ANOTHER DUMB DRAGON RENT DECREASE DECISION

From time to time I write about the very dumb rent decrease decisions that the rent Board issues on a regular basis. The most absurd decisions are written by the Hearing Examiner known as “The Dragon.” This is a real person and her name really is Toni Dragon. For more than 20 years, she has been writing truly bizarre decisions and she is only getting worse with time. Here are some of the Stories I wrote about her in past issues of WAM.

Rent Board Story Part 19, titled, “The Siege of Norma’s Sauna” is about how the Dragon gave rent decreases to every tenant in Norma’s building because two tenants claimed Norma had closed the sauna and had taken it away. The fact that the complaining tenant who organized this petition could not describe the interior of the sauna “because it was dark inside” did not deter the Dragon from giving a rent decrease to everyone. As a result the owner had to file a writ petition to get the decision reversed. See Rent Board Decision D-2113 and Superior Court Case LASC No. WEC 91448.

In Rent Board Story Part 22 titled, “The Beige Berber Carpet Case,” the Dragon issued a rent decrease decision against a “landlord” who installed beige Berber carpet in a controlled rental unit where the tenant demanded gray plush carpet instead. Once again the owner had to file a court action to get the decision reversed. He won and was awarded attorneys’ fees because the Decision met the standard of being “arbitrary and capricious.” See Rent Board Decisions D-2162, D-2168, and/or Superior Court Case SS-003053.

Finally, Rent Board Story Part 121 titled, “The Terra Bella Decrease Decision,” is the story of how a tenant who operates a travel agency out of her “controlled rental unit”(when she is not living in Italy) was upset because the owner was operating the building management office from a room the tenant claimed have once been a recreation room or lounge. This case was much like the sauna case in that none of the tenants could accurately describe the interior of the “lounge or recreation room.” The complaining tenant and each of her three witnesses described the walls in the room as painted “white” or “off-white” and none of them could confirm or deny whether or not there was wallpaper covering the walls when specifically asked that question.

In response, the owner showed pictures of the room from 25 years before the rent decrease petition was filed. This time, the Dragon believed the owner and rendered a decision that found at Finding of Fact No 24, “From the time the building was built (i.e., 1972) until 1994, the wall coverings in the lounge were burgundy and gold burlap-type wall paper.”

Certainly, the owner should win a rent decrease decision where the Dragon agreed with the owner that the area had never been a “lounge” for the tenants since none of the tenants could describe the interior walls. So the Dragon gave the tenant a rent decrease of zero (0, null, none, nada) for the loss of the “lounge” than none of the tenants could describe.

Unfortunately, the tenants appealed the decision to the Rent Board, and at the appeal hearing, Rent Commissar Chairperson, Alan Toy, thought that the tenant made a great argument and after the public had addressed the Board (and could no longer speak), he then added some facts to the case that was not part of the record to make it appear as though the landlords were harassing the poor tenants. And after hearing Chairperson Toy’s additional arguments on behalf of the tenant, the Rent Board decided to award a rent decrease of $10.00 per month.

I advised the owner to appeal the decision, but he reasoned that since the rent decrease was only $10 per month, it was not worth the trouble. I told him that any rent decrease would only encourage the Terra Bella travel agency tenant to file more rent decrease petitions. I gave him good advice, but he did not follow it and more bad things happened.

On January 31, 2008, the Terra Bella travel agency tenant filed rent decrease Petition D-4392, claiming (among other things); (1) the owner removed the name of her Terra Bella travel services from the building directory of tenants, (2) the owner only kept the jacuzzi heated four hours every day of the year instead of twelve hours, and (3) the sauna timer was replaced so that it was only on for 25 minutes per twist of the dial. The tenant claimed that it had to be on for one hour per twist of the dial. Twisting it twice per hour was too burdensome.

More unfortunately, the case was assigned to the Dragon again, but at the first hearing, there was a glimmer of hope because she was wearing a wrist protector on each of her wrists that look like the type that professional bowlers wear on their bowling hand. So, when I saw that the Dragon was wearing one protector on each wrist, I thought that she may have become an ambidextrous bowler since I last saw her. But then I realized since she is nearing retirement age, she was probably adding a claim of carpel tunnel injury to her retirement package.

This seemed like a good thing because if the Dragon was wearing two wrist protectors, maybe she would write a shorter decision. But I was wrong about that. Two and one half months after the final hearing was held, the Dragon issued a 99-page decision that was as idiotic as anything she has ever written. For purposes of brevity, I will organize around the issues where she awarded rent decreases.
Rent Decrease Awarded Because
Tenant Was Not Permitted To List Her Travel Agency As The Tenant On The Building Directory

In the first cause of action, the Dragon awarded a rent decrease of $3.00 per month because the property owner will not permit the tenant to list the name of her travel agency (Terra Bella Services) on the building directory. There was no basis in logic or law for this rent decrease. As a matter of law, posting business names or advertising commercial services was not offered on the Base Rent Date of April 10, 1978, so the owner had no duty to list business names. Since there was no duty to supply this housing service, there was no basis for reducing the rent if it was not supplied. Additionally, the tenant had no right to conduct any commercial business on the premises that was open to the public.

On this issue, the Hearing Examiner reasoned that the tenant suffered a decrease in housing services because IF a client sent mail to the tenant in the name of Terra Bella Services and IF there was a substitute mail carrier who did not know that the tenant in apartment 209 was doing business as Terra Bella Services THEN the mail carrier might not deliver the mail.

Rent Decrease Awarded Because of Reduction of Jacuzzi Hours and Water Heat

The Terra Bella tenant claimed that the hours that the jacuzzi had been reduced from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. to the hours between 5:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. She also claimed that it was not hot enough. None of the tenants were actually living on the property on the base rent date of April 10, 1978 and there was no timer on the Jacuzzi heater that the could be seen by the public, so the testimony of the owner was the ONLY competent evidence on that issue because only he was witness present on that date and only he could see the timer.

To resolve this issue, the Dragon sent the Rent Board investigator known as Peeping Pete Savino to investigate and be the tenant’s witness. The Dragon also refused to let the owner know when Peeping Pete was making his investigations so that his testimony would be a surprise, although that was not a surprise to me because the Dragon does it in nearly every rent decrease hearing.

The Dragon and Peeping Pete are political appointees who have no special skills to do what they are doing except that they specialize in making property owners miserable. Toni Dragon was a tenant of former Rent Board Commissar Eileen Lipson who got her job with the Rent Board shortly after she passed the bar exam. Commissar Lipson tried to claim that her property was exempt from Rent Control because it only had three units, until the Board found out that she actually had four units. Then Commissar Lipson decided that if she could not be exempt from the Board, she might as well join it and she served as a Commissar for two terms.

Meanwhile, Peeping Pete Savino was a tenant community organizer who appeared with Commissar Wayne Bauer on the June Caine Miller Show around October 1984 when I was running for Rent Board. Shortly after that Pete got his job as a “Rent Board Investigator who appeared at most rent decrease hearings as a surprise witness on behalf of the complaining tenants.

Bad things usually happen when one political hack gives a community organizer a mission to accomplish. This time was no exception. In this case, Peeping Pete was supposed to see how warm the Jacizzi water got when it was in operation between the hours of 5:00 - 9:00 p.m. But when he did his surprise inspections he measured the heat at 11:10 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. and found that the hottest it got was 82.7 degrees at 11:10 a.m.

Get it??? He took the water temperature at the wrong time! The Jacuzzi did not begin heating until 5:00 p.m, so Pete was taking the water temperature before he heat was on.

Unfortunately, The Dragon did not note that Pete took the water temperature at the wrong time because she gave a rent decrease of $25 per unit/month for reduction of hours and $20 per unit/month for reduction of heat.

Rent Decrease Awarded Because of A Time
Reduction of The Sauna Timer and Insufficient Heat

In this cause of action, the Terra Bella tenant claimed that she was entitled to a rent decrease because the timer on the sauna had been reduced from 1 hour to 25 minutes and the sauna did not get hot enough during that time. I thought that we would win this issue because this same hearing examiner had been reversed by the Superior Court more than 20 years ago when she awarded a rent decrease in the Norma Williams sauna case. However, leaving nothing to chance, the property owner and I put on the following case in his defense.

First, we submitted photos of the instructions on the original timer that say it is not safe to use the use the sauna for more than 15 minutes. These directions were confirmed by photos submitted by Peeping Pete. Pete also confirmed that after an hour, the sauna reached a temperature of 175 degrees Fahrenheit. We had no objection to his evidence.

Next we turned in two reports from the Internet that say it is not safe to be in a sauna for more than 15 minutes.

Then we proved beyond a doubt to any reasonable mind showed that the tenant did not actually use the sauna “several times a week” since 1981 because she was not aware that there was a temperature thermometer in the wall that is clearly visible when you first open the door.

Finally, we submitted a copy of an Internet report from the International Food Safety Council at “www. foodsafety.gov” titled “Cook it Safely.” This report found that ham and pork should have an internal cooking temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 minutes to be safely cooked.

Therefore, I thought that we had conclusively established that no person could or should be in that sauna at 175 degrees for one half hour (with the possible exception of David Blaine.) But unfortunately, The Dragon proved once again that you cannot “teach an old dog new tricks.” Her Decision at Finding of Fact No. 32 states:

“32. The dial for the sauna timer appears to be on backwards. The timer is not working properly. The hearings investigator observed that it took an hour to reach 175N. During the first half hour, it only reached 140N.”

The Hearing Examiner than proceeded to award a rent decrease of $20 per unit/per month for “Sauna (defective timer/ inadequate heat).”

When the property owner in this case received the Dragon’s the decision he was outraged and asked me to file an appeal. I will begin working on that after I finish this Rent Board Story. I plan to argue that anyone who does not believe that the sauna gets hot enough should sit in it for ½ hour at 175 degrees Fahrenheit and I will be happy to take the pictures.
If anyone at the Rent Board accepts my invitation, then property owners will have that many fewer Rent Board Commissars, hearing examiners and/or investigators to worry about.

On the other hand, as I write this Story, we seem to be less than two weeks away from electing a community organizer like Peeping Pete to be the President of the United States. If that happens, these Rent Board Stories won’t seem so funny anymore after the entire United States ends up being run like the Santa Monica Rent Control Board.

The owner in this case says that if that happens, he will name his sauna, “The Osama Obama Commemorative Sauna.”

But I warned him that if he does that, the sauna might be designated a historical landmark and then he would also be subject to the jurisdiction of the Santa Monica Landmarks Commission, Planning Commission and Historical Review Board. They have many dragons too of the payroll.
I hope he takes my advice this time. If he doesn’t, I will have many more Stories to write.