 20 public works service requests since 2005.
> Eight fire or medical calls for service since 2005.
> A spokesman for Ng’s attorneys on Thursday said they were reviewing the records and had no comment.
> 
> Besides the warehouse, Ng owns about 11 other Oakland properties, including two in Chinatown.
> 
> The entrance of the building at 3073 International Blvd. is around the corner from the burned-out warehouse, but its back wall abuts the Ghost Ship. Inside, the inspectors on Dec. 11 found what appeared like almost a smaller version of the Ghost Ship, damaged by smoke and water from the fire next door: bottles of alcohol near a tip jar, a performance stage, graffiti, a ramshackle bathroom and kitchen, along with jerry-rigged electrical wiring.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Building inspectors, after the Ghost Ship fire, found illegal housing in a neighboring building also owned by Chor Ng and documented in photos. (City of Oakland)
> “There are several unapproved alterations made to the building. There are sleeping rooms created on the second floor as well as a kitchen,” city officials wrote. They added that unapproved alterations were also made to the plumbing and electrical system, “such as exposed and unsafe wiring, fixtures, new electrical panels and circuits.”
> 
> Sources have told this newspaper that the fire started due to faulty wiring.
> 
> In 1999, a large leak to the building complex roof brought building inspectors into 3071 International Blvd. During that visit, inspectors determined: “This space was being used as living space illegally.” Two years later, they returned and found another “unapproved living unit.”
> 
> The inspector wrote that Ng asked for an extension to abate the issue “due to the eviction process,” and she later appealed the fine.
> 
> Starting in 2004, building inspectors began to receive blight complaints about the vacant lot adjacent to the warehouse. Old tires, junked appliances and cars, oil containers, rodents, weeds, graffiti and homeless encampments were noted, according to records. It took almost three years and $3,000 for the city to finally abate the property, also levying numerous property liens during that stretch, according to records.
> 
> Records show that between December 2005 and July 2016, another city department, public works, sent officials to Ng’s properties in response to reports of illegal dumping, litter, graffiti and utility inspection requests.
> 
> As of Thursday, Ng had not made a tax payment on the International Boulevard properties that was due on Dec. 6, four days after the fire, Alameda County records show. Her overdue bill, with a 10 percent penalty, now stands at $5,273.
> 
> Aside from the well-publicized assaults, illegal party and housing, child abuse and other criminal reports tied to the Ghost Ship warehouse, Ng’s other properties on that block also brought law enforcement attention as early as 2007 (the police records released only went back that far).¹



These are what is known as "drug houses", some live there, others come there to listen to blaring rock music and take drugs.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02...reviously-cited-for-allowing-illegal-housing/


----------



## JCraver

My guys are awesome at it - I usually get more complaints from City employees (and City politicians...) than I do residents every month.  But crap like this happens all the time and no one saw anything before it (whatever "it" was) happened.


----------



## linnrg

CONARb in #153 you stated "sounds like this is a retirement trust and all assets are immune from seizure or attachment".  Is there any groundswell to bring this to light and how it gets the persons who should have had the responsibility off the hook?  I think I would be willing to write some legislator if there is a way.


----------



## conarb

linnrg said:


> CONARb in #153 you stated "sounds like this is a retirement trust and all assets are immune from seizure or attachment".  Is there any groundswell to bring this to light and how it gets the persons who should have had the responsibility off the hook?  I think I would be willing to write some legislator if there is a way.


linnrg:

I was going to respond no way, trusts have long been public policy as a way of protecting and transferring wealth, but also as a way of earning money tax-free, I have a trust, almost all of my customers have trusts, I have seldom built homes for individuals, I have built them for their trusts. There are all kinds of trusts, mostly revocable trusts but also irrevocable trusts, there are even trusts like the "Jackie O" trust:



			
				Levins Legal said:
			
		

> One method of protecting assets from the estate tax is through a trust. Trust administration is different for different types of trusts, but, in some cases, the funds put into a trust may not be taxable. One such type of trust, that is commonly used to protect assets from taxation, is known as a “Jackie O.” trust. These are a type of charitable trust, which requires a specified amount to be donated each year for a specified period of time.
> 
> The tax for these trusts is determined based on what will be left after the donations across the given time frame. Depending on interest rates and other factors, these types of trusts can result in no estate taxes, but a beneficiary still receiving a sizeable inheritance. While these seem to provide an easy loophole, they do not work for all situations. In order to accrue interest that eclipses the amount to be donated and taxed, these types of trusts require a sizeable starting balance, making them best for those with substantial wealth.¹



One of the biggest tax dodges out there is the Non-Profit Charitable Family Foundation, a good example is turn on NPR and most programs state who sponsors them, a prominent sponsor is The Bill and Melinda Gates Family foundation, Bill can take something like a billion dollars of his income and "donate" it to his Family Foundation taking the full charitable deduction so he pays roughly a half billion less in taxes, some of that the foundation then donates to it's favored causes, certain NPR programs being one of them, as long as his family lasts on this earth his family has control over the monies in the Foundation, during that time they must donate a minimum of 7% per year to IRS approved charities, and of course in good economic times the remaining 93% can make more invested than the 7% donated so the foundation grows in value over time and all monies are protected.   Most wealthy families have complex interwoven tax-free foundations, if you recall recently there was a hack of a Panamanian law firm that handled these trusts, most are set up offshore in tax havens.  Examples are the wealthy families on earth, the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, they have so many non-profit trusts worldwide that it takes large offices just to manage them, since they benefit the wealthiest people in the world as well as the average person with a pension I would think they are untouchable.

Notice I started out this response with the statement: "I was going to respond no way", the reason I said that is because of recent well-publicized developments, in one of MH's innumerable Disability threads I pointed out that the Disability activists were financed by perhaps the world's most evil men, George Soros, I even linked to his site dealing with Disability, all that money that he has spent on disability activism has been tax free money for him, pay it in taxes to some government or donate it to a charity of your choice and control where the money goes that would otherwise go to the government. Soros has sponsored chaos worldwide to achieve his goals or an egalitarian world without borders ruiled by the United Nations, all done tax-free.  This may come to a head if Trump and Sessions prosecute the Clinton Foundations, they started by setting up a simple Foundation to build a presidential library, but soon expanded (illegally) that foundation to a web of foundations including the Clinton Global Initiative that has taken billions from foreign countries and trusts like Soros' MoveOn and Open Society to have the U.S. attack countries like Libya and Syria, the Saudis and Qatar want oil lines through Syria and don't want Russia and Libya selling oil to Europe, Soros wanted to destroy the countries to release refugees and economic migrants from Africa across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, and from the mid-east through Syria to Greece, to end up in the European entitlement societies like Germany, Sweden etc.  The Clinton Foundations were so outrageous that an IRS investigation could bring the whole process of trusts and foundations into question, I see the Clintons have liquidated the Clinton Global Initiative, but all records are still there.  Most trusts and foundations meticulously comply with IRS rules and regulations, the Clinton situation is the ideal one to prosecute because they play fast and loose with foundation funds, like even buying their daughter's wedding dress with foundations funds. I keep my trust monies totally segregated from my corporate and personal monies, I even have an administrator that I pay $1,500 a year to manage them. 

As you can see you asked a huge question, but this may all be brought to light, the release of the Panama Papers is a start. 


¹ http://www.levinslegal.com/blog/201...the-wealthy-an-escape-from-estate-taxes.shtml


----------



## linnrg

another "Warehouse" only here in Alaska

https://www.adn.com/opinions/2017/0...es-as-a-hotbed-of-politics-art-and-craziness/


----------



## conarb

That's really interesting Linnrg, thanks for posting it, just reading it tells people here more than can be explained about the evolution of the counter-culture and their disdain for rules and regulations, can you even imagine citing them for a sign an inch too high? If you try to tell them that you are doing it for their own good they'll say that's well and good but they can't afford health and safety, they even have their babies without licensed doctors and hospitals.  Is there a place in this world for people like that?  Society has always had Bohemians, do we leave them alone to live as they want or do we make them conform to society's rules and regulations if they can't?


----------



## linnrg

in both cases we have a warehouse fire.  One was deadly and one was hardly noticed.  Both have the underlying issue of where do the poor live (or where certain people choose to live).  Both have the attachment to culture (if you ask the people involved).  So far I have read that the one in Anchorage is a story of neglect that was due to the original persons death and the property being passed down to relatives without the funds for it to be kept up, so vagrancy was happening.  I don't think it was a place that had an active income like the one in California.
That "income" is very important and why I feel that the owners in California should bear some financial responsibility.  The "use" in California was very unsafe (and known by many).

I am a firm believer in opportunity for all - wealth if you can achieve it and left alone if you wish.

Building codes do try to achieve one very important thing in that it helps achieve consumer safety but how far can or should it go is a good question.  I think that the effect of the building codes are not intended to change or safe up "culture".  Culture takes what is there and uses it in ways that are bad then results in the fires.

Communities have a difficult time dealing with abandoned or neglected buildings.  The public officials have to exhaust lots of efforts chasing down owners, hearing the owners arguments of why we should not be doing anything about their building, etc. We just took one down and the sad thing is it was a building that could have been saved. Anchorage if you don't know has a large homeless population, has the same drug problems all other cities have, and has plenty of crime it seems.


----------



## cda

Conarb, need a special prosecutor

Seems like someone is riding a desk, waiting,      trying to get another fat pension



OAKLAND — Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed is on leave from her job for the second time this year.


“The city does not comment on the leave status of employees,” said Erica Derryck, a spokesman for Mayor Libby Schaaf.

Department veteran Mark Hoffmann is serving as acting chief, Derryck said.

Reed was on leave most of January to help care for a sick family member, fire officials have said. She returned to work last week but began the second, unexplained leave midday Friday, fire sources said.

Reed’s absence comes as her department continues to investigate the Dec. 2 Ghost Ship warehouse fire that killed 36 people and raised questions about the department’s ability to conduct safety inspections.

Shortly before her January leave, Reed went on a lengthy rant at a public meeting of a fire safety district in the Oakland Hills when residents raised questions about vegetation inspections designed to help prevent a repeat of the 1991 fire storm in which 25 people died. She even threatened to sue a person for criticizing her.

Reed came to Oakland five years ago after retiring from the San Jose Fire Department, where she draws a pension. Her Oakland pension with the California Public Employees Retirement System vests in early March.

Asked in January if she intended to remain Oakland chief past her vesting date, Reed said “that’s an inappropriate question”  and refused to answer.

http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/27/oakland-fire-chief-on-leave-for-second-time-in-2017/


----------



## conarb

CDA:

Yeah, I read that this morning and was going to post it, be interesting to hear if her San Jose pension is in the half million dollar range like most around here, the greed of these public employees is unbelievable, seems like one half million dollar pension would be enough, of course this is diversity and inclusion, they can't hire based upon ability anymore, they hire based upon color and gender, if you say anything they scream "RACISM" and/or "MISOGYNY" (they learned a new word) .  And this when the pension funds are going bankrupt nationwide.


----------



## tmurray

Based on the reports, she appears to be combative and lacking transparency. Not what you want in an official. Open, honest and helpful are the best qualities to get voluntary compliance, with the understanding that you sometimes must be firm if the situation calls for it.


----------



## conarb

The saga goes on, people aren't concerned about dying, they are concerned about a place to live, the fact is that complying with codes is too expensive, owners are evicting tenants rather than attempting to comply even through the city is trying to work with them to only address life safety issues;



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Residents of Oakland’s Salt Lick warehouse are being asked to leave their home, making the property the latest in a wave of evictions that have rocked the arts community in the wake of December’s deadly Ghost Ship fire that left 36 people dead.
> 
> The eviction notice came despite the city identifying the Oakland produce market location as one where its staff is working with the property owners to prevent displacement. Mayor Libby Schaaf issued an executive order in January directing staff to work cooperatively with landlords to bring commercial or industrial buildings up to residential code requirements.
> 
> That spat was smoothed over, but the Ghost Ship fire spurred many warehouse landlords throughout the city to consider whether they would be held accountable for allowing people to live in buildings not permitted for housing. Many have turned to evictions rather than make costly investments to bring their properties up to code.
> 
> The mayor’s executive order created new protocols for city staff to create abatement and compliance plans with property owners. The order asked staff to focus only on imminent safety hazards and to “generally work in the spirit of cooperation with property owners, tenants and master lessors.”
> 
> “While immediate life safety determinations rest in the sole professional judgment of the Fire Marshall or Building Official, these officials shall utilize problem-solving skills and tools … to maximize both safety and housing security,” the order states.¹



Let's volunteer Mark Handler, ADAguy, and Tiger to go take over for Oakland and negotiate which codes can be eliminated so the druggies (AKA artists) can keep living in their homes while conducting their drug fueled 'raves' all night.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03...ick-warehouse-in-oakland-are-getting-evicted/


----------



## conarb

In the paper today there is an article that concludes with:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> Altieri reflected on the safety and building codes that could have saved lives on the night of Dec. 2.
> 
> “My whole life, codes were a pain to me,” Altieri said. “I didn’t appreciate the codes until now, after this tragedy.”¹



So now they want code enforcement, the problem remains, enforce the electrical code and you trigger disability, structural and a host of other codes making code enforcement economically impossible. 

Friday I suggested we send Mark Handler, ADAguy, and Tiger to Oakland to solve this problem, so far none of them have taken me up on the offer, in the linked article there is a diagram of the building showing the layout of the electrical service, note the big red arrow pointing to International Blvd., to make my suggestion more enticing I might say the gunshots might be more palatable if you guys knew that at the end of my red arrow on International Blvd 'sporting ladies' are available most hours of the day and night, not that I would know anything about that. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





What about it guys, ready to come to Oakland and solve the problems? 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03...ngerous-electrical-system-before-deadly-fire/


----------



## cda

So who paid the electric bill???


----------



## conarb

cda said:


> So who paid the electric bill???


From what I've read (and you know how reliable that is) the landlord paid and periodically went around to the occupants and solicited "their fair share", these commune residents see themselves as one of a variety of anticapitalist groups (could be socialists, communists, or anarchists), the one common belief that bonds them is hatred of capitalism and authority.


----------



## cda

Oakland must have some bad mojo:::


http://abc7news.com/news/4-alarm-structure-fire-in-oakland----watch-live-sky7/1820235/


That and not sure they park the fire trucks in the right place, in case of building collapse??


----------



## conarb

CDA's link said:
			
		

> Firefighters say three people were injured and seven people were rescued. Officials say there were 50-60 people who lived in the residence.
> 
> A resident who said the building was a drug rehab center and apartments on the other floors were for recovering addicts.



All those drug addicts crammed into a building what do they expect?  The common thread here with the Ghost Ship fire is drugs.  Druggies usually grow pot indoors and they use bright and hot 'grow lights', they are always having fires since the electrical is bad and nowhere near up to code for modern living, much less the added loads for all the grow lights.

There are poor people living on the streets all over the place, send inspectors in and condemn these buildings and there will just be more living on the streets.


----------



## cda

So will wait and see the inspection history on this one.

If it is on thier address list???


----------



## Mark K

Regarding the suggestion to eliminate some of the codes.  It cannot happen.  In California the various Building Standard Codes are created by the state and local jurisdictions are prohibited from making them less stringent.

While the local jurisdictions could decide to shift priorities, if an owner could argue that failure to enforce the codes allows unsafe conditions to occur he probably could get a writ of mandamus compelling the jurisdictions to do their job.

Separate from the building codes California has provisions for substandard buildings which would still require certain hazards be corrected.


----------



## conarb

The DOJ hasn't gotten around to repealing and replacing the ADA yet but Attorney General Sessions has just announced that all monies will be cut to Sanctuary Cities, how many of you work for sanctuary Cities?  The solution is cut the money, either comply with federal edicts or kiss your salaries and pensions goodbye. 



			
				Zero Hedge said:
			
		

> Across America, there are over 300 governmental jurisdictions claiming "sanctuary status." Of those governments, there are 106 cities, while the rest are states, counties or other units of government.
> 
> Under Trump’s order, mayors defending their sanctuary city status are essentially imposing a defiance tax on local residents. On average, this tax amounts to $500 per man, woman and child. Major cities like Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago have the most to lose, and nearly $27 billion is at stake across the country.¹



Just think about it, if cities refuse to obey federal law, like drug and immigration, why should we citizens obey any laws?  

¹ http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...tuary-city-announcement-vows-withhold-funding


----------



## conarb

East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — The San Pablo Avenue residential building where Monday’s early morning blaze claimed at least three lives had a history of code violations, a growing reputation as a “deathtrap” and a landlord working to evict dozens of tenants in a contentious housing battle.
> 
> Property owner Keith Kim said he leased the building to Urojas Community Services, a nonprofit that provides transitional housing. But it’s not exactly clear who was managing the building where three organizations provided low-income housing to more than 80 people who escaped the four-alarm fire early Monday morning. One person was still unaccounted for late Monday, and the cause of the fire is under investigation.
> 
> A nonprofit manager stationed on the first and second floors of the San Pablo Avenue building said squatters had overtaken the top floor, leading to rampant drug use and dangerous conditions. The Rev. Dr. Jasper Lowery, the founder and director of Urojas, spoke to this newspaper last week about the ongoing eviction drama. “It’s a deathtrap in there,” he said.
> 
> Because it had more than three dwelling units, it should have been inspected annually, according to state fire code. However, Oakland fire inspectors only visited the building in 2010, 2012 and 2015, city records show.
> 
> The building passed the 2010 and 2012 inspections, data show, but the 2015 inspection was listed with a result of a “referral.” Fire Marshall Miguel Trujillo did not return messages Monday. Battalion Chief Erik Logan, who spoke at a department news conference late Monday afternoon, said he didn’t know the building’s inspection history.
> 
> Over the past decade, the city has received 20 complaints about rodent infestation, electrical issues, mold, trash, graffiti, floors caving in, roof leaks and other blight issues. Eighteen of those complaints occurred within the past five years, including the Urojas request on March 2 for an inspection of the facility by code enforcement for “alleged deferred maintenance by (the) landlord.” The city verified the violation, according to city records.
> 
> On Feb. 23, the city sent a notice of violation after a neighbor complained about the building, saying there was a “large amount of trash and debris, building materials, furniture in back of property.” On Dec. 29, a few weeks after the Ghost Ship fire, the city opened an investigation into a housing-habitability complaint, which stated: “No working heat throughout the building, electrical issues and a large pest infestation.”¹



The slumlord was trying to evict people, looks like several got restraining orders to block the evictions, evicting people isn't that easy, especially poor people who have court protection. 

I guess there is no answer, all I can see they do is send inspectors in and condemn the buildings then force them to tear them down or have the city tear them down putting a lien on the land then sell the land for whatever they can get, I guess the poor people will have to go to the tent cities around and under the freeways. 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03...oved-to-evict-tenants-after-ghost-ship-blaze/


----------



## steveray

Maybe they can all live in the Raiders stadium....


----------



## cda

Fire chief's office seems vacant


----------



## conarb

Again there were fire sprinklers in that building but they didn't stop the conflagration, the complaint is that they weren't serviced, so what happens do they automatically cease functioning when they go beyond inspection date?  Note that nothing is said about the sprinklers, you have to go to the report to see the inspector's first entry: " Immediately Service Fire Sprinkler system Immediately.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




They were in the building a few days before the fire and wrote the report, it appears that the tenants were more concerned about keeping them out so they wouldn't lose their housing.  Had there been no sprinklers you can bet your a$$ that the fire marshals would have convened a press conference at the scene claiming that the lives would have been saved had there been sprinklers, do these things ever work? 



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> When that inspector finally got behind the locked doors on Friday, he documented 11 severe fire hazards, including extension cords being used instead of wall outlets. He wrote that fire extinguishers, emergency lighting and marked exits must be maintained and provided throughout the building, and smoke detectors in each unit.
> 
> Inspector David Davis also demanded immediate service and certification of the fire alarm system and fire sprinkler system, but he didn’t order the residential building, where three nonprofits provided homes to the poor, evacuated and closed. Nor did he order the building owner to place a person on “fire watch” to patrol the structure until repairs were made, as state law allows.
> 
> Less than 72 hours later, the West Oakland building where more than 80 people, including many children, lived, was an inferno. Some jumped from windows and raced down fire escapes. Others made it outside in bare feet, their belongings left behind. Firefighters rescued 15 people, and four were hospitalized with smoke inhalation, including two children.
> 
> He cited confusion over the tenant harassment, and said residents were hesitant to have city officials inside. “They’ve been on stranger danger with everything that has been going on,” he said. “They’ve been so confused, they didn’t know what to do.”¹





¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03...evere-problems-three-days-before-fatal-blaze/


----------



## cda

Interesting

Does not say if the sprinkler system was off or on.

Plus you do not know the extent of the coverage.

Were void space protected, corridors, attic????


----------



## steveray

Our fire inspectors would be sued and/or in jail if we allowed documented blocked egress or a compromised suppression system to remain more than 4 hours and people died...


----------



## CityKin

^ same in our jurisdiction. 

And as to the question about do sprinklers ever work, I can say firsthand that they saved a project of mine about 10 years ago when a man fell asleep with a lit cigarette in an apartment building.  A single head was triggered and it completely suppressed the fire.  We drilled holes in the floor to drain the water to the basement and then dried it out and repaired the finishes.  The building could have been a complete loss otherwise, not to mention the possible loss of life.


----------



## my250r11

"The eviction notice came despite the city identifying the Oakland produce market location as one where its staff is working with the property owners to prevent displacement. Mayor Libby Schaaf issued an executive order in January directing staff to work cooperatively with landlords to bring commercial or industrial buildings up to residential code requirements."

I wonder if this is why he didn't shut them down?


----------



## cda

conarb said:


> Again there were fire sprinklers in that building but they didn't stop the conflagration, the complaint is that they weren't serviced, so what happens do they automatically cease functioning when they go beyond inspection date?  Note that nothing is said about the sprinklers, you have to go to the report to see the inspector's first entry: " Immediately Service Fire Sprinkler system Immediately.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> They were in the building a few days before the fire and wrote the report, it appears that the tenants were more concerned about keeping them out so they wouldn't lose their housing.  Had there been no sprinklers you can bet your a$$ that the fire marshals would have convened a press conference at the scene claiming that the lives would have been saved had there been sprinklers, do these things ever work?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03...evere-problems-three-days-before-fatal-blaze/





I wonder when a fire inspection was done prior to 2016??


No it should not have taken a month to get in.


Plus, kind of common area, like the ghost ship, a tenant could have walked you in. You might not have seen every enclosure, such as the sprinkler room, but could get a feel for the building, and if needed do a warrant to gain access to the rest of the building.


----------



## conarb

cda said:


> I wonder when a fire inspection was done prior to 2016??
> 
> 
> No it should not have taken a month to get in.
> 
> 
> Plus, kind of common area, like the ghost ship, a tenant could have walked you in. You might not have seen every enclosure, such as the sprinkler room, but could get a feel for the building, and if needed do a warrant to gain access to the rest of the building.



Since the Ghost Ship fire the concern all over Oakland was eviction not safety, the mayor even passed an ordinance requiring 10 days notice prior to entry by any building or fire inspector, I would think that getting a tenant to walk you in would be considered trickery and the inspection invalid.  

I have to wonder now that there as been a second fire claiming human life how the city will deal with that now?  I guess we'll find out but is there any evidence as to whether any of the sprinklers actually activated. 

There was an editorial in the local paper today blasting the city for lack of communication between departments:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> Both tragedies were preventable. If only Oakland’s inspection systems had worked the way they should have. If only warning signs had been heeded and aggressively responded to.
> 
> Both tragedies were preventable. If only Oakland’s inspection systems had worked the way they should have. If only warning signs had been heeded and aggressively responded to.
> 
> Start with Ghost Ship: At first, officials said that before the fire no city workers had been inside the warehouse, which was filled with furniture and turned out to have no sprinklers or fire alarms, only one obvious exit, cords strung to provide electricity and a makeshift stairwell built out of wood pallets.
> 
> Start with Ghost Ship: At first, officials said that before the fire no city workers had been inside the warehouse, which was filled with furniture and turned out to have no sprinklers or fire alarms, only one obvious exit, cords strung to provide electricity and a makeshift stairwell built out of wood pallets.¹



The problem becomes if one department like the police notify another department like fire are they going to have to notify building as well?  If they do all Hell will break loose when they have to start enforcing Disability, structural, energy, and green codes. 



¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03...re-highlights-oakland-inspection-dysfunction/


----------



## cda

Well my constitutional enforcement 

If you can walk into a public area, you are legal, like the lobby area of a business, but not back offices.

If an apartment tenant calls and asks me to come look inside thier apartment,
I feel that is legal, even without contacting the owner, plus any area I walk through to get that apartment unit is plain view, as long as I do not open doors.

Same would have applied to the ghost ship, if a tenant was saleing stuff to the public, to me that area is fair game.

Have not been before the surpreme court yet


----------



## conarb

cda said:


> Well my constitutional enforcement
> 
> If you can walk into a public area, you are legal, like the lobby area of a business, but not back offices.
> 
> If an apartment tenant calls and asks me to come look inside thier apartment,
> I feel that is legal, even without contacting the owner, plus any area I walk through to get that apartment unit is plain view, as long as I do not open doors.
> 
> Same would have applied to the ghost ship, if a tenant was saleing stuff to the public, to me that area is fair game.
> 
> Have not been before the surpreme court yet


 CDA, the problem now is that there is a city ordinance requiring a 10 day notice before any fire or building inspector can inspect the property, if you did gain entrance you would probably have to say: "Sorry, I can't inspect for 10 days, here is my 10 day notice and I'll be back.


----------



## cda

conarb said:


> Since the Ghost Ship fire the concern all over Oakland was eviction not safety, the mayor even passed an ordinance requiring 10 days notice prior to entry by any building or fire inspector, I would think that getting a tenant to walk you in would be considered trickery and the inspection invalid.
> 
> I have to wonder now that there as been a second fire claiming human life how the city will deal with that now?  I guess we'll find out but is there any evidence as to whether any of the sprinklers actually activated.
> 
> There was an editorial in the local paper today blasting the city for lack of communication between departments:
> 
> 
> 
> The problem becomes if one department like the police notify another department like fire are they going to have to notify building as well?  If they do all Hell will break loose when they have to start enforcing Disability, structural, energy, and green codes.
> 
> 
> 
> ¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03...re-highlights-oakland-inspection-dysfunction/




Do you have a link to this ::,
ordinance requiring 10 days notice prior to entry


----------



## conarb

cda said:


> Do you have a link to this ::,
> ordinance requiring 10 days notice prior to entry


I heard 10 days, interesting to say that one proposal is two weeks and the mayor countered with 5 days, I'd bet the 10 days was a compromise. 



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Following an executive order issued by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf earlier this month, the City Council on Monday approved the first of what is expected to be several changes to the city’s laws to protect tenants in the wake of a deadly fire in the Ghost Ship artists collective in December that killed 36 people.
> 
> The council also approved a resolution declaring Dec. 2 as “Ghost Ship Remembrance Day” in the city to memorialize the lives lost in the inferno.
> 
> The legislation increases the amount of the money tenants can receive when they are forced to relocate while property owners make code compliance upgrades to their building. It also expands the definition of which tenants are eligible to receive those funds and beefs up the penalties for landlords who do not comply.
> 
> Under the new ordinance, landlords must pay $6,500 to tenants in studio or one-bedroom apartments who are displaced for more than 60 days, compared to $3,446 before the council took action. That number is based on doubling the fair market rents for Alameda County, as defined by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
> 
> Comparatively, residents in two-bedroom apartments would have received $4,346 prior to the change, versus the $8,000 for which they are now eligible. And tenants living in buildings with three or more units can receive $9,875, compared to $6,034 they would have received previously. Apartments with tenants who are low-income, seniors, disabled or have children under the age of 18 can receive an additional $2,500 to relocate under the updated ordinance.
> 
> Landlords who plan to complete repairs in less than 60 days must pay for the total cost of tenants’ temporary housing while work on the building is completed.
> 
> More than 100 people filled the council chamber at City Hall, mostly advocating for the additional protections, though some urged the council to hold property owners accountable for illegally renting out commercial spaces for residential use.
> 
> Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan sponsored the legislation, which she began drafting well before the fire highlighted the precarious nature of the unpermitted dwellings. The Ghost Ship warehouse had been illegally converted into living spaces for artists who needed affordable housing and a welcoming atmosphere to perform or create their art.
> 
> The council asked for more information about two different proposals designed to strengthen tenants’ rights and slow the pace of evictions in the wake of the fire.
> 
> Members of the Oakland Warehouse Coalition, a group that coalesced in the fire’s wake, introduced a suite of legislative proposals late last month covering myriad issues around unpermitted living spaces, which the council discussed on Monday. The proposal seeks to stem evictions from commercially-zoned properties, halt red-tagging for building violations not considered life-threatening, provide amnesty for past landlords leasing commercially-zoned properties as residential units and provide tenants with two weeks advanced notice of any city inspections, among other provisions to strengthen tenant protections.
> 
> Under Schaaf’s plan, residents will receive a five-day warning before any building, housing or fire inspectors can enter the premises. And, the order calls for a review of funding available to assist in legalizing buildings, as well as an examination of the city’s existing tenant protections to see if any changes can better prevent residents from being kicked out of their homes.¹




¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/01...fs-up-tenant-protections-in-ghost-ships-wake/


----------



## cda

It will not matter

The good lords will have decent buildings

And the bad lords no matter how many advanced days you give them, will have pages of write ups.


----------



## conarb

cda said:


> It will not matter
> 
> The good lords will have decent buildings
> 
> And the bad lords no matter how many advanced days you give them, will have pages of write ups.



There is an interesting write up on the landlord on the front page of the paper today, he is  Stanford guy but has to be really smart, as a Korean he had to pay a huge SAT penalty to get in (they take Caucasians as the norm and the penalize more intelligent peoples like Indian's, Koreans, and Chinese, then give huge advantages to less intelligent peoples like blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians in the interest of diversity and inclusion), *here is the article, it's an interesting story beyond the fire*.


----------



## conarb

In today's paper they blame a candle in a room that lacked elctricity:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — The cause of Monday’s deadly fire in a packed West Oakland residential building was a lit candle, a city spokeswoman said Thursday.
> 
> “The fire has been deemed to have been accidentally caused. The fire investigation report should be completed in the next few weeks,” the city said in a statement issued shortly after 6 p.m.
> 
> A city spokeswoman, Karen Boyd, said late Thursday that the accidental cause was a lit candle. Sources said the candle was in a man’s room that lacked electricity.
> 
> Squatters had taken over the building’s third floor, survivors have said.
> 
> Four people died in the blaze at 2551 San Pablo Ave., four were hospitalized, and dozens were displaced.
> 
> A fire safety inspector had been in the building three days before the deadly blaze.
> 
> The city also released a few past fire inspection reports. In one, that is undated, a person complained to the city that “the management is allowing the neighbor to smoke in his room; smoke fires in the kitchen, smoke detectors are constantly chirping, batteries completely shot.”
> 
> Another record shows the city used the building, where three nonprofits provided low-income housing and social services, as a “warming center” in November 2014, a place where homeless people can seek shelter from cold weather.¹



Smoking in buildings is illegal in Oakland?  No wonder lots of homeless people won't leave the streets and go into homeless shelters.  Smoke detectors constantly chirping, isn't that always the case? Still no mention of the fire sprinklers, they were there but did they go off? You can bet your a$$ that if there were no sprinklers every article about the fire would be blaming the lack of sprinklers as the cause of the deaths. 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03/30/oakland-candle-blamed-for-deadly-fire/


----------



## conarb

East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Three days before a candle likely ignited a Oakland apartment house blaze that killed four people, inspectors ordered a dangerous extension cord removed from the same room where the fire started.
> 
> *Related Articles
> 
> Safety problems plague nonprofit at center of deadly Oakland fire
> Editorial: Oakland’s fire inspection dysfunction once again fatal *
> 
> The news, revealed in an interview Tuesday with Oakland Assistant Fire Marshal Maria Sabatini, raises the possibility that a resident of the second-floor room was using a candle because electricity was no longer available.
> 
> “That might have been the case,” Sabatini said. That question, and whether the extension cord feeding electricity from elsewhere in the building had actually been disconnected, will probably be part of the ongoing investigation into the fire, she said.
> 
> The sprinkler system, which was only on the third floor, was not operative. While the inspectors required its immediate servicing, the system was not legally required because of the age of the building, Sabatini said.
> 
> The building also had an inadequate number of fire extinguishers and lacked required evacuation diagrams.
> 
> The inspectors did not enter all the rooms. “We weren’t trying to go into individual units because we don’t have the authority for that,” she said. “Those are people’s private spaces. It was the common areas that we were focused on.”
> 
> If they heard activity inside, they knocked on the doors and requested permission to enter.
> 
> In two cases, Sabatini said, her team noticed extension cords leading under doors into rooms. One was the room where the fire later started. The preliminary finding is that a candle started the blaze, according to city spokeswoman Karen Boyd.
> 
> Sabatini said she did not notice candles during the inspection. “Any candle use, we would have tried to stop that immediately,” she said.¹



The articles in the media are now directing the blame at the city, especially the fire department. I left the bolded links in that you can follow by opening the link below.  I'm with you guys on this, this is a socioeconomic problem, we live in an overpopulated area with large areas of lower class people, no amount of firefighters or prevention policies is going to stop people without money from squatting anywhere they can, they try to eliminate electrical problems and create candle burning problems, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't here.  All these cities that can't take care of their poor and homeless are declaring themselves 'sanctuary cities' inviting illegals to join the hordes of already impoverished people, I see this as an irresolvable problem. 

In the adjacent city of Richmond there was another fire where squatters broke into a boarded-up building setting it on fire,



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> NORTH RICHMOND — A suspicious fire that heavily damaged a vacant, boarded-up duplex in this unincorporated community Monday was most likely started by squatters, authorities said Tuesday.
> 
> Officials said people living at the duplex had illegally forced entry into the single-story structure.
> 
> No one was present when firefighters first responded to the blaze in the 1600 block of Second Street about 6:15 a.m. Monday.²



The only way to get rid of poor and drug addicted people is get rid of entitlements, maybe they'll go north to Canada.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/04/inspectors-requirement-might-have-led-to-fatal-oakland-fire/

² http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/04/squatters-suspected-in-blaze-at-vacant-north-richmond-duplex/


----------



## conarb

Another question here is since the fire started on the third floor, occupied by squatters, there were fire sprinklers that were unserviced, sprinklers don't have to be serviced to work, why weren't they working?  Perhaps the water to the sprinkler meter had been turned off due to cost?


----------



## conarb

Interesting article today:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Several city fire inspectors lack the “minimum” certification requirements for their positions and must complete classes by next week or they could be fired, according to a letter obtained by this newspaper and a fire administrator.
> 
> On April 27, co-Acting Fire Chief Darin White wrote to members of the embattled Fire Prevention Bureau that they must complete the training by May 12.
> 
> “City personnel records indicate that you do not currently possess an International Code Council Fire Inspector Certificate which is required by the City of Oakland classification specification (for fire inspector positions),” the letter begins. White cites the city’s requirements, which specify such training must be completed by the end of the worker’s nine-month probation period.
> 
> The employees have until next Friday to submit their valid certificate, otherwise they will not have completed the “minimum qualifications” for the position.
> 
> “Failure to maintain the minimum qualifications of one’s classification may be cause for discharge,” White concludes.
> 
> The letters were sent as a result of officials reviewing the job requirements, co-Acting Fire Chief Mark Hoffmann said Friday. The scramble to get inspectors compliant with the only certification requirement the city has for the job comes as Mayor Libby Schaaf vows to overhaul the unit and triple its size in the wake of two fires that have killed 40 people since December.
> 
> “I don’t intend to lose a single inspector,” said Hoffmann. “These are all seasoned inspectors who have good skill sets. We are going to try to get compliance. We are in violation of no laws or rules.”¹



Wow, 26 people die because inspectors didn't stay ICC current! Or maybe that's what the lawsuits will say. 



¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05...nd-fire-inspectors-lack-proper-certification/


----------



## cda

So where is the real fire chief??


Not bad if you want to work in Oakland:::


city is actively soliciting candidates for the new inspector positions with annual salaries ranging from $70,000 to $85,000. In those job postings, the city says it has an “urgent need” for inspectors and is looking for two years’ experience of journey-level fire code enforcement experience.


----------



## conarb

cda said:


> So where is the real fire chief??
> 
> 
> Not bad if you want to work in Oakland:::
> 
> 
> city is actively soliciting candidates for the new inspector positions with annual salaries ranging from $70,000 to $85,000. In those job postings, the city says it has an “urgent need” for inspectors and is looking for two years’ experience of journey-level fire code enforcement experience.



The gal chief we heard so much about who threatened to sue the homeowners who complained took sick time off for a month or two to qualify for retirement, then she retired at about 50 years of age, this is her second retirement so she would be up in the $200,000 a year pension neighborhood.  

You can't live on that here, the cheapest apartment out there is in the $2,000 a month neighborhood in a bad neighborhood, $70,000 a year would probably net about $45,000 after California's taxes, take $24,000 off for rent and you are left with $20,000 to drive around in a car and feed yourself, not much of a life unless you want to sit around on the forum all day and night, in a decent neighborhood you can always eat dogfood.


----------



## conarb

CDA:

To elaborate, Oakland rentals and property costs are continuing to rise in spite of high crime rates because or gentrification, the whacko environmentalists don't want any building, they want everything green for parks etc., across the Bay in Silicon Valley techies are paid an average of $125,000 a year for "grunt work", they can't afford to pay rent over there which averages $4,500 a month so *many are living in cars or vans* to alleviate the housing shortage the tech companies are running commute buses back and forth to Oakland on a daily basis, *here is an example of a residential street* near Google/Apple/Facebook etc.. We can't buy land to build, if we do spend a fortune for the land then we have to spend another fortune for a permit and the costs of code compliance, a friend just was allowed to subdivide his 5.6 acres into 3 lots so he can build two more houses, it took him 29 years to get this far,¹ now he's got more years to get a permit then hope his costs haven't been driven so high he will lose money on the houses, meanwhile the cities are declaring themselves sanctuary cities so more illegals can live here on the streets.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/26/phm-freitas/


----------



## conarb

Hey CDA, the firefighters were dancing and partying with the hairy legged hipster girls, firefighters are druggies too?



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Two years before 36 partygoers died in the Ghost Ship warehouse inferno, Oakland firefighters toured the cluttered firetrap, even dancing in the same second-story performance space where the victims would huddle in their final moments, according to witnesses and documents.
> 
> The visits started Sept. 26, 2014, a Friday, when firefighters extinguished a couch fire outside the warehouse artists’ collective on 31st Avenue before touring the eclectic interior, people who saw them inside the building said. One firefighter called it a “museum” and stopped to play one of the many pianos scattered around the space cluttered with wood and furniture stacked to the ceilings. Another firefighter told master tenant Derick Almena that as long as there were marked fire exits, they’d be OK, a resident who overheard the conversation told this newspaper.
> 
> The next day, firefighters returned — twice — hanging out for hours inside the warehouse as a private party with live bands raged upstairs and chefs roasted a pig outside, multiple attendees said.¹.




¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05...-witnesses-say-oakland-firefighters-attended/


----------



## cda

I only want to go that area for the sourdough bread


----------



## cda

conarb said:


> Hey CDA, the firefighters were dancing and partying with the hairy legged hipster girls, firefighters are druggies too?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05...-witnesses-say-oakland-firefighters-attended/




Community firefighting

Like

Community policing


----------



## conarb

There was another large fire yesterday on a mixed use building under construction, the second fire in this same building, this time In Emeryville. a small formerly industrial city sandwiched between Oakland and Berkeley.


			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> EMERYVILLE — Fire crews monitored hot spots and continued to clean up Sunday morning after a massive five-alarm fire at a construction site that started more than 24 hours earlier.
> 
> Small fires still were smoldering at the building in the 3800 block of San Pablo Avenue, on the Emeryville-Oakland border, and smoke still was billowing from spots of the construction site, according to dispatchers, and crews were expected to remain there through the day. They stayed overnight putting out small spot fires through the night, according to Twitter posts by Alameda County Fire.
> 
> The massive blaze that could be seen 80 blocks away started just before 5 a.m. Saturday at the same construction site where a six-alarm inferno burned in July.¹



This is maybe 9 blocks north of the last Oakland fire, this time the builder has cameras in the construction work and maybe they will be able to identify the arsonists.  These arson fires are usually the work of anti-gentrification activist groups, the city only approves residential if it includes commercial so they get sales tax monies, this also complies with Plan Bay Area's requirement to eliminate cars by putting all necessary commercial within walking/biking distance of living and mass transit. Most major tech companies in Silicon Valley are busing tech workers to and from areas like this because the environmental activists won't allow expansion in Silicon Valley, this really pisses off the activists for the poor these buildings replace, there are various anti-capitalist groups organizing to stop gentrification, something the cities want to increase their tax base and fund their failing pension plans.

Our area is so overpopulated that these buses have become an annoyance, just yesterday a Tesla bus taking employees as far as Stockton hit and killed a sheriff's deputy driving a little Volkswagen beetle:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> The driver of the bus, which was driving 51 Tesla employees back home from the company’s Fremont plant to Stockton, told investigators he did not see the car because the sun was in his eyes, California Highway Patrol Officer Derek Reed said.²








¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05...ng-up-more-than-24-hours-after-blaze-started/

² http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05...-collision-involving-tour-bus-near-livermore/


----------



## conarb

It is beginning to look like this fire was the work of anti-gentrification activists:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> After the first fire, Holliday had installed a dozen surveillance cameras and hired a security company to position two armed guards outside the property. He said ATF agents have seized the video footage, and he said guards did not say they saw anything suspicious early Saturday morning when the fire started around 5 a.m.
> 
> But the starting point was again inside an unfinished stairwell which “acts like a chimney,” Holliday said. And like last time, the project was in its most vulnerable stage — about 60 to 65 percent complete with the wood frame exposed, but before the flame-resistant sheet rock was added, the developer said.
> 
> Holliday said he’s frustrated with the ATF, who painted the first fire as started by a “low-level person,” and never made an arrest.
> 
> “Whoever this is, is putting a big pall over getting housing done when it’s the worst housing environment we’ve had in my adult life,” he said.
> 
> Neighbors have speculated that frustrations over gentrification along the West Oakland-Emeryville border area may have provided a motive to someone. Holliday’s project however was approved with a large amount of support, he said.
> 
> “There’s no evidence there’s any problems with us,” he said. “I don’t think that it has anything to do with a controversial project.”
> 
> In 35 years in business, Holliday’s first insurance claim was the July fire and now he’s back at it. But he’s also planning how to rebuild — possibly replacing wooden studs with metal ones or using off-site modular construction.
> 
> “One thing I know is I won’t quit,” he said. “I just have to find the smartest way and make sure it’s the last time.”¹



They have videos this time so maybe they'll catch the arsonist, the ATF has been protecting the left-wing activists like Antifa in the past by blaming the last fire there on a "low-level person" (whatever that is) instead of organized activist groups, if they can pin it on an activist group will they even prosecute? 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05...-spot-inside-building-oakland-developer-says/


----------



## cda

Two Charged in Deadly Ghost Ship Fire


Two people have been arrested in connection with the deadly Ghost Ship fire that claimed 36 lives inside an Oakland warehouse last year, authorities said.

Derick Ion Almena, 47, the concert promoter who converted the warehouse into an artists residence and underground concert venue, was arrested Monday morning, according to Alameda County Asst. Dist. Atty. Teresa Drenick. Charges have yet to be formally filed, she said.

The second arrestee was identified as Max Harris, Drenick said. He had been living at the warehouse since 2014 and was the location’s creative director. Harris has previously said he reported electrical problems to the building’s owners and discussed power outages, necessary upgrades and electrical bills with them. He was the doorman on the night of the deadly event

The fire at the warehouse known as the Ghost Ship broke out during a Dec. 2 concert, trapping scores of attendees inside. All of the victims died of smoke inhalation, according to coroner’s reports. They ranged in age from 17 to 61.

The deadly inferno has opened the city up to rampant criticism, as public records revealed police and fire officials had been called to the building several times amid mounting evidence it had been converted into an illegal residence.

Oakland officials have repeatedly denied that fire and building officials were aware of the danger within the heavily cluttered 10,000-square-foot warehouse. The fire chief has insisted that the department never inspected the location or responded to a dispatch call there in more than a decade, and that city officials believed it was used as a warehouse, not as a concert and living space.

A city building inspector who visited the address just prior to the fire was unable to gain access to the warehouse, officials say.
But public records released by the city in February show the building had been subject to at least 10 code enforcement complaints. City officials also visited the warehouse numerous times in the years before the deadly blaze.

The warehouse was one of several properties owned by Chor N. Ng. Her daughter, Eva Ng, 36, has said the building was leased as a studio space for the art collective and was not used as residences.

Almena, the last lessee on the building, had advertised the building on Craigslist as a “hybrid museum, sunken pirate ship, shingled funhouse, and guerrilla gallery.” He lived in the Ghost Ship with his girlfriend, Micah Allison, and their three children. They were not present the night it burned.

In a disjointed interview on NBC’s “Today” show conducted just days after the fire, Almena offered an apology, but bristled when asked if he should be held accountable for the deadly blaze.

“I’m only here to say one thing: I’m incredibly sorry and that everything that I did was to make this a stronger and more beautiful community and to bring people together,” he said. “People didn’t walk through those doors because it was a horrible place. People didn’t seek us out to perform and express themselves because it was a horrible place.”

Calls to Almena’s attorneys seeking comment Monday morning were not immediately returned. He is being represented by attorneys J. Tony Serra, Jeffrey Krasnoff and Kyndra Miller. The litigators have previously said the officials investigating the case have a “conflict of interest” because they were likely to face civil suits in connection with the fire.

The families of the victims filed a civil suit naming Ng, Almena and PSE&G as defendants earlier this year.

———

©2017 Los Angeles Times

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com


----------



## conarb

Uber, a startup that has never made a dime is trying to remodel an old Sears building and residents are already fighting it.



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Worried Uber’s arrival will change the rapidly gentrifying city of Oakland for the worse, a handful of local activists on Monday launched a campaign called “No Uber Oakland” hoping to pressure the ride-hailing giant to be a good neighbor — or stay out.
> 
> The activists say Uber must change before Oakland residents will welcome it into the city’s Uptown neighborhood, where the startup plans to move several hundred employees into the old Sears building in the summer of 2018. The campaign, which demands that Uber make promises such as hiring diverse Oakland residents, supporting local minority-owned businesses and investing in affordable housing, comes as the city’s expanding tech sector is driving up residential and commercial rents*, *displacing longtime residents and leaving local leaders struggling to maintain Oakland’s eclectic character.
> 
> The world’s most valuable startup has scaled back and delayed its initial arrival into Oakland — Uber originally intended to move up to 3,000 employees into the Sears building this year — and Uber says it’s taking its time in part to ensure a smooth transition into its new neighborhood. For now, Uber intends to lease most of the 380,000-square-foot, seven-story building to other tenants but plans to eventually fill the space. Uber also is building a new headquarters in San Francisco’s Mission Bay.
> 
> “People worry that a major employer in Oakland that will have a lot of clout with City Hall and doesn’t share Oakland’s values and views will further lead Oakland down a path where people don’t want to see us going,” said Orson Aguilar, president of Oakland nonprofit The Greenlining Institute, which is spearheading the “No Uber Oakland” campaign. “People want to see Oakland (as) a diverse, creative place where progressive values are cherished, and people are worried that Uber will disrupt that.”
> 
> The cost of renting the most desirable commercial spots in Oakland’s downtown and Uptown neighborhoods already has jumped from $23.16 per square foot per month in 2012 to $56.52 in the first quarter of this year, according to JLL, a Chicago-based commercial real estate services firm.
> 
> But Aguilar says Uber hasn’t done enough to show its commitment to Oakland, and on Monday his campaign was scheduled to release a list of 10 demands online at NoUberOakland.org, where local residents also can add their names to support the cause. The activists say Uber must make concrete commitments to invest in programs to train local students and adults for jobs at Uber and other tech companies, contract with local small businesses owned by women and minorities, invest in affordable housing and public transit, and support local artists. They also want Uber to establish a community advisory board that meets regularly with CEO Travis Kalanick.
> 
> Uber plans to fill the Oakland office with a mix of existing employees and new hires, and has become more proactive about recruiting in Oakland, Medina said. And the startup is still working on choosing the retail partners it wants to move into the first floor of the old Sears building but says they most likely will be local businesses.
> 
> Several local organizations in addition to The Greenlining Institute have endorsed the No Uber Oakland campaign, including La Familia, PolicyLink and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.¹



Notice the statement: "invest in affordable housing and public transit, and support local artists.", local artists are the people who populated the Ghost Ship, as a whole they don't have any money to lice and work in code legal buildings, unless they can use political pressure to make outfits like Uber provide them with free space.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/06/05/oakland-group-uber-shape-up-stay-out-our-city/


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## cda

What are you people in Moon Beam land doing???



There is plenty of desert land to live on.


June 6--Fire crews had to contend with numerous obstacles when battling a blaze at a single-story residential structure west of downtown Modesto from late Monday into early Tuesday. A resident and two firefighters were injured in the incident.

The dispatch at 11:23 p.m. was to a home on the 200 block of North Emerald Avenue with a large addition divided into several apartment-size living quarters, said Modesto Fire Department Interim Chief Alan Ernst, who was among those responding to the call. First crews on the scene found heavy fire in the structure.

Access proved "extremely difficult" and fire suppression was delayed because of it, Ernst wrote in his incident report. A narrow walkway, fenced on both sides, made it hard to get hose where it was needed. Awnings in front also impeded hose placement.

There also were a number of gates and fences, he said, and most significantly, each unit built into the property had only one entry/exit door, he said. Firefighters could not go from room to room as in a traditional home, but rather had to keep going outside.

Ernst said he's requested that the city building department and Fire Prevention Bureau follow up on the property Tuesday. "I have concerns about whether it's legal the way it's divided up -- it certainly isn't safe," he said. "We couldn't find a working smoke detector in any room."

The initial attack was from the exterior to stabilize the fire and protect an adjacent home that was threatened. Once firefighters were inside, Ernst said there was a point that he wrestled with whether to pull them out for their safety. But the only two injuries to firefighters ended up being rolled ankles because of the many potholes on the property, he said.

One resident was taken to a hospital for anxiety and treatment of smoke inhalation, he said.


The entire structure was left uninhabitable. At least a dozen people were displaced, Ernst said. Red Cross provided assistance to six adults and four children, while two other residents declined assistance, he said. There were a couple of other rooms whose occupants apparently were away at the time, he said.

There were several pets, including two service dogs, living in units, Ernst said. Only one dog has not been accounted for and may have run away during the fire, he said.

It was about 3:30 before crews were done at the scene, Ernst said. Early estimate of the damage was set at $100,000.

Five engines, a truck and two battalion chiefs responded.

Deke Farrow: 209-578-2327

___ (c)2017 The Modesto Bee (Modesto, Calif.) Visit The Modesto Bee (Modesto, Calif.) at www.modbee.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.


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## ICE

_"and most significantly, each unit built into the property had only one entry/exit door"_

This is some big surprise to the FD?  I would think that the FD would be prepared for this every time.  I usually am and the building isn't on fire.


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## conarb

This on the front page of the local newspaper today, now it's the evil building inspectors, even evicting a guy in a wheelchair!


			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Just over a month after a horrific fire ripped through an East Oakland warehouse, killing 36 people, Mayor Libby Schaaf made a promise that city staff would work cooperatively with property owners to make their buildings safe without evicting the artists who live there.
> 
> Instead, it appears city inspectors are doing just the opposite. In the months since the fire, they have issued inspection reports explicitly stating tenants cannot reside in the buildings, while offering only vague instructions on what violations the owners or tenants need to correct, or throwing up bureaucratic road blocks to getting work done. At the same time, tenants of cultural and entertainment venues have complained about a heavy-handed approach that has made it difficult to stay in business.
> 
> On Feb. 21, city staff identified 18 properties in a report to the City Council, saying it had already begun the process of reaching out to property owners to craft compliance plans — a list of work that needs to be done and a timeline in which to do — so the city could bring the spaces up to code. But Darin Ranelletti, the city’s interim director of planning and building, admitted this week that the city had not in fact entered into a compliance plan with the owners of any of those properties.
> 
> But the Ghost Ship fire’s fallout is affecting permitted spaces, too.  At Qilombo, a legal community space in West Oakland, David Keenan, another member of the Safer DIY Spaces group, said he had to fight an invalid inspector’s report that said the space had people living in it, despite the fact there was no evidence of habitation. The inspector based his report on a complaint and verified it when he couldn’t access one room during an inspection.
> 
> After a lengthy email exchange, the inspector, Wing Loo, agreed to change the report, but he still cited them for a missing structural support pole for an interior loft structure, as well as problems with a rear staircase that was built before Qilombo occupied the space. When Keenan tried to pull a building permit to fix the staircase, he couldn’t, because of the existing violation.
> 
> “You admit that nobody lives there but verified (the habitability complaint) because of some other structural condition that needed to be repaired and because you did, you actually blocked me from fixing the thing you are citing,” Keenan said of his interaction with Loo. “I don’t know how much more Kafkaesque you can get.”
> 
> In an email, Loo wrote to Keenan, “I am surprised you are applying logics [sic] to the City Of Oakland. I will reply within the next day or so. Have a good evening and continue to dream.”
> ¹



Wing Loo needs to be replaced by our own Tiger, he'd tell them to get their a$$s out. 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/06...eave-livework-spaces-despite-mayors-promises/


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## cda

I guess how can the city approve residential use, when they already had one disaster.


Do not need another London, and London had past fire history and also knew of complaints prior to a fire


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## Mark K

In California a building that is used as a residential occupancy but not permitted as such is a substandard building.  This is established by state statute, not the building code, and not local ordinance.  Thus local jurisdictions are not able to adopt lesser standards. 

When a building is deemed to be a substandard building the city is compelled to take action.


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## conarb

I'm just republishing what the public thinks, why do mayors say things like this: "Mayor Libby Schaaf made a promise that city staff would work cooperatively with property owners to make their buildings safe without evicting the artists who live there."?


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## cda

Election coming up soon??


Everyone gets a trophy??


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## conarb

We've come to the point that progressively increasing codes and regulations are making impossible for any but the wealthy to even afford housing, from the starving artists here top even Google employees who only average about $125,000 a year in salary, Google is trying a workaround with modular housing:


			
				The Verge said:
			
		

> Google’s employees can’t find affordable housing in Silicon Valley, so the company is investing in modular homes that’ll serve as short-term housing for them. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has ordered 300 units from a startup called Factory OS, which specializes in modular homes. The deal reportedly costs between $25 and $30 million.
> 
> Modular homes are completely built in a factory and assembled like puzzle pieces onsite. This method of construction can reduce the cost of construction by 20 to 50 percent, the Journal reports. These apartments can also be put up more quickly to address dire housing needs. In one case the Journal cites, tenants saved $700 a month because of reduced construction costs.
> 
> Google is based in Mountain View, California, and already, the company owns nearly all the available office space in North Bayshore. Plus, its own plans for a new, cutting-edge headquarters stalled because of a property dispute with LinkedIn. Needless to say, if offices are hard to find, affordable housing is even more difficult. Reports, year after year, indicate that San Francisco has the highest rent prices in the world.
> 
> Earlier this year, CNBC published a piece that detailed the difficulty tech companies have in trying to convince possible employees to move to San Francisco, especially when they live abroad. In response, some startups are establishing offices in other cities, like Chicago and Seattle. The other option is to out-tech the housing crisis, as Google appears to be doing with its modular home investment.¹



"Out-tech the housing crisis" BS, we all know that modular housing can be produced much cheaper not because of technology but becasue it doesn't have to comply with codes.  What I don't get is how they are going to get the City of Mountain View to approve modular housing in their zoning regulations. 


¹ https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/15807762/google-factory-os-modular-housing-san-francisco


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## cda

So how much does material cost for a simple three bedroom house?


How much is the labor to assemble same said house?


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## conarb

cda said:


> So how much does material cost for a simple three bedroom house?
> 
> 
> How much is the labor to assemble same said house?


I have no idea since I haven't built "simple" for over half a century, there is no money in it unless you have huge volume, but that's not really the question, the question is how to legalize the arts collective so the people there can afford to continue to live there?  That's the low end, climbing on up how can your average Googler making $125,000 a year afford to live?  Now they are scattered all over the employee parking lots and the city streets in campers, pickups with shells on the back, and motor homes, to begin with a simple lot is $3 million to buy a tear-down, that's because the environmentalists won't let them build up in the hills where they want parks, they won't let them fill the bay where they want wetlands, so Google has found a way to take some industrial land and proposes stacking modulars on it to give them a place to live.  But isn't Google doing the same thing the arts collectives are doing, taking commercial/industrial zoned land and placing inexpensive housing on it? 

What would be instructive is take your simple 3 bedroom house and somebody take the time to bid it to the 1952 UBC, then bid it to the 2017 CBC at today's material costs and labor rates.  Let's be honest, there is no way you can legalize that arts collective or Ghost Ship to today's codes and the occupants can continue to afford to live there.


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## cda

Why do they have to live there??

I cannot live in the office I work in.

Or is their art an excuse to live there vs actually making money


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## conarb

I have to agree, what they do I do not consider art, particularly that crazy music and drug fueled dancing. Somehow they've convinced people they are artists, as far as I'm concerned they are druggies, if they die in fires it will probably save the County a lot of money in welfare and other payments.


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## mark handler

cda said:


> So how much does material cost for a simple three bedroom house? How much is the labor to assemble same said house?


nahb 2011


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## cda

Yea thought about going to hd or l and buying a few boards at a time, wire, hardware accessory, and after awhile would have enough material

To diy!!!!


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## conarb

CDA:

In the Bay Area of California where both the live/work communities and the Google housing are located those number wouldn't buy the permits much less build the buildings.  When I see $189,000 I have to remember when I got bids for fire sprinklers in a 4,000 square foot house that ran $200,000.


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## Paul Sweet

Mark's prices are a 2011 national average.  The Turner Construction cost index has increased 25% in those 6 years.


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## mark handler

Paul Sweet said:


> Mark's prices are a 2011 national average.  The Turner Constructioncost index has increased 25% in those 6 years.


Turner Construction does not build SFD. It maybe in their index?
2011 was the latest, reliable, numbers I could find.
I could always make up stuff like others do....


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## Mark K

In California factory built housing does have to comply with the codes.  The difference is that the plan checking and inspections of the work done in the factory is under the jurisdiction of the California Department of Housing and Community Development


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## CityKin

Off the top of my head, those numbers look slightly high for SW Ohio.  The lot would be 35-40 not 67k and the sales price would be $175-250k instead of $310


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## fatboy

Another deck....last week.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/06/1...collapse-at-montana-lodge-during-funeral.html


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## mark handler

CityKin said:


> Off the top of my head, those numbers look slightly high for SW Ohio.  The lot would be 35-40 not 67k and the sales price would be $175-250k instead of $310


As the chart says "National average" not Midwest


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## cda

Fire station 

472 feet from ghost ship


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## conarb

cda said:


> Fire station
> 
> 472 feet from ghost ship


Lots of evidence that firemen from that station were going to the drug parties, if they were going there they had to be taking drugs and having sex with them, that's what they do in those drug parties.


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## JPohling

I always wondered what they did at those parties!


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## steveray

Who has sex with drugs? That's just wierd....


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## cda

steveray said:


> Who has sex with drugs? That's just wierd....




https://ixquick-proxy.com/do/spg/sh...e-169.jpg&sp=413021892d9e56a76d2fb38b6626825c


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## cda

Hope for Oakland???


http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/10/19/darin-white-named-oaklands-new-fire-chief/


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## conarb

Meanwhile in Alameda, a small island city separated by a channel from Oakland they are having controversy over a fire chief:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> Vella and Oddie allegedly wanted Keimach to pick Domenick Weaver, a union leader and an Alameda fire captain. Instead, she picked Edmond Rodriguez, the chief of the Salinas Fire Department, saying he was more qualified.
> 
> The charter puts all hiring decisions for key personnel in the hands of the city manager. Council interference is prohibited and can be grounds for removal from office.
> 
> Rodriguez will start work Nov. 13. He takes over from Doug Long, who is retiring after serving as chief since 2015.
> 
> The chief’s job pays about $265,000 annually.
> 
> In an Oct. 2 letter to the council, or the day before announcing that Rodriguez was her pick, Keimach said she was subjected to “unseemly” and “intense and unrelenting” pressure to go with the candidate who was favored by the local firefighters union.
> 
> She also said her job evaluation had been continually postponed since March, a delay that she said made it appear as if a positive evaluation hinged on who she selected as chief.
> 
> Kern said her goal is to have an outside investigator identified by the end of this week to review Keimach’s allegations.
> 
> While Kern said she would recommend that Keimach’s job evaluation again get postponed until after the investigation, Kern also said it was up to the council to decide whether to go forward with it.¹



Note the last chief only worked two years to spike his pension to double his salary, whether it's the union's pick or the city manager's pick both men will only have to work about two years to double their salaries starting their pensions. 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/10...-probe-allegations-involving-council-members/


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## Pcinspector1

JPohling said:


> I always wondered what they did at those parties!



Watch re-runs of the Walton's I suspect?


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## conarb

It looks like the city is going to pay:



			
				East Bay Times said:
			
		

> OAKLAND — Oakland may have had a duty to enforce building and fire codes at the Ghost Ship warehouse, according to a significant court ruling that could eventually leave the city liable for 36 deaths in the horrific Dec. 2 fire.
> 
> The Nov. 8 decision by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Brad Seligman pierces through broad immunities protecting California cities from civil lawsuits in which workers botched inspections of a building or failed to perform the inspection at all.
> 
> In his tentative ruling, Seligman cited the allegations by attorneys for the families of the victims and said their civil lawsuit “exhaustively” documented the dangerous conditions of the Fruitvale district artist collective:
> 
> “The plaintiffs allege the city ‘knew in advance’ of the fire of various unpermitted uses and dangers, including a ‘likely risk of fire’ and that ‘in the evert (sic) of a fire occupants of the building were likely to die or suffer serious bodily injury due to the many violations of mandated building codes and safety provisions, all of which the city was aware of and required to enforce at all relevant times,’” Seligman wrote.
> 
> Stay up to date on East Bay news by downloading our mobile app for free. Get it from the Apple app store or the Google Play store.
> 
> The ruling wasn’t on the merits of the plaintiffs’ complaint but overruled a demurrer filed by the city of Oakland in opposition to the lawsuit. The judge said at this point, all allegations have to be considered until the facts of the case are argued. City spokeswoman Karen Boyd referred questions to the City Attorney’s Office, which did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
> 
> Records show Oakland police, firefighters and building inspectors visited the warehouse before the December inferno, sometimes going inside the labyrinth-like collective stuffed with pianos and a maze of extension cords where more than 20 people illegally lived.¹



A demurer is just a preliminary motion in which, in this case, the city is trying to get out of the lawsuit on the grounds that it is protected by sovereign immunity, but soverien immunity is gradually breaking down, cities are the deepest pockets around and that's what they are going for. When I went to law school Judge Seligman was a classmate, the first day of class we were asked what kind of law we wanted to practice, most young people said the big money was in environmental law, Seligman said the big money was going to be in womens' law, he broke Lucky Stores ahd then followed his dream to get rich destroying Wal Mart, he got Wal Mart all the way to the Supreme Court and lost, one more liberal judge and he would have won.  BTW, I said I was a builder and didn't intend to practice law, I was just getting a law degree to navigate all the corrupt building and zoning precesses in order to get permits to build. 


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/11...andatory-duty-to-ensure-safety-at-ghost-ship/


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## fatboy

I had to testify for my jurisdiction in a trip and fall on some telescoping bleachers a few years back. The City prevailed, but the one thing that our attorney kept pounding into my head before testifying was, if we fail the test of "known, or should have known", we could be held liable.

Kind of sounds like they are knocking on that door.........


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## conarb

Another thing you have to take into consideration is California has "comparative liability", an old high school buddy  made case law and didn't even know it, he was unconscious in a hospital throughout the legal proceedings, he recovered and I later saw him at a school reunion and told him about it.

The facts were:  He was living in the mountains and took his girlfriend to a bar one evening, they both got drunk but someone determined that he was more drunk than she was so it was decided that she drive home.  She had few assets and only had legal minimum insurance (I think$35,000) and drove through a barricade on a winding mountain road, she was relatively unscathed but he was seriously injured, the jury came back with her 98% liable, the barricade manufacturer 1% liable, and the county also 1% liable for lack of maintenance on the road, her insurance company tendered policy limits, the barricade manufacturer tendered policy limits,  so the county was stuck for the rest of the judgment, many millions for his injuries even though they were only found to be 1% liable, that's comparative liability for you, the one with the money pays.


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## tmurray

conarb said:


> Another thing you have to take into consideration is California has "comparative liability", an old high school buddy  made case law and didn't even know it, he was unconscious in a hospital throughout the legal proceedings, he recovered and I later saw him at a school reunion and told him about it.
> 
> The facts were:  He was living in the mountains and took his girlfriend to a bar one evening, they both got drunk but someone determined that he was more drunk than she was so it was decided that she drive home.  She had few assets and only had legal minimum insurance (I think$35,000) and drove through a barricade on a winding mountain road, she was relatively unscathed but he was seriously injured, the jury came back with her 98% liable, the barricade manufacturer 1% liable, and the county also 1% liable for lack of maintenance on the road, her insurance company tendered policy limits, the barricade manufacturer tendered policy limits,  so the county was stuck for the rest of the judgment, many millions for his injuries even though they were only found to be 1% liable, that's comparative liability for you, the one with the money pays.



It's the same here, 1% at fault means you can pay 100% of the damages in tort cases. This places a significant amount of responsibility on governments to be able to prove that they were not negligent in their actions, unlike criminal law, they accept that the injuries occurred or building was damaged as prima facie evidence of wrongdoing. We have to prove through documentation that what we did was what a reasonably diligent official would have done. 

I would agree with fatboy that this would be difficult to prove in this situation. I'm glad it's not me. We went from having multiple lawsuits per year to not having one in the 7 years I've worked for my department. I'd like very  much to keep that up.


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## conarb

tmurray said:


> I would agree with fatboy that this would be difficult to prove in this situation. I'm glad it's not me. We went from having multiple lawsuits per year to not having one in the 7 years I've worked for my department. I'd like very  much to keep that up.



From a legal standpoint it appears to me that AHJs should refocus their code enforcement to older existing buildings, I know the money is in new permits but you have to balance incoming money stream with risk management.  If and when these cases go to trial one juror who has been given a ticket for parking in a handicapped zone will influence the other jurors to throw the book at the AHJ on the basis that their priorities are reversed.


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## linnrg

article states lack of oversight is why they are pleading not guilty

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...r-not-guilty-pleas-in-party-deaths/ar-BBJnP3n


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## cda

Business owner, you need to correct these violations in your business.

No I don’t “ it’s the fault of the landlord and  city poor oversight”


Ok that makes sense


----------



## cda

I guess lives are not worth much

Or Oakland wants this to go away???



https://www.firehouse.com/preventio...ost-ship-warehouse-fire-defendants-plea-deals



https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/6-to-9-years-expected-in-pending-Ghost-Ship-plea-13044898.php


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## conarb

*Tony Serra* and I lived a couple of doors apart as freshmen, Stanford Law School refused both of us early admission, telling us to finish our philosophy degrees and then they would admit us, we both were clean shaven with crew cuts then, after graduation I made the biggest mistake of my life by getting married, Tony took a couple of years off touring Europe then went to Bolt School of Law in Berkeley right in the Free Speech riots.  60 Minutes profiled him as the best anti-government attorney in the country, but he refuses to pay taxes to the "evil government", saying they use tax money to kill brown people with drones in the Middle East and kill black people in Chicago with entitlements.  He's been in prison for tax evasion three times now, the last time he didn't take any income but the IRS imputed income to him based upon the value of his services, even the prosecutor argued at his sentencing that he be sentenced to training young public defenders instead of being sent back to prison but the judge said he had to learn to pay taxes.  He has now agreed to take income but donate all income to the State Bar's program for the poor.

Maybe I can talk him into taking down the corrupt political codes?


----------

