Residents of Redwood Gardens are alarmed about Renoir Staffing property manager

Residents of Redwood Gardens are alarmed about Renoir Staffing property manager

By Lynda Carson — October 12, 2015

Berkeley - The residents and senior citizens of Redwood Gardens in Berkeley, a 169 unit HUD multi-family subsidized housing complex (Section 202), are alarmed about the Renoir Staffing, LLC, temporary property manager named Liana Bates-Hall, who is threatening to have numerous beloved cats hanging out in the courtyard removed by animal control.

According to Eleanor Walden: “Around a week ago, the owners of Redwood Gardens, Cooperative Services Inc. (CSI), and it’s affiliate CSI Derby Street Nonprofit Housing Corporation, leased a temporary property manager from Renoir Staffing, LLC, named Liana Bates-Hall.”

“Liana Bates-Hall is behaving like a hard nosed warden running a prison, or some kind of drill-sergeant, instead of acting like a property manager for a housing project for people 62 and over, including the disabled.

Last Friday, Liana Bates-Hall started taking photos of the cats in the courtyard, and threatened the tenants, claiming that she is calling animal control to go after the cats that are beloved by many seniors at this housing complex. We are currently organizing all the cat people in an effort to save the cats from Liana Bates-Hall, and animal control.”

Emails sent to at least 4 destinations at Renoir Staffing, and a phone call asking for an interview have not been answered.

On October 12, Connie White, account executive for Renoir Staffing, LLC, sent an email to Walden, confirming that Liana Bates-Hall is with Renoir Staffing, LLC.

Renoir Staffing, LLC, leases out temporary property managers to CSI and other nonprofits in the Bay Area, with 90 day lease contracts.

According to records with the Secretary of State, Liana Bates-Hall has a brokers/sales person real estate license that is valid in California.

However, public records in California reveal that a license for Renoir Staffing, LLC, in California does not exist, and that the license for Renoir Staffing Services, Inc., has a suspended license.

Public records from Nevada reveal that Renoir Staffing, LLC was incorporated in Nevada, but the public records reveal that the incorporation license has been cancelled.

Public records further reveal that the incorporation license for Blue Lake Rancheria Economic Development Corporation, the owner of Renoir Staffing, LLC, has been revoked.

Click on the links below for details.

http://nvsos.gov/sosentitysearch/CorpDetails.aspx?lx8nvq=frimrwx9EqicT8irf9LWQw%253d%253d&nt7=0

http://nvsos.gov/sosentitysearch/CorpDetails.aspx?lx8nvq=A%252bDV53K0aGt1lOEP7hke%252bQ%253d%253d&nt7=0

Additional records reveal that Anne Sparks is the director of corporate affairs at Renoir Staffing, LLC, an entity that does not legally exist in California, or Nevada., and that Renoir Staffing, LLC, is headquartered in Alameda.

Jyrl James, a board member of The Echo Foundation, mentions in their website that she was or is still the president of Renoir Staffing, LLC, and I sent an email to The Echo Foundation asking if she is still the president of Renoir Staffing, LLC.

According to Renoir Staffing, LLC: “On October 31, 1985 Carol Kotewicz-Dencker started Renoir Staffing Services, Inc. to offer the highest level of service to the property management industry. By 1996, Carol had opened Sacramento Office and the company reached its’ first million dollars in revenue. From that point on, Renoir Staffing continued to prosper and grow, receiving such honors as Largest Woman-Owned Business and Fastest-Growing Private Company from the Business Journal Lists.”

“In 2010, Kotewisz-Denker retired and sold the company to Blue Lake Rancheria, and we became an LLC. With the new company Renoir opened up two new offices: the Phoenix office in 2010 and Newport Beach in August 2011. It’s been exciting for us to expand our services within the industry and we take our responsility to be relied upon as a leader in staffing seriously. We’re happy to do so too!”

According to Renoir Staffing, LLC, on a YELP website page:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/renoir-staffing-folsom

Specialties

Renoir Staffing, LLC provides qualified temporary, direct hire and temp-to-hire staff for the multi-family residential and commercial property management industry in Northern California, the Central Valley, and Orange County, CA. Positions filled include property managers, leasing consultants, building engineers, maintenance technicians, tenant relations coordinators, accountants, customer service and administrative support staff.

Our mission is to provide the highest level of service in response to our customers' personnel needs. When we do our job, our clients can operate their businesses at optimum productivity.

History

Established in 1985.

Since 1985, Renoir Staffing, LLC has been meeting the needs of apartment communities, property management companies and commercial real estate offices, and offering career building opportunities to candidates with real estate experience.  Headquartered in Alameda, Renoir Staffing, LLC has branch offices in San Jose, Folsom and Anaheim, CA, servicing property management staffing needs throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, the Central Valley, and Orange County.  Renoir Staffing, LLC employs more than 400 people with over $5 million in sales. The company has repeatedly been listed as one of the top staffing firms in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Despite having more than 400 hundred people employed by Renoir Staffing, LLC, with over $5 million in business, the records reveal that Renoir Staffing, LLC, is not legally incorporated in California, or elsewhere.

With their Renoir Staffing, LLC, employees having access to renters personal records, that is of concern. With their leased property managers raising the rents on people at many housing projects, and at times evicting them, or they may be stealing their security deposits while pushing senior citizens around, when they are not legally incorporated in California to be involved in such activities, it appears that the system of property managers in the Bay Area, and throughout California has been totally corrupted.

The following is an October 12 letter of Eleanor Walden, a former Rent Board Commissioner of Berkeley, sent out to her neighbors at Redwood Gardens:

“It seems like we have a whole new set of circumstances here: A new property manager has 
been hired.” 

Several members of the Council discussed inviting the new manager to our next meeting for a specified slot of time in order to give her the opportunity to introduce herself. Gary and I wrote her inviting her to the next Council meeting and giving her the option to name the time she would prefer.
 
My intuition was that we should invite her first before CSI did what they did last year, call a mass meeting and issue top down edicts about what was going to happen.  She appeared at my door with no appointment or notice and the encounter between us stimulated this letter describing the visit which I sent to the membership.

The newly hired Acting Property Manager, Liana Bates-Hall, just paid me a visit. She brought Donna Miles with her. When she came in we shook hands, I have a firm handshake but OMG she squeezed my hand so hard and held it so long it was painful. The look on her face was sinister; her eyes narrowed and her mouth was pinched. Her approach was tantamount to boots on the ground military advance. 

In response to our invitation to come to the Residents' Council meeting on Friday she categorically refused. She said she had no responsibility to meet with us as "we do not sign her pay check." She defined her job solely as carrying out the rules of those who do sign her pay check. 

I told her that her responsibility was greater than that in that she was under the direction of the HUD contract as held by CSI and that the residents were part of the conglomerate of participants with whom she needed to work. Her manner was surprising adversarial and conveyed an attitude of disrespect for  the Residents' Council as having no authority. She said we are "tenants" who have only one duty and that is to "pay our rent and obey 
the rules."

When I said that the Residents wanted to see her resume in order to know her background since she had opened that door by claiming that she had a vast background in real estate and property management.  She snapped, " women can have a strong background in business, you know." I responded that she had no claim to lecture me about feminism since I was out on the line when she was still in diapers. 

She ended the boxing match by a patronizing verbal pat on the head and the comment that I was "spunky" and calling down "God to bless me." That was too much because I told her to keep god to herself. But, I was polite and didn't swear.

In retrospect I remembered that this was not the first time I had contact with Ms. Bates-Hall. Two days previously she came to my apartment, similarly unannounced, to tell me that I had to move my wheelchair. She said she had been "reading my file" and realized that I had been "warned" before. She also told my daughter that she, Liana, was "fair, but tough." What prompted that? I see it as a threat. 

Although I admit to being a bit heavy handed by asking for her resume I don't think it is outrageous. If someone asked for my resume I would be glad to provide it. She is already employed so it will not be held against her and we will know what we have to work with. I hear through the grapevine that she has a military background.
 
And that is exactly how she has come on. Her behavior was a good example of bullying, in my opinion.

The incident exposed her disdain for the tenants, who "only have an obligation to pay the rent and follow the rules", and her responsibility as only to those who "sign her pay check". Actually we pay her paycheck through the ample subsidized rents CSI receives from the Federal government; but that's another discussion. 

At least now we all know where we stand, perhaps it was an efficient way of getting to the heart of her attitude. 

After all this happened, another member of the Council, Vi McFall, who is much less assertive than I am, asked to interview her for an introductory article in the Newsletter. She declined to let Vi interview her.
 
It is obvious that she has contempt for the residents and has decided to draw the line early on. We need to be aware of this.

“I may have been forward in asking to see her resume but I think we have been presented with a drill sergeant who has expressed her contempt for us the first week she is in the job. I know we will have a myriad opinions in a building of 169 apartments but I think we are going to have trouble with this person.” Eleanor Walden.

Renoir Staffing, LLC, is headquartered at 1301 Marina Village Parkway, Suite 350 in Alameda.

In addition to providing property managers to numerous nonprofit housing developers and for profit landlords in Oakland, Berkeley and the Bay Area, Renoir Staffing also provides temps to other companies needing temporary help.

On it’s website, Renoir Staffing tells it’s clients that they can RELAX by knowing that the employees being provided by Renoir Staffing have passed in-depth background checks, their industry experience has been verified, and that our matches are guaranteed.

However, their website fails to mention that the incorporation license filed with the State of California is SOS/FTB suspended for Renoir Staffing Services, Inc, and that as an entity, Renoir Staffing, LLC, does not exist.

That is the rub in this venture of landlords VS tenants, involving Renoir Staffing, LLC.

Renoir Staffing, LLC, does not exist as a legal entity in California or Nevada anymore, and their property managers may be involved in illegal activities as a direct result.

Lynda Carson may be reached at tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com

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