Chapter Four: Zine’s cop-out
Much of city government took days off in advance of the holiday so I was lucky to run into Councilman Dennis Zine who had the first shot at stopping the illegal conversion of a single family house in my neighborhood into a three-unit apartment building
It was Thursday night and I was a guest on “Primetime Zine,”
the councilman’s monthly talk show hosted by Lee Kanan Alpert on Time Warner Cable’s public access channel. The invitation came before I found out Zine was one of the suspects in the mystery of who was killing my neighborhood.
With American flags flying from atop his SUV, Zine pulled into the Time Warner Cable parking lot and strutted up to me with two aides in tow. He wore an American flag tie, had an American flag lapel pin and carried a flag in his hand and was in the mood for a fight, if not a revolution.
I told him I was going to bring up the illegal conversion on air, that my neighbors were frustrated that neither he nor other city officials seem to take the issue very seriously and were so upset they were signing petitions.
“You’re wrong. They have a permit,” he snapped, insisting his staff did all it could by referring my neighbors’ complaint back in March to the Department of Building and Safety. (My neighbor, a retired doctor, doesn’t share that point of view, having spent hours waiting in Zine’s office in a futile effort to actually talk to the councilman).
They have a permit to illegally convert a house into an apartment? And all you did was refer the complaint to Building and Safety?
“It’s right here in the Building and Safety files,” he said, waving printouts downloaded by a staffer. “We looked into it today and it’s all perfectly legal. You’re wrong.”
What ensued was a heated discussion between two people who have had a lot of heated arguments over the years but still get along in a funny sort or way given the volatile nature of their personalities.
I told him a crime was being committed that would destroy my
neighborhood, chase away people who lived in there for 50 years and
turn it into a slum and he would share in the blame.
Zine would have none of it. “There’s no crime,” hs said. “My planning deputy has looked into it and everything is in order.”
He
didn’t know, however, about the July 16 hearing coming up — a private
hearing, public not allowed — over the citation for construction
without a permit or that two of the three units were already occupied.
“It’s legal to rent out rooms in your house,” he retorted.
And
install three kitchens, four bathrooms, with separate exits for the
three units, advertise three apartments for rent on westsiderentals.com
and seek $5, 500 a month in rent from three tenants while subdividing a
2,047 square foot house into more than a dozen rooms?
He said it’s a Building and Safety issue and the department will take care of it according to the law.
But you make the laws, I insisted, and if the laws are inadequate than it’s your job to fix them.
If this drags on for months or years, my neighborhood will be destroyed. What are you going to do about it?
“That’s a civil matter, not a city matter,” he said.
Mercifully,
at that point the referee — Zine’s chief of staff Cliff Ruff, like the
councilman a retired cop and former police union official — stepped in
before someone, undoubtedly me, got hurt, most likely impaled with an
American flag.
So the show went on but not before I overheard
Zine angrily claiming he was blind-sided and set up by bringing me, of
all people, in as a guest.
We argued a lot about just about
everything during my 15 minutes or so on air and agreed on some things
but stayed as civil to each other as our aforementioned personalities
allow.
It wasn’t until I got home that I took a closer look at
the records Zine handed me. records that supposedly showed the illegal
conversion wasn’t illegal after all because Building and Safety had
issued permits for the construction.
What Zine’s records in
fact showed was that building permits were issued in 2003 for
converting the house into a licensed board and care facility, which was
unpopular but accepted in the neighborhood. Those permits expired last
year and the only permit issued since was in February to install a
seismic gas valve. Zine’s records do not show the city approved of
converting the house into apartments, a point I raised in an email to
Ruff but haven’t heard back.
And so Dennis if you’re reading
this, or somebody is reading it to you, it’s you who is wrong. And
you’re still a suspect in the crime against my neighborhood whether
your aggressive attitude was simply based on misinformation or intended
to mislead.
Hey, I’m the detective in the case and I’ve got to keep an open mind to all possibilities..
The outrage of your neighbors is warranted. And Zine’s response is typical of a guy more concerned with aggressive paparazzi bothering movie stars than the destruction of your community. The councilman might want to look up the definition of tenement: “a room or a set of rooms forming a separate residence within a house or block of apartments.” Unfortunately, he’ll probably leave it to his fumbling staff, who won’t be able to find a dictionary in the office. I guess they can always just call Building and Safety.
The Councilmember’s Planning Deputy in our district CD2, Dale Thrush, is a good guy who also takes the word of the Planning Dept as gospel. Poor guy just may end up, unfortunately, in hell after G-d counts the number of lies that he’s inadvertently passed on from the Planning Dept.
Thank G-d your discussion with Zine was prior to a media appearance, unlike the meeting of No2HomeDepot with the LA City Facilitator Ms. Ridley-Thomas. WIthout the media appearance, you’d get “LAPD searched” before being allowed in their presence. Consider that this may be their new standard operating procedure, or a new LAPD policy.
I am not surprised, Dennis Zine is trying to destroy our comfortable and friendly neighborhoods zoned 1, by allowing care facilities, palm readings and other businesses free reign to buy or rent and put up a sign.
Also he and the planning dept are permitting horrid apartment buildings that are multistoried and it doesn’t mattter if they dwarf their neighborhoods.
Where did this guy come from? Oh, he is well-educated, has a whole resume of city service. He probably will retire with a big income in the South Pscific. Did I mention his lousy attitude?
Drive around the valley residential neighborhoods at night. In some neighborhoods not only is there no street parking but cars are parked in both the drives and on the lawns of single family homes. A party perhaps? Nope happens night after night. The homes are now multifamily dwellings and not just 2 family homes either. God knows how many separate families live in these homes. The garages are converted to apartments and each bedroom is rented to another family or individual. Do our elected officials care? Nope! and there is nothing the home owners in the area can do except learn to live with it.
This city has so many laws and there is no enforcement. If the city were to follow up on these conversions and fine these offenders maybe we wouldn’t have a city with so many money woes. All of the trash pickers taking the recyclables which belong to the city and of course we were promised by the Department of Sanitation that they would strongly enforce the laws governing that. One bag of aluminum cans fetched me a nice twenty five dollars the last time I turned them in. So twenty five dollars here and twenty five dollars there is a lot of money that the city turns its back on. Where are our politicians?
There are in fact too many violations all over for the one in your area to seem more than small potatoes to the Building & Safety, unless you can cite some health violation maybe. But banks don’t usually give loans to illegally subdivided homes in R1 areas, so why don’t you ask the bank about it.
Meanwhile, all the hillsides are being overdeveloped like crazy, homes dug into every nook and cranny with no setback, blocking people’s views and new additions taking up valuable parking space on already crowded, narrow streets. Homes are going in without sewer permits, using septic tanks, and underneath homes where they compromise the house above or below — but the city always accepts any soil engineer’s report. Construction trucks ruin streets with projects that go on for years, while they block our driveways, create diesel engine noise all day and turn streets we bought for peace and quiet into major construction zones for years — there’s just so much of this, and it’s been going on for decades. People with alleged double lots have been turning the pool into a second house to sell, ruining quality of life for everyone else. (On the plus side, Ron, sounds like the conversions you object to were done so quietly you never knew abou them.)
The only thing that temporarily halted it was the Real Estate downturn in the mid 90′s after a huge run-up, then there was another huge spurt recently. Despite the alleged downturn now, builders are rushing to build projects before the Hillside Ordinance is passed in 2 years or so.
I agree this is all horrible, but it’s not just the current Administration, I’m afraid. The problem is nothing was done on a city-wide basis earlier, in part due to class and racial warfare that’s going on now: the politicians from the Latino Eastside, the Reyes/Alarcon/Cardenas/Felipe Fuentes/Gil Cedillos etc., at city and state levels, see “our” attempts in quieter/ R1 or even nice R2 areas to control growth as a “lack of social justice issue.” They argue that fighting for adequate parking, quiet, control over billboards and other issues is “elitism” and we should be doing the opposite. Our local representatives have had to fight this for decades, being opposed by interests elsewhere in the city — even Zev did when he was CM of CD5, then Woo (who caved, being in favor of this density stuff) and Feuer. Zev had to battle being called “elitist” and often, not having the majority he needed to get our views acted on. (Feuer couldn’t play the game of getting allies in this tricky, cliquish environment at all, for all his sincere intentions.) Now Sherman Oaks and Studio City, Woodland Hills and Encino, especially the foothills and hills, are seeing what the westside has all along — over decades.
I’m with those who say each district should have more autonomy, and those in charge of Lincoln Heights shouldn’t be allowed to override what’s right for those in Brentwood and Westwood and the Encino Hills or the Canyons. (V.v. rarely happens, in fact, unless it’s an issue of public safety, restaurant ordinances, etc.) That’s what our city can agree on — the Daily News had a story yesterday about how East L A wants to secede again, calling themselves “the ATM of the city.” How they figure that, compared to the Westside and Valley, beats outside observers, but it shows that people want more local voice — and just electing another Councilmember outnumbered by other political/ethnic factions, won’t do it. The charter must be amended to actually respect Community Plans.
Ron,
A very sad story indeed. And let’s be frank. Some very stupid behavior by Councilman Zine.
We start with some basic premises:
(1) Zine could solve your problem.
I used to work for a Councilmember. Let me tell you, when they say, “Jump,” the city bureacracy says, “How high?” If he asked Building and Safety to check into the location’s permits, they would most likely yank them. Happens all the time.
(2) Zine has everything to gain by solving your problem.
Unless this small-potatoes landlord is a big Zine contributor, Zine has everything to gain by enforcing the laws. Pros: helps owners/voters who occupy SFDs in neighborhood. Cons: Um, none. OK, he pisses off the owner of one building. But in the cosmic sense, you can’t really hold a grudge too long for someone calling you out on what you are not supposed to do!
(3) Zine is stupid (sorry, but there is no other word for it), for not helping you.
The good politicians view constituent service requests as opportunities. Someone calls your office to complain about a pothole. It is (a) an introduction; (b) a chance to chine; and (c) the beginning of a good relationship.
Zine obviously does not get it. He wouldn’t even have to get involved personally; his staff would do it, and he would get all the credit.
In sum, I don’t know which is worse. Zine’s lack of caring about the illegal apartmentization of a single-family neighborhood, or his almost criminal stupidity and lack of political instincts.
There is one final possibility, and that is a mixture of (a) lack of courage and (b) apathy. Is he afraid of using political capital to ask a favor of the high-ups and Building & Safety? Is it simply easier to argue with you on the propriety of breaking the law than to enforce it?
I have had a similar situation — almost to a tee — in CD4 with Councilman LaBonge. The difference between my situation and yours is that the owner’s of the illegally converted structure are not even registered to vote! They are surely not campaign contributors, and they might not even be lawful citizens.
But the same MYSTIFYING INACTION by Councilman LaBonge.
Can anyone explain why?
Anyone?
Ron,
Your Whodunit series “Who’s Killing My Neighborhood?”
written during summers 2008-2009 was fabulous
introduction to dysfunction and corruption of LA’s bureaucracy.
Council representatives and B&S officials are responsible
for the abuse and targeted neglect of neighborhoods.
The people are confronting a monster.
Yes, there still are some very lovely, safe “enclaves” in LA,
but, most neighborhoods have deteriorated into feral,
uncivilized wastelands of blight, decay, vandalism,
gangster lawlessness, organized crime…
despair, apprehension, hopelessness, dread…
LA: world class city or hell on earth ?
The valley is definitely on its way as hell on earth. Or a total 3rd world toilet.
These posts are from 2008. It is interesting that you people did not care to get rid of Villar in 2009. I guess you like to live in a toilet. Well the next mayor (looks like garcetti) will fix it. Not.
Ron,
A very sad story indeed. And let’s be frank. Some very stupid behavior by Councilman Zine.
We start with some basic premises:
(1) Zine could solve your problem.
I used to work for a Councilmember. Let me tell you, when they say, “Jump,” the city bureacracy says, “How high?” If he asked Building and Safety to check into the location’s permits, they would most likely yank them. Happens all the time.
(2) Zine has everything to gain by solving your problem.
Unless this small-potatoes landlord is a big Zine contributor, Zine has everything to gain by enforcing the laws. Pros: helps owners/voters who occupy SFDs in neighborhood. Cons: Um, none. OK, he pisses off the owner of one building. But in the cosmic sense, you can’t really hold a grudge too long for someone calling you out on what you are not supposed to do!
(3) Zine is stupid (sorry, but there is no other word for it), for not helping you.
The good politicians view constituent service requests as opportunities. Someone calls your office to complain about a pothole. It is (a) an introduction; (b) a chance to chine; and (c) the beginning of a good relationship.
Zine obviously does not get it. He wouldn’t even have to get involved personally; his staff would do it, and he would get all the credit.
In sum, I don’t know which is worse. Zine’s lack of caring about the illegal apartmentization of a single-family neighborhood, or his almost criminal stupidity and lack of political instincts.
There is one final possibility, and that is a mixture of (a) lack of courage and (b) apathy. Is he afraid of using political capital to ask a favor of the high-ups and Building & Safety? Is it simply easier to argue with you on the propriety of breaking the law than to enforce it?
I have had a similar situation — almost to a tee — in CD4 with Councilman LaBonge. The difference between my situation and yours is that the owner’s of the illegally converted structure are not even registered to vote! They are surely not campaign contributors, and they might not even be lawful citizens.
But the same MYSTIFYING INACTION by Councilman LaBonge.
Can anyone explain why?
Anyone?
“The charter must be amended to actually respect Community Plans”
Yes,we must have the city charter appraised and updated.
Bureaucrats are not law makers.
Zine is one of the few councilmembers who still works his ass off every day for his constituents. Ron Kaye, you are just a bitter old man with too much time on your hands now.
Zine is a pompous ass who has done far more harm than good
and has enriched himself at the expense of the public’s welfare.
Oh please.. Zine works hard for his community, huh? Or the contributors to his campaign.. isn’t that what you meant to say?
5:42………Zine may work hard, but he passed the buck on this one!
Anonymous 5:42 is either a Zine troll or has been living in a dark cave with no newspapers for the last seven years.
Zine’s action, or inaction, is typical of Councilmembers. I used to work for one too.
Taking on the paparazzi or trying to catch an alligator requires has the potential to generate national media with little effort.
Helping a couple of constituents is time consuming because it may involve questioning the actions or the information received by bureaucrats. Little political gain, lots of work.
Rather than spend his time on the air trying to wash his hands of the thing, and using Building and Safety as his shield, he should have chosen a course somewhere between showing sympathy and a threatening the department and everyone in it.
Ron, on the Fourth I watched the Capital Fourth on KCET. Huey Lewis and the News broke out in dance, song and music!
I think that is how all of us will feel on April 15th! We will have told the world that we are free people and have been pushed too far!! Thank you. We needed someone to make us feel comfortable enough to tell it like it really is.
Then it will be up to ‘dem bums”!
Next time getting reelected will not be so easy. TJH
The problem you illustrated, actually, the two problems, (1) The code violatons/illegal housing conversions, and (2) the no-help councilmember, are really just the tip of the iceberg.
We are repeatedly being subjected to more and higher-density development without ANY change in the infrastructure. The situation with traffic is one high-visibiity example that gets worse, if that’s possible.
The city council won’t enforce the codes and ordinances to make tenants vacate the illegal conversions because there’s not any positive return for them. The don’t want to do their duty handling city affairs for which they get paid more than handsomely. They would have more people looking for housing and complaining, even though the housing codes were put there for a reason.
It’s simpler for them to spew lies and to backslide than to do what is right and to do what NEEDS to be done. And NOTHING ever happens to them if they don’t do anything anyway, so why should any of them really bother?
No, that’s real work on a real quality-of-life condition in the city. The council members would rather think of ways to suck out our money like blood, but not like a vampire who kills the host at each feeding, but, instead, like a swarm of mosquitoes, with lots of little bites sucking the blood out little by little, so we won’t notice as easily, but wondering why we are on the verge of passing out with all the fee hikes, i.e., trash, parking tickets, DWP, street parking districts, and on and on.
If we could get some real representation instead of the bought-off worms making excuses…. well, to take a line from Mayor Tony’s State of the City speech a while back, “Dream with me.”
The death grip on the city is the developer / contractor / land use attorney / campaign donor quadrangle.
The reason it doesn’t resonate with voters is that there are too few owner-occupied property owners in ratio to renters: the ratio is the lowest by far among the nation’s top twenty cities. And also, admittedly, it’s a complicated quadrangle, with out-of-town owners contributing far from local scrutiny, and land use attorneys doubling as city lobbyists.
Our gutless politicians are doing nothing to break up the death grip. Indeed, collecting tons of money from it is how they keep running unopposed.
Insular…that’s City Hall. Insulated from the people they are suppose to represent.
Today’s entry is an example of yet another nail in the coffin of average Joe Angelo. It’s also an echo of that call to arms, a.k.a. “Save the Los Angeles Protest” next Monday, the 14th of July. It’s time we let City Hall know this insular crap is long overdue for a shake up.
What a scumbag Zine is, just amazing–L.A. is finished in the hands of these guys–no better than common criminals.
It’s time for the City’s homeowners to fight back by electing candidates who will fight for us instead of developers, whose mission is to cram as many bodies per square mile as possible into our city.
If you want to fight back, if you want someone to represent YOUR interests in City Hall, I’m your man. But you have to take action. You can’t just sit there and hope everyone else will save you. Go to my website, contribute to my campaign as others have (over $111,000 so far), sign up for my newsletter, get a bumper sticker, volunteer, and TELL YOUR FRIENDS.
Walter Moore
Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles
http://WalterMooreForMayor.com
L.A. is just full of horror stories…things that never hit the 11:00 news or MSN. Ron, here’s MY horror story…just to make you feel a little better, lol!
I have a little rental house near USC that I mistakenly rented to a hispanic woman a few years ago. She said she lived alone with her 2 dogs. So far so good…she paid her rent on time, and never called in the middle of the night with leaky faucets or stopped up toilets (a blessing). A year after she moved in, the rent stopped coming. I tried phoning her…she NEVER picked up her phone. I sent her a 30 day notice to pay or face eviction proceedings…no response. I finally gave up in utter frustration after 3 months of No rent and no response. I started eviction proceedings, which took another 3 months, and finally the Eviction Day came. I met the Sheriff at the location and stood behind him as he banged on the door. The tenant finally opened the door, and the Sheriff told her to LEAVE IMMEDIATELY. We waited patiently as she went back into the house and grabbed a few belongings. She left. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
But the nightmare is just beginning. The Sheriff and I entered the house together, and to my complete shock and horror…I couldn’t believe what I encountered! This tenant had totally destroyed my property! She knocked out the common wall between the attached garage and the living room and had converted it to a make-shift bedroom. She put up room dividers in all 3 bedrooms…converting the bedrooms into little sleeping compartments. We counted 30 little sleeping cots strewed all over every room. She had 3 trailers in the back yard. The plumbing fixtures from the kitchen and 2 bathrooms had been ripped out! There was trashed piled as high as the eye could see. There were chickens and roosters inside and outside. And, most sadly, we found several dead cats and one dead dog in one of the bedroom closets!
The Sheriff and I just stood there…silent! He finally found the words to tell me that never in his 25 year career had he EVER, EVER seen such a case of human degradation and filth.
I had a choice of razing the house, or a long and costly rehab job. I chose to rehab the house. It cost upwards of $60,000! I was unable to track the woman down. I had NO legal recourse…the City Attorney’s office just scoffed at me, and offered NO assistance.
The house has been restored to it’s original pristine condition and you can be sure that I now make regular property checks!
I kept a ‘souvenir’ from the ‘ashes’… As we were hauling truckloads of trash from inside of the house, I discovered a hand-written notice that was nailed to the kitchen wall. In Spanish..it read: “RULES FOR TENANTS”…bitter irony!, to say the least!
We close our eyes to the blight in the predominantly hispanic neightborhoods (barrios); but that blight is beginning to rear it’s ugly head in OUR neighborhoods. All it takes is ONE slum landlord or homeowner to open a flophouse by partitioning rooms As the scumbag, Zine, said..”It’s not illegal to rent out rooms”!
It just takes ONE Mexican to infiltrate a non-hispanic neighborhood and start the downward spiral. The first thing that happens is the homeowner on each side of the flophouse decides to sell…usually to more hispanics. And before you know it…the entire neighborhood is hispanic.
If Reyes, Alarcon and the rest of the Mexican mafia downtown have their way…L.A. is doomed. We are becoming the Nation’s Landfill! A crisis is looming!
I lived in California, near the coasts of the Bay Area, Orange County, Santa Monica, and Ventura for 60 years. Worked for the County of LA for 2 years, which scared me. Could not believe how disorganized the County Government was.
Those places I lived in used to be really nice.
Sad to say, escape to Scottsdale last year was a good thing.
Zine’s 12 years of mooching off 2 City Salaries is about to be reduced by 1 come July 1rst 2013—and not a single second too soon! Vote Galperin for Controller and join the Retire-Zine-the-Pig 2013 party!