December 15-22, 2016
NEWS of the WEEK pau l wellm an
by Kelsey Brugger @kelseybrugger, Keith hamm, tyler hayden @TylerHayden1, and nicK Welsh, with Independent staff
city
news Briefs law & disorder Kenechukwu Denzel Ugwueze, 19, a former Santa Barbara City College football player, pleaded guilty on 12/14 to the rape of two women; opening arguments in his trial were set to begin the next day. An SBCC student had notified police of one rape last September, and comments to a news story in the school’s newspaper led Police Det. Chad Hunt to a second victim. In the meantime, Ugwueze had bailed out of County Jail on a $100,000 bond. When arrested again, Ugwueze was in Riverside County on a prior juvenile probation for having sex with a minor. With bail set at $1 million, he has since been in custody. He faces a sentence of up to six years in prison on 1/11. A fatal motorcycle accident occurred on 12/18 on State Route 192 just east of Toro Canyon Road. According to CHP investigators and media reports, a 2003 Harley-Davidson being ridden by Robert Kilburn, 53, missed a curve and ran into a 2004 Mercedes-Benz. The car’s driver, Barbara Ford, 83, who was uninjured, attempted to avoid the Harley — she told officers it headed straight toward her — but it crashed into her car. Kilburn hit the road and was subsequently run over. A motorcyclist accompanying him on the ride called 9-1-1. Alcohol and drugs are not thought to be involved, and the incident remains under investigation.
UPside dowN: Organizer Frank Rodriguez (right) counsels two tenants recently evicted from 520 West Carrillo Street. Part of a family of four, these five-year tenants were given notice in October, moved out by December 1, and still don’t know if they’ll get their security deposit back.
TenanT ProTecTions PuT on Menu
city
CounCil Majority Wants to Hear Various options by Nick Welsh
A
t the tail end of a budget meeting last Wednesday, four members of the Santa Barbara City Council said they wanted to look at a wide range of options that could afford tenants increased protection from the harsh realities of a market defined by an almost nonexistent vacancy rate and escalating rents. The move came after two tenants — working with the tenants-rights group CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy) — testified how they’d recently been evicted from their Westside rentals by Ivy Apartment Homes, a Ventura County property management company. The four councilmembers did not embrace any one legislative fix but rather instructed City Attorney Ariel Calonne to report back in the New Year with a broad menu of choices. When that happens, it will constitute the most ambitious discussion of tenants-rights initiatives to hit City Hall in 30 years. On the table will be possible language for a just-cause eviction ordinance, mandatory yearlong lease options, and even rent stabilization, otherwise known as rent control. The council last debated just-cause eviction protections — which bar landlords from evicting tenants for anything but nonpayment of rent and other explicitly prohibited behavior— behavior in the mid-1980s. At that time, the measure was narrowly defeated, but as part of a compromise designed to placate tenants-rights advo-
cates, the council created the Rental Housing Mediation program. In a subsequent interview, Calonne said an ordinance requiring landlords to offer one-year leases could protect tenants from multiple rent increases per year and add an element of stability for tenants without requiring council action as aggressive as a rent control ordinance. In 2002, Calonne successfully defended a similar ordinance when he was city attorney for Palo Alto. Calonne said it was not clear whether the council directive included language for expanded tenant relocation assistance. Currently, city law requires landlords converting rental properties into condominiums to provide several months of rental assistance to displaced tenants. With rental real estate now replacing condominiums as a hot commodity, such conversions have grown relatively rare. Of more immediate concern is the conversion of low-end rental housing into high-end units and the attendant rent increases. Tenants living at 520 West Carrillo Street — a 50-unit complex — reported that their rents are going from $1,300 a month for one-bedroom units to $1,975. Most tenants currently residing there are low-income Latinos. For many, such rent increases have the same effect as eviction notices. According to a representative of Ivy Apartment Homes, which bought the property for nearly $15 million on September 30, existing tenants
will be allowed to reapply if they make two and a half times as much as the new rents —nearly $5,000 a month. In addition, nearly 15 households have been served with official notifications that their tenancies have been terminated and given until January 1, 2017, to move out. Nothing Calonne or the City Council can or might do can address such urgent timelines. Tenant organizer Frank Rodriguez, with CAUSE, said he’s hoping to connect tenants there with the city’s Rental Housing Mediation in hopes of securing more time for the tenants to find new accommodations. Ivy plans to rehabilitate the units at 520 West Carrillo in staggered batches. Tenants there claim they’re being pushed out to make way for City College students, which appears consistent with Ivy’s practice at six other properties it’s taken over on the Westside, where group activities — and other dorm-like amenities — are advertised. An Ivy representative insisted, however, that the company is open to all tenants and does not focus exclusively on college students. The council also asked Calonne to report back with language for a new program requiring rental properties to be inspected once a year to ensure they pass basic health and safety requirements. Currently, city inspections are driven by complaints. Calonne— engaged in prolonged legal hand-to-hand combat with landlord Dario Pini on whole-
Parents have joined forces with the Board of Directors for Elings Park to reopen its BMX track after it closed unexpectedly in October. The former operators had fallen behind on payments, which violated their sanction agreement with the national group U.S.A. BMX and closed the track, and they took with them the starting gate, bleachers, generator, and other equipment. Loans and donations have replaced some of that equipment, and the parent committee is fundraising, as well as running the track and concessions and collecting riders’ fees. Elings’ board will handle paperwork and liability issues with U.S.A. BMX, which ranks riders nationally. Elings is also in talks with Santa Barbara Mountain Bike Trail Volunteers about relaunching the track. More than a year after the 2015 Santa Barbara Veterans Day Marathon was canceled three weeks before the event, participants have yet to receive their refunds. “Race production costs and lower-than-expected entrants” were to blame, race director Rusty Snow said in previous interviews. But the marathon’s Yelp page teems with disappointed runners who were offered discounts on future marathons or refunds on their $129 early registration fee. One runner, Ian Cummings, received an email that indicated refunds might be forthcoming by this past June, but that day came and went. The marathon’s website now lists a strict no-refund policy.
Police officers meet children and families every holiday season who have been victimized by criminals or experienced tragedy or hardship. With the help of a number of businesses, Police Department beat coordinator Craig Burleigh plans to
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DEcEmbEr 22, 2016
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