Oakland Renters File Discrimination Suit

Oakland Renters File Discrimination Suit
By Lynda Carson 9/8/01

Oakland,Ca--The tenants of an Oakland apartment complex filed suit in the Alameda County Superior Courthouse last Thursday, against a San Ramon property owner for discriminating against African-American tenants. Paul J. Maguire who claims to be friends with Dennis Richmond of KTVU TV in Oakland,
was sued by the tenants of five rental units in one of his recently acquired apartmant buildings on Mac Arthur Blvd, in East Oakland, after a jury found him
guilty of discriminating against the African-American tenants in the building,
and a pattern and practice of violating Oaklands rent Ordinance. Maguire recently bought up enough properties in Oakland, to take control of over 200
rental housing units.

On Thursday September 6, 2001, during a press conference upon the steps of Oakland City Hall, a group of tenants gave testimony of their abuses at the hands of Paul J. Maguire, and their attorney\'s were present to discuss details of the lawsuit. Kiki Williams, who is one of the victims from the apartment complex broke out into tears as she passionately told half a dozen reporters how Maguire tried to evict her after she fought off some unlawful rent increases in Oaklands Rent Arbitration Program. Others told how they were also facing evictions, and unlawfull rent increases at the hands of Maguire, and claimed that they felt abused by a system in which land lords feel that they can do anything they want. Recently in July, a jury found that Maguire was only evicting the African-American tenants at one of his buildings, and it was some of these victims that told a chilling tale of a racist at work. Maguire is a white guy who resides in San Ramon, and is known as Dr. Paul Maguire, a Chiropractor.

Attorney\'s Phil Rapier and Robert Salinas were present with a large chart on hand to show how much the rents of each unit was increased after Maguire
evicted tenants, or unlawfully raised the rent on the other tenants. Salinas
was dressed conservately in a dark suit and tie, while Rapier was wearing
a white JUST CAUSE tee shirt, as both took turns explaining to the media what it was that Maguire and his henchman Hector Sagastumes were running down on the renters that got them into so much trouble. Maguire, et al, was caught evicting only the African-Americans, and quickly replacing them with Spanish
speaking immigrants that were charged double the rents.

During an interview with Kiki Williams, Ms. Williams stated that she moved to
7985 Mac Arthur Blvd, back in 1997 while a Mr. Butterman owned the property,
and she states that he did a fairly decent job of maintaining the place. When
Maguire took over during December of 2000, he served her a 33% rent increase notice which was way above Oaklands 3% annual cap on rent increases, and Ms. Williams promptly filed a Petition with the Oakland Rent Arbitration Program
as a means to defend herself from the unlawfull rent increase. Maguire then failed in his attempt to convince her to drop the Petition, and when the Petition
was brought to a Hearing of the Rent Board, Mr. Maguire failed to appear, and lost by default. Maguire then appealed the decision of the Rent Board Hearing,
lost the appeal, and immediately tried to evict Ms. Williams. Later in Alameda
County Superior Court, a jury found that Maguire was only evicting the African-Americans at the apartment complex and was discriminating against them, but they also found that the eviction of Kiki Williams was retaliation because she filed a Petition with the Rent Arbitration Program beforehand.

Ms. Williams states that since Maguire took over it\'s been a nightmare at the apartment complex, and very confusing. Williams states that Maguire has a fellow named Mitch Bryant from San Leandro listed as the Resident Manager at the complex, and he has a rental unit there. However, the Latino renters claim that Hector Sagastumes is the Manager and that they pay their rents directly to Hector. The African-Americans send their rent checks to a P.O. Box in San Ramon, and claim that even though Mitch Bryant is the Resident Manager for the complex, he does not do anything there, and most of the time he is gone.
Hector is the one that brings in the Latino renters being charged double the rents after the African-Americans were evicted, and often there are now two to three families living in each unit that Hector fills up. Twice a month, Hector brings in a crew to clean up the place, and the tenants claim that with so many people now overcrowding the apartment complex, the trash bins are always over flowing, and often there is not enough hot water to go around during peak hours of usage. Hector claims to be a General Contractor, works exclusively for Paul J. Maguire, and he claims to earn around twenty five dollars an hour, sources say.

After the press conference upon the steps of Oakland City Hall Thursday September 6, renters from five different rental units at Maguires building filed suit at Alameda County Superior Court. Before heading off to file the suit several of the African-American renters said that this is not a black against a Latino issue; we\'re all being exploited by this landlord. They claimed that they will not let Maguire devide us between black and Latino.