April 2015 Volume 15, Issue 2
Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker 
News from the Oakland City Attorney's Office
In This Issue:
Featured Article
About:
Resources:
Join Our Mailing List
      

In our monthly newsletter, we provide important information about the work of the Oakland City Attorney's Office, plus updates on legal issues and matters that impact Oakland residents and businesses. 

 

This month: new lawsuits target epicenters of crime to improve quality of life in all Oakland's neighborhoods; City Attorney and Mayor join amicus (friend of Court) brief asking federal appellate court to uphold President Obama's immigration reforms; updates on major cases and legal matters; and as always, the City Attorney in the Community. 

 

I look forward to your questions and comments about the work we are doing on behalf of the people of Oakland. 


 
Barbara J. Parker
Oakland City Attorney

City Attorney Files Lawsuit against Motel with History of Violence 

 

Complaint by City's Neighborhood Law Corps is the latest in a series of civil lawsuits targeting epicenters of criminal activity in Oakland

 

Recently I filed the latest in a series of public nuisance lawsuits aimed at disrupting patterns of crime and violence at properties in Oakland.

    

The latest lawsuit by the City Attorney's Neighborhood Law Corps asks the Alameda County Superior Court to shut down the Starlite Motel at 10000 MacArthur Boulevard.  This East Oakland motel has been the source of hundreds of calls for service to the Oakland Police Department for crimes including homicide, assault with a deadly weapon and domestic violence. Many of the crimes have been related to drug sales and prostitution at the motel.

 

More info 

 

The Starlite Motel is not just a nuisance to neighbors.  The high volume of calls for service consumes a disproportionate amount of police resources that otherwise could be spread throughout the neighborhood.  In the past five years, the Oakland Police Department has received more than 335 calls for service at the property. Many of the crimes at the Starlite have involved firearms, including: 

  • In May 2014 officers responded after a shootout between a motel guest and three other people.
  • In September 2013 officers arrested a motel guest for assault with a deadly weapon after a woman was shot in the arm in one of the rooms.
  • In July 2012 officers responded to the homicide of a woman who was shot and killed at the motel.
  • In June 2012 officers arrested an ex-felon in possession of several guns, including at least one stolen gun.

Our lawsuit asks the Court to shut the Starlite for one year, the maximum closure allowed under state law. The complaint also asks the Court for an injunction to prevent the motel owners from operating and maintaining their business in a way that begets criminal and nuisance activity, and seeks $25,000 in civil penalties from each defendant.

 

Our goal is two-fold: to stop the Starlite from destroying the quality of life for the residents of the area and to disrupt the pattern of violence emanating from this one property and thereby maximize police resources for our entire community.

 

In recent years, lawsuits by the Neighborhood Law Corps successfully shut down two Oakland hotels that operated as centers of prostitution and the sexual exploitation of children. One of those hotels, the National Lodge, is permanently out of business. The other hotel, the Economy Inn, reopened under new management and has followed strict operating conditions. 

  

Lawsuit Asks Court to Clean Up Abandoned Sausage Factory 

 

In March, the Neighborhood Law Corps also filed a lawsuit (Alameda County Superior Court Case No. RG15762174) against the owners of an abandoned former sausage factory in West Oakland.

 

The former Coast Sausage Co. property on the corner of Adeline and 28th streets has been a source of blight and crime in the neighborhood near McClymonds High School.

 

The City has cited the property owners at least 25 times for violations of the City's blight ordinance due to graffiti, trash dumped on the property and overgrown vegetation. The Public Works Agency also has issued no less than 167 work orders to clean up graffiti and illegal dumping directly adjacent to the property. The owners' failure to secure the property and address chronic blight has attracted homeless encampments and squatters. Neighbors complain about car break-ins, burglaries, shootings and other crimes associated with the property.

 

The lawsuit asks the Court to declare the property a public nuisance and appoint a receiver to secure the building and oversee remediation.

 

The Neighborhood Law Corps (NLC) is an award-winning unit in the City Attorney's Office that uses civil law to address sources of criminal and nuisance activity in Oakland neighborhoods. NLC attorneys work for the City for a two-year period at a salary commensurate with the compensation of a first year Oakland public school teacher. An NLC attorney is assigned to each of the five Oakland Police Command Areas.

 

The NLC also recently secured settlements of public nuisance lawsuits against the owners of the West Grand Hotel and the Hillside Apartments. Those settlements will force landlords to address crime and inhumane living conditions at the rental properties in West and East Oakland.

 

City Attorney in the Community 

 

On March 21, I was honored to serve on a panel at Mills College to discuss women's civil rights.


The Mills College Public Policy Department and POWER (Progressive Oakland Women for Empowerment & Reform) presented the program.
 

The panel included: Jerri Lange (author, TV broadcaster, journalist, SFSU professor), Lynette Jung Lee (retired president & CEO East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation), Oakland Fire Department Chief Teresa DeLoach Reed, former State Assemblymember Nancy Skinner and Betty Soskin, a park ranger at Rosie the Riveter WW II Home Front National Historical Park. Ms. Lange announced that she was 90 years old, and Ms. Soskin announced that she was 93 years old, making them first-hand witnesses to almost a century of battles for women's empowerment in America.

 

The panel moderator was Daphne Muse, writer/activist and former director of the Mills College Women's Leadership Institute.

 

We discussed our experiences as women, how far our world and America and we have come, and how much farther we still have to go to achieve our goal of true equality.

 

As a baby boomer born in 1948, throughout my formative years opportunities and doors opened for me and other African Americans and women as a result of the relentless battles our ancestors fought and won, and continue to fight today. My life and the opportunities I have had were not available to women who were born just a few years before me.

 

To mention a few landmarks: I was six years old when the US Supreme Court's landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, declared state laws establishing separate public schools for African American and white students to be unconstitutional; I was fifteen when Congress passed the 1963 Equal Pay Act, prohibiting wage differentials based on gender; sixteen when the 1964 Civil Rights Act, among other things outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin in most employment; I was seventeen when Congress enacted the 1965 Voting Rights Act prohibiting racial discrimination in voting; and I was in law school when Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments Act prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in educational institutions receiving federal aid.  

 

The nonagenarians on the panel who were born in the 1920s applauded the progress our country has made, noting that they did not have the opportunities baby boomers and younger folks have had.

 

The panel also discussed how we are still fighting against forces determined to turn the clock back on a woman's right to choose, voting rights and civil rights, to mention a few issues.

 

Mills Panel

Mills College panel on women's rights March 21, 2015

 

Oakland Joins National Coalition of Cities in Appeal Defending President Obama's Immigration Reforms

This month Mayor Libby Schaaf and I announced that Oakland has joined a national coalition of cities and counties supporting President Barack Obama's appeal of a federal District Court's ruling blocking recent executive actions on immigration reform.

 

Oakland is one of 73 cities and counties -- together representing 43 million Americans -- to sign an amicus brief defending the President's actions in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The "friend-of-the-court" brief filed in Texas v. United States argues that a District Court judge's injunction blocking the reforms is bad for the economy, hurts families, threatens law enforcement priorities and stalls desperately needed changes to the federal government's immigration policies.  The brief demonstrates robust support from the country's largest cities, as well as suburbs and rural areas, for the President's reforms, which will provide temporary relief from deportation to immigrants with longstanding ties to the U.S. who pass a background check and meet other criteria.

Oakland and other cities previously filed an amicus brief in Texas v. U.S. in federal District Court defending the President's executive actions, which offer protection from deportation and work permits to millions of immigrants who have been living in the U.S. for at least five years, have no criminal records and have a child who is a citizen or permanent resident. In late 2014, Texas and other states led by Republican governors filed a lawsuit challenging the reform efforts, arguing that the president has a constitutional duty to enforce existing immigration laws.

 

President Obama's actions will be a tremendous help to Oakland families and millions of families across the country that are contributing to their communities and working to make a better life for their children.

 

Texas' lawsuit is a desperate attempt to turn back the hands of time. Our nation is marching forward, embracing our diversity and pursuing the promise of a more perfect union. Ultimately these political maneuvers to divide and conquer the overwhelming majority of Americans who share the goal of a just and equitable society will fail to block progress on this important national issue.
 
More info
  

Updates on Major Cases & Matters  

 

Federal Courts Grant Motions for Summary Judgment Dismissing Ray v. Basa, U.S. District Court Case No. 11-cv-02923-YGR, and Ray v. Leal, U.S. District Court Case No. 11-cv-05550-YGR

 

Plaintiff Edward Ray is a state prisoner incarcerated at the La Palma Correctional Center in Arizona. In October 2011, Mr. Ray filed the civil rights lawsuit Ray v. Leal alleging that Oakland police violated his Constitutional rights during an arrest.


Mr. Ray was arrested in 2006 after a high speed chase in East Oakland on suspicion of robbery of a convenience store.  He and his son were eventually convicted of several counts of robbery in connection with other crimes in Oakland.  Mr. Ray is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence.  His lawsuit against three officers alleged excessive force.

 

On March 31, the Court found the entire complaint untimely and dismissed it with prejudice.

 

The Court also granted the City's motion for summary judgment in the case Ray v. Basa, in which Mr. Ray alleged that Oakland officers violated his rights when they removed his minor daughter from her home which had no working toilets or running water. He also alleged that officers defamed him by telling the press that the child had witnessed violence and drug use in the home.

 

The Court noted that Mr. Ray, while represented by counsel, had voluntarily relinquished his parental rights and did not contest the social workers' findings or police reports, thereby implicitly admitting the claims. The Court also agreed that Mr. Ray's lawsuit was untimely and that he had provided no persuasive evidence to excuse his delay in filing.