AOA Lawsuit Forces Trash Haulers And L.A. City to the Bargaining Table
If you own rental property in Los Angeles, you are well aware that you are currently being gouged by the trash companies as a result of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s recycling program that was approved by the City Council.
Crooked Deal!
AOA suspects that the original deal between the trash companies and the City was an “under the table” transaction that gave excessive benefits to the trash companies and put over 100 small business trash companies out of business! That way, these small companies would not be able to compete with fair market prices.
We also suspect that there will be some pretty big donations to the Mayor and City Council members when they run for reelection! Wouldn’t you donate to their reelections if they doubled, tripled and quadrupled what you could charge your customers for a service that you offered? And in addition, eliminated all competitors in whatever business you happened to own? Sure you would, and we have to assume that the trash companies will also show their gratitude for legally allowing them to gouge you to the 9th degree! The big difference is that you are too ethical to raise your prices like the trash companies have done and, in addition, a normal and ethical citizen wouldn’t make such an unfair and illegal deal in the first place!
What’s Wrong With This?
The Mayor knows. Every member of the City Council also knows. And every housing provider and business owner in Los Angeles knows that every one of these politicians should resign in disgrace! Their philanthropy and gracious “gift” to the trash companies has a price tag of millions of dollars that you and I are currently being forced to pay to their friends who own the trash companies. Who benefits?? Who pays??
AOA Springs Into Action
AOA members and friends provided the money to hire an attorney to sue the City and trash companies. A political activist, David Hernandez, was kind enough to introduce us to the Carolin Shining Law Firm and the suit was filed to stop all this illegal nonsense. That lawsuit is working its way through the courts now and will continue. Several other law firms have now joined together with Carolin and we are looking for many additional changes to the little bit of relief that the Mayor and the trash companies seem to have now agreed to “graciously” grant the victims who are currently being punished by the City’s prior action. As you know, these victims are us – all Los Angeles housing providers and business owners!
Can you believe that this lawsuit has even been necessary to force them to make a new deal that is still very illegal, unethical and unfair to the very people who provide the only real solution to the current housing crisis? “Thanks a lot” Mayor Garcetti and fellow politicians. We will still continue to do more than any other group to solve our homeless problem in spite of the way we are being treated by our so-called “progressive politicians”!
What’s Their “New Deal”?
Please don’t laugh, but I really feel that those corrupt minds in City Hall think that they have made enough changes to weaken the AOA lawsuit.
In fact, they made our case even stronger and totally justifiable from day one. They have, in my opinion, blatantly admitted that they made big mistakes in putting their first deal together. BUT, they still have not corrected their totally unjust actions! Much more needs to change.
“188.4 Million Dollars Saved So Far”
The Los Angeles Times reported that the trash companies will no longer be able to charge the $10.67 every time the trash companies opened a door so that they could empty a blue trash bin. A manager of a 28-unit building just told me that they were charging her building $20 for “opening the door” and there wasn’t even a closed door there to open – what a bunch of crooks!
Our haulers will no longer be able to also charge an extra $26.68 for what they call a distance fee when a trash bin has to be moved more than 100 feet – $37.36 for 200 feet.
Please note these six facts:
- This deal applies to blue bins only – they can still charge you extra for other containers, such as your black bin.
- All these charges were non-existent before the City made their deal!
- We are still left with business owners and housing providers paying more than double, and I suspect triple the former charges when we had fair competitive rates (pre-monopoly).
- The Los Angeles Times reported that the City has agreed to pay one half of the amount that the trash companies will supposedly lose as a result of this change. That’s $94.2 million for their part of some, not all, overcharges!
- All housing providers and businesses in Los Angeles will no longer have to pay the extra $188.4 million of what we are being overcharged!
- Our attorneys have not yet seen a copy of a signed agreement.
However, we have not backed down with our lawsuit. AOA and the law firms involved will continue to seek justice and a fair market price for our trash collection services.
Again, to those of you who are paying the excessive trash fees, please don’t laugh, but one of the trash company executives said that he thought the deal was a good compromise. I guess if we were getting all that excess money we’d say the same. They simply took away a lot and have agreed to give a little back. Big deal!
Give Thanks
Hooray, and I thank God for the progress that has been forced upon the City so far. You will want to continue your support of the AOA Political Action Committee and continue to be a proud AOA member. Thank you for all of your past support. We’ve won a small battle, now let’s “gird up our loins” and go to war!
Please write and/or call your City Council person and the Mayor’s office and “thank them for this pittance of a deal, and to please continue to work on making a fair settlement!”
Coming Next Month! The FREE “Million Dollar”
Trade Show and Landlording Conference
The Big Show
You’ll want to remember to mark your calendars for the big “Million Dollar Trade Show and Landlording Conference” next month. The big show will be held on Wednesday, April 17th at the Long Beach Convention Center in Hall C, 300 East Ocean!
You’ll meet vendors galore with new products and services; you can attend FREE landlording seminars and have chances to win some great prizes. Who knows, you may even go home with a new iPad or a cruise for two!
FREE ADMISSION? All we ask is that you please bring a couple of CANNED goods for the Union Rescue Mission food drive.
Our main goal is that you walk away with just one idea to help you make and/or keep more money than ever before. You’ll want to attend our FREE landlording seminars which will include:
- The 7 Step Success System on How to Make and Keep Millions, (Been There, Done That), by Dan Faller, AOA’s President
- The New Laws Impacting Landlords for 2019 and Coping with Rent Control by Dennis Block, Eviction Attorney
- How to Get Three Times the Market Rent Without Section 8 by Nick Sidoti, “Dr. Cash Flow”
- Discover the Pros and Cons of Section 8 by Daryl Carter, Founder & CEO of Avanath Capital Management
- Discover How to Make 16% Interest With Tax Liens by Mac Boyter, Tax Lien Specialist
- 10 Decisions to Make Before the Next Downturn by Bruce Norris of the Norris Group
- How to Write Off Almost Anything by Karla Dennis, Tax Specialist
- Discover How to Make Money in the Stock Market by Bob Bluhm, Stock Market Specialist
- Strategies on Tax Reduction, Lawsuit Protection & Estate Planning by Dale West, Asset Protection Specialist
Be sure to check out the times of each of our FREE LANDLORDING SEMINARS. It is going to be AOA “Show Time” and you’ll need and want to be there. Mark your calendars for Wednesday, April 17th! See you at the big show!
City Forces Homeowners to Pay Tenants to Move Out! By Pacific Legal Foundation
Lyndsey and Sharon Ballinger didn’t expect a cakewalk when a job change took them clear across the country and back, especially with two young children. What took them by surprise, however, was that moving back into their own house would cost them their savings and property rights.
The couple bought their home in Oakland, Ca in 2014. The following year, Sharon, a registered nurse with the Air Force, was selected for a nurse practitioner doctoral program at theUniversityofMaryland. This meant transfer orders for Sharon and Lyndsey, who was an Air Force squadron commander at the time. So they moved to Washington, DC, and expecting to one day return, they rented out their home inOakland– a better option, they thought, than selling their home and returning to an even more expensive housing market.
Sure enough, three years later, Sharon earned her doctorate and a new assignment as an acute care nurse practitioner at the medical center on Travis Air Force base close to Oakland.
Tenants Get $6,500 to Move Out!
The Ballingers were going home. They thought the transition would be relatively easy, as they arranged a month-to-month rental agreement with their tenants. But Sharon and Lyndsey discovered that in order to move back into their home, they first had to pay their tenants more than $6,500 to move out.
“When we got the official orders, I called the property management company and told them we were moving back to California in June and planned to move back into our house,” Lyndsey explains. “They said, ‘That’s great, but if you want your tenants to move out, you’ll have to pay them.’”
Illegal City Ordinance
The Ballingers found themselves snared in the city’s new Uniform Residential Tenant Relocation Ordinance. Under the ordinance, owners can only evict tenants if they pay a so-called relocation fee to help tenants displaced when property owners want to take their rental property off the rental market so they or a relative can live there. This fee ranges from $6,500 to $9,875 depending on the size and type of unit – regardless of the tenants’ income or whether they actually use the money for relocation.
“Trying to fix the housing crisis on the backs of the middle
class feels like overreach,” Lyndsey says. “By trying to do
a good thing, the city is ultimately doing the opposite by
deterring people from putting anything on the rental market.”
The law took effect in January 2018, after Sharon and Lyndsey inked the rental agreement with their tenants. Nevertheless, the law still compelled them to pay the whopping sum to their tenants – whose tech sector careers draw higher incomes than the Ballingers.
“Both of us felt like we were punched in the stomach,” Lyndsey recalls. “And so was our bank account. We had money saved for the move and additional costs will always come along. But nothing like this. We completely drained our savings.”
“To have this law thrown into place with no opportunity to do anything about it was the toughest part,”Sharon adds. “We didn’t have any other avenue to resolve the issue because, being a military family, we aren’t even California residents right now. So we don’t have any representation through ‘traditional’ means, either. It left us very few options.”
The Ballingers felt helpless, yet encouraged by support from others who agreed that despite the good intent to address the city’s lack of affordable housing, the law doesn’t make sense.
Pacific Legal Foundation Steps In
“Trying to fix the housing crisis on the backs of the middle class feels like overreach,” Lyndsey says. “By trying to do a good thing, the city is ultimately doing the opposite by deterring people from putting anything on the rental market.”
So Lyndsey turned to Google and found Pacific Legal Foundation [PLF]. And she was glad she did because the ordinance is not only misguided, it’s unconstitutional – its conditions violate the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the Fourth Amendment, and state law.
“Helping fellow Americans can’t happen at the expense of our constitutional protections,” says PLF Senior Attorney Meriem Hubbard. “Furthermore, the housing crisis is due not to rental home owners, but rather to government regulation which makes new homes very expensive. People who want to move back into their own homes should be able to do so without paying for the tenants to go elsewhere.”
Represented by the PLF free of charge, the Ballingers filed a federal lawsuit against the city ofOakland– not for the money, but because they don’t want anyone else to go through the same ordeal.
“We definitely see and understand the city’s daunting problem when it comes to affordable housing,” saysSharon. “But it’s important to us to get another voice out there to share another perspective on how forced legislation can be more burdensome to the community than solving problems through other means.”
AOA: Pacific Legal Foundation fights for our property rights – free of charge. Please use the below form to support them and our industry!
Founded in 1973, PLF litigates cases nationwide to vindicate the rights fundamental to a free society. With nine consecutive U.S. Supreme Court victories and counting, PLF fights on the front lines, ensuring individual liberty is secure. Donor-supported Pacific Legal Foundation (www.pacificlegal.org) is the leading watchdog organization that litigates for limited government, property rights, individual rights, and free enterprise, in courts nationwide. PLF represents all clients free of charge. For more information, visit www.pacificlegal.org, call (916) 419-7111 or write PLF at 930 G. Street, Sacramento, CA 95814.