RENT BOARD SHOCKED AND AWED
BY THE OBVIOUS

To paraphrase a saying from the famous movie philosopher Forrest Gump, “Life is like a rent Board meeting– you never know what you’re gonna get.” In many ways Rent Board meetings are predictable because the decisions usually favor the tenants who elected the Rent Board Commissars, but in other ways they are unpredictable because the Board is often shocked and awed by the obvious.

The first example of this phenomenon is with respect to decisions rendered under Regulation 3304, in which the owner may try to prove that a tenant(s) no longer lives in the controlled rental unit(s) as their principle place of residence. I have repeatedly reported Regulation 3304 decisions where tenants prevail in these decisions although they own homes at other locations and/or are married to spouses who live at other locations in order to “maintain a separate lifestyle” and/or rent units at different locations in Santa Monica. Tenants usually win these decisions because the Board’s hearing examiners make it so difficult for the OWNER to prove where the tenant lives and that the controlled rental unit is NOT “. . . the tenant’s usual residence of return” under Regulation 3304 (g).

It should be very easy to prove that tenants are not living in their Santa Monica controlled rental units because the Board has been doing a similar thing for many years to prove that owners don’t live on properties that have exemptions based on owner-occupancy. In Rent Board Story Part 106, I reported on the activities of Rent Board “Investigator” approximately named “Peeping Pete Sorvino” who shows up on properties unannounced, peeps in windows, checks utility meters, and talks to tenants to find out if the owner really lives on the property. He is so effective that some landlords who have small children keep them from leaving their beds at night by telling them that “Peeping Pete” is under their bed and will grab them if they leave it before dawn.

Unfortunately, although Peeping Pete is very effective if the objective is to prove that property owners do not live in their units, the Rent Board won’t let him make surprise inspections to determine whether or not tenants live in rental units. Therefore, since Peeping Pete’s services are not available, owners have resorted to hiring private detectives and installing video cameras to prove where the tenants live and where they don’t. Sometimes this is a problem and sometimes it is not.

For example, I went to the Rent Board meeting of November 16, 2005, because there was Regulation 3304 decision N-0147 was on appeal. In that case, the owner hired a private investigator to follow the tenants and take pictures of where they lived. I thought that the Rent Board would be very upset about that, but none of them were. In fact, Commissar Alan Toy explained that he became a Santa Monica tenant because he moved in as a roommate of a tenant and the owner did not “exercise due diligence” by evicting him. Then Commissar Sklar, who is an attorney who represents tenants against Santa Monica property owners in eviction cases when he is not acting as a Rent Board Commissar, spoke up in support of Commissar Toy.

I was shocked and awed that this discussion took place until I realized that the Rent Board meeting was held at the school board meeting hall on 16th Street and no TV cameras from City TV were present. I then skipped the December 2005 Rent Board meeting, but attended the meeting of January 12, 2006, because I wanted to see the appeal of petition N-0151 where the famous landlord attorney named Rosario Perry was representing owners who had installed a video camera outside a rental unit to prove that tenants were rarely present at that location. The camera was not secret, and it did not peer into the unit, but the Commissars were shocked, awed and aghast that a property owner would invade the tenant’s right to privacy in such a manner. At that meeting, Commissar Toy said that he never would have supported the Regulation 3304 petition process if he suspected that property owners would do such terrible things.

I was sitting behind Rosario Perry when Commissar Toy was making his speech and I said, “Can you believe this reaction is coming from the same folks that hire Peeping Pete Sorvino to spy on property owners?” That comment made Rosario laugh, and then Commissar Joel Koury chastised Rosario for laughing about such a serious matter and made a speech about the right to privacy.

As a result of watching the Rent Board meetings of November 2005 and January 2006, I was trying to determine how it was OK to have Peeping Pete Sorvino and private detectives secretly spying on people but NOT OK having a video camera openly and obviously doing the same thing in public areas. My confusion about this subject only increased when I read an article in the LookOut online newspaper (Surfsantamonica.com) on January 31, 2006 titled, “Surveillance Cameras Await Final Go-ahead.” The first two paragraphs of that article state the following:

Whether shopping on the Third Street Promenade or taking a stroll on the pier, your every move may soon be captured by police-monitored surveillance cameras posted at prime destinations.

Following a nationwide trend, City Council members in February are expected approve the use of video cameras in public places throughout Santa Monica to monitor against any terrorism threat.

Therefore, while the Santa Monica Rent Board believes that security cameras are a threat to privacy rights, the City Council believes that they are a great idea for monitoring the public to protect it against terrorism threats.

Therefore, I am advising property owners that if they wish to install surveillance cameras on their property, they should publicly announce that they are doing that in response to terrorism threats so that the Rent Board is not shocked and awed by the obvious need for them in order to “exercise due diligence” at Rent Board hearings.

And if you don’t believe it, call City TV and get a videotape of the Rent Board meeting of January 12, 2006 from City TV and compare that to the January 31, 2006 article titled “Surveillance Cameras Await Final Go-ahead” at Surfsantamonica.com.