For over a year now, renters' rights group Tenants Together has been working with renters, their supporters, labor unions, and city officials in East Palo Alto where Page Mill Properties has been engaged in open conflict with the city and its residents. After learning that CalPERS, the country's biggest public employee pension fund, was an investment partner with the giant landlord, Tenants Together testified before the CalPERS Board of Administration to bring the crisis to their attention and call on them to intervene with Page Mill. They asked CalPERS to move Page Mill to rescind illegal rent increases and cease the unjust eviction of its tenants.

Tenants Together also warned CalPERS that predatory equity investments are extremely risky financially. In fact, Page Mill Properties went into receivership just two months ago, leaving tenants to work with new court-appointed management as they try to get relief from unjustly high rents and unabated maintenance problems.

Youth United for Community Action members led a rally in front of West Park Apartments on November 4th to call for the roll back of rents. Participants included renters, neighbors, and community activists, who chanted and sang songs specific to their cause. They pledged to keep up the pressure with a series of actions until rents are rolled back to be in line with what is required by the city's rent stabilization ordinance.

Read more Photos: 1 | 2

Tenants Together | Youth United for Community Action

Rep. Boehner (R-Ohio) recently said, "I'm still trying to find the first American to talk to who's in favor of the public option, other than a member of Congress or the administration"; this despite polls showing that a majority of voters support the idea of having a government plan. His statement was all the inspiration the Raging Grannies needed to ring up their friends in "Billionaires for Wealthcare" and form a united action to protest the Republican stance on health care reform on October 12.

Under the watchful eye of Menlo Park police the two street theater groups, whose memberships have quite a bit of overlap, lined the entrance to the Stanford Park Hotel. On the left, the Raging Grannies held signs calling for Boehner to "get a clue about health care" while on the right the Billionaires shouted "John Boehner you're our man, we really love your orange tan". They carried signs mocking Republicans' close ties to health insurance companies, including one that read "Blue Cross/Palin 2012".

The Billionaires loudly poo-poohed the idea that health care should be available for free or low cost to "the masses". After about an hour of demonstrating in front of the hotel, they retired to the British Bankers Club in Menlo Park for some much needed liquid refreshment; some of the cross-dressing Grannies joined them, first changing into their Billionaire regalia.

Photos: 1 | 2 | Videos: 1 | 2

Raging Grannies Action League | Billionaires for Wealthcare

East Palo Alto's biggest landlord missed a $50 million balloon payment to their bank last month, creating a situation that is both perplexing and dangerous for tenants. Page Mill Properties abruptly closed both their tony downtown Palo Alto office and their East Palo Alto offices last week, but they abandoned the tenants long before that. Tenant complaints include swimming pools covered in algae, long broken laundry facilities, and threatening "quit or pay" notices sent to tenants who were, in actuality, paid up on their rent. Tenant activists have also been harassed by Page Mill employees.

The Menlo Park Fire Department told the Palo Alto Daily News this week that of nine buildings recently inspected, only ONE of the current alarm systems is "even remotely" working. "We gave them a citation, a notice to repair, back in the June/July time frame. They have not done that," said the Fire Chief. Tenants are hoping that recent court action will bring some semblance of order to the neglected properties. On September 9, the San Mateo County Superior Court appointed Southern California based Ward Realty Advisors as receiver for the 1800 units. That company is now slated to select a property manager to take over running the buildings early next week.

On September 1 the court granted plaintiff Eric Oberle's motion for a preliminary injunction in a class action lawsuit against the giant landlord. That injunction barred Page Mill from collecting or enforcing rent increases that do not comply with East Palo Alto rent stabilization rules. Some tenants feel that this ruling may have been the final straw for the landlord whom they say not only failed to pay the bank but pocketed August and September rents as they left the properties abandoned.

Read more | EPA-tenants.org

Previous Indybay coverage: Mega-Landlord Pulls Out Suddenly, Leaving Tenants in Fire Trap | Possible Criminal Charges Against Landlord Page Mill Properties

A loud right-wing contingent at a September 2nd town hall meeting on health care jeered when Palo Alto mayor Peter Drekmeier introduced Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, and booed when she called for a moment of silence for Ted Kennedy.

Eshoo was frequently interrupted by shouts from the hecklers. In response, a few health care reform proponents tried to shush those interrupting, insisting they let the Congresswoman speak. Audience members had been asked to write questions on cards instead of speaking aloud.

Eshoo still had about 200 cards with questions she did not have time to answer at the end of the meeting. She said she would respond to all of them by email or letter. She added that the majority of Americans showed they support health care reform when they voted for Democrats last November.

A queue formed for entrance to the auditorium for well over an hour before the meeting began. Health care activists carried signs supporting reform as they stood in line and the Raging Grannies sang while the crowd gathered; "Grannies love Medicare -- A Government Program" read one of their signs. About twenty "tea party" protesters, most of whom appeared old enough to be receiving Medicare benefits, held American flags and placards saying "No Obamacare" and "Government out of my health care". No signs larger than a sheet of paper were allowed in the theater.

Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Constituents of Congresswoman Anna Eshoo were treated to an action satirizing the Tea Party "patriot" movement at a town hall in Menlo Park on August 26th. Single payer plan proponents dressed as wealthy insurance executives sidled up to anti health care reform protesters and thanked them for helping to support "survival of the richest." Some of the right wing extremists thought the Billionaires were on their side before realizing they were facing a counter-demonstration bent on ridiculing the Tea Party's platform.

The town hall meeting, which was not about health care but high speed rail, was well attended. The Menlo Park City Council Chambers was filled to capacity, and an overflow crowd of about 100 listened to the Congresswoman and other presenters from hastily assembled folding chairs in the outdoor courtyard.

Demonstrators on both sides of the health care reform issue remained outside of the Council Chambers. After the town hall ended at about 9:00pm, a few feathers from the Billionaires' boas floated across the empty patio.

Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Insurance Executives Against Obamacare | Billionaires for Wealthcare

On August 22, in San Mateo, "Billionaire" activists stood at a busy intersection in front of a branch of Ameritrade and spread their message: Private Health Care--Because Corporations Know What's Best for You!

The group calling themselves "Insurance Executives Against ObamaCare" stated that: "We're the wealthy health care insurance execs and pharmaceutical execs who are making a killing (pardon the pun) off of the status quo in the health care industry. We elite refer to it as Wealthcare. And since we Billionaires are a minority in this country, we desperately need your support so that we can continue our profiteering...so that one day it may trickle down to you lowly people. Thanks for your support! Huzzah!!"

Photos: 1 | 2

Activists for Health Care Reform Offer Counseling at San Jose "Tea Party"

Last year, Mountain View Day Worker Center supporters purchased an abandoned cinderblock building next to railroad tracks on Escuela Avenue in Mountain View, California. Plans are in place for day workers to help renovate the building and make improvements to the neighborhood, but NIMBY ("not in my back yard") neighbors nevertheless called in a Washington D.C. based group, Judicial Watch, to advise them on protecting their neighborhood from "illegal" immigrants.

Judicial Watch is a right-wing organization that initiates legal battles against day laborer centers around the country. Through their "sanctuary busters" program, they make the claim that day laborer centers violate federal immigration law by hiring undocumented immigrants. In April, a representative of Judicial Watch addressed a meeting of Escuela Avenue residents, calling it a "public education effort."

Judicial Watch has filed lawsuits in Herndon, Virginia, and Laguna Beach, California. But Chris Newman, the legal director of a national group of day laborer centers, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, called Judicial Watch's lawsuits baseless, pointing out that they are meant to generate anti-immigrant sentiments and intimidate people.

The city council remains stalwart in the face of threats of a lawsuit by members of the neighborhood group. The council initially approved the Day Worker Center's permit on May 5. On May 12, with a unanimous vote, the council turned down the NIMBY group's appeal of the council's earlier decision. Read more

Nimby Group Loses Anti-Day Worker Center Appeal | National Day Laborer Organizing Network

Anticipating former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's return to the Stanford University campus, student and faculty activists began demanding early this year that the University take the position that it is aware of Rice’s alleged offenses against human rights, the U.S. Constitution, and international law.

On May 3, members of the April Third Movement (A3M) from the Vietnam War protest era nailed a memo to the university president's office door, demanding that Stanford sever relations with the former Provost. The former students who led the fight 40 years ago to dislodge Stanford University from the War in Vietnam were joined by faculty, students, and peace activists from the local community who added color to the protest in Raging Granny regalia and orange jumpsuits with black hoods. A3M leader Marjorie Cohn, now president of the National Lawyers' Guild, said, "By nailing this petition to the door of the president's office, we are telling Stanford that the university should not have war criminals on its faculty."

Last week the former Secretary of State appeared at a dinner for selected students in a dormitory hall. While there she was asked to explain the use of waterboarding to which she replied, "we did not torture anyone". She referred to torture as "enhanced interrogation" and scolded the student saying, "do your homework." The conversation with Rice's denial was caught on videotape by a second student.

Rice's role in authorizing waterboarding in 2002 was detailed in a narrative released last month by the Senate Intelligence Committee. It showed that Rice played a greater role than she admitted last fall in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Condi Caught Lying on Tape About Torture | April Third Movement Members Demand Stanford Sever Ties with Condoleezza Rice | Condoleezza Rice Challenged on War and Torture at Stanford

Page Mill Properties, the largest landlord of properties in East Palo Alto, may face criminal charges in the death of one of its employees. The victim of what many feel is the investor/landlord's negligence, was decorating trees with Christmas lights at Page Mill's direction when the string of lights came into contact with a high voltage electric line in the winter of 2007. The 24 year-old employee suffered death by electrocution.

Cal/OSHA determined that Page Mill had failed to train the employee to work near electrical lines and let him work near high-voltage lines without correct safety precautions. In late November 2008, after their appeal to the state office was denied, Page Mill paid Cal/OSHA more than $36,000 in penalties. A Page Mill spokesperson refused to disclose the amount the company paid to the family of the victim in a settlement.

Now the San Mateo District Attorney is deciding whether to file criminal charges in the case. Tenant activists are closely following the case, and are communicating with members of the Board of Supervisors of San Mateo County in hopes of encouraging the DA to proceed with criminal charges against the landlord. Activists want the county District Attorney to take the matter seriously, and have expressed concern that Jim Shore, who has worked as a Deputy DA in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties and now serves as general counsel to Page Mill, might try to influence his former colleagues on this matter.

Read more | Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | EPA-Tenants.org

East Palo Alto, a city established in the mid-80's around the rallying cry for rent stabilization, is home to low-income residents, including many whose first language is not English. Not long after the company began buying up apartment buildings in that city in 2006, it announced rent increases that were in violation of the city's Rent Stabilization Ordinance. After repeated violations, the community rallied to form a tenants' organization. In August 2008, tenant Christopher Lund together with East Palo Alto city representatives, called on the public pension fund CalPERS, a major Page Mill investor, to help stop Page Mill Properties's predatory actions. Page Mill began a campaign to discredit Mr. Lund's reputation. With the assistance of the Palo Alto Police Department, the company attempted to entrap the tenant activist by tapping his phone.

Page Mill reported to police that Lund tried to extort $20,000 from them in exchange for agreeing to vacate his unit and solve the company's problems with tenant groups. The Palo Alto Police Department then worked with Page Mill to set up a tap on Lund's phone. In that secretly recorded conversation a director at Page Mill, Russell Schaadt, offered Lund $25,000 to get him out of the picture. Lund refused, adding during the recorded conversation, "That's not on the table, and it has never been about personal settlement."

Mr. Lund and other activists are also questioning the possible involvement of an active member of the Palo Alto Police Department, Lt. Tim Morgan. In an article in the San Jose Mercury News, Palo Alto Police Agent Dan Ryan said former police chief Lynne Johnson authorized Morgan to do contract work for Page Mill early last year, and he began working for the company this past summer. Lund says the lieutenant is easily recognized by activists as someone who showed up at a City of East Palo Alto Rent Board meeting, where he blocked an activist's car. Tenants and neighbors spotted him lurking with a concealed weapon near the home of Mr. Lund on January 29 and 30 and on one of those occasions he photographed Mr. Lund and his car. Renters rights supporters are now wondering if Lt. Morgan was involved in the wiretapping incident as well and the Police Department is looking into the matter.

In an interview with the Mercury News, the lieutenant said he has nothing to do with "the extortion in Palo Alto", and that he is merely working as an "emergency preparedness consultant" for the landlord. Page Mill has sent other employees to tear down Tenants' Rights notices posted on telephone poles in East Palo Alto. Photos provided to indybay by Mr. Lund show trashed yellow notices of renters' rights along with white flyers notifying tenants of a website they can visit for help, and the Page Mill employee's truck as he speeds away.

Photos and Reports: 2/9: E. Palo Alto Landlord Hits Rock Bottom with Extreme Tactics | 2/7: Questionable Police Practices Continue After Palo Alto Police Chief Forced to Retire | Mega-Landlord Offers Tenant Activist $20,000, then Twists Bribe into Extortion Charge | EPA-Tenants.org

A controversy began in 2007 when a young mother's profile photo of her nursing her infant suddenly disappeared from the social networking website Facebook. There was no explanation as to why the photo was removed, and Facebook has not responded to her inquiries. Despite queries from other women who have found similar family photos removed over the last year, Facebook still hasn’t changed its policy.

On December 27th, about twenty demonstrators gathered in front of Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto to protest discrimination against nursing mothers. They told members of the press that in some cases their family pictures have been reported as "obscene" and they have been warned by Facebook that if they repost the photos they risk being banned from the online site.

At the same time that the group raised their concerns in interviews, chants, and song in front of Facebook's office, a virtual “nurse-in” was taking place on Facebook itself. Online demonstrators changed their profile photo for the day, to a picture of a nursing child. By Saturday evening, with hundreds joining per hour, over 70,000 members had joined the "Hey Facebook, Breast-feeding is not Obscene" site.

"Breast feeding is beautiful and to hide it in shame is absurd. Facebook’s removal of our pictures sends the wrong message to new moms," said a mother who nursed her baby as she stood in front of the company's headquarters on University Ave. Several older, experienced mothers also came out in support of the demonstration. One grandmother who came with her daughter-in-law and grandbaby in arms said that breast milk is the healthiest source of nutrition for infants and should be encouraged, not discouraged by labeling it has Facebook has. A member of the Raging Grannies summed up the feeling of many saying, "female breasts are not obscene, Facebook's attitude is!"

Photos | Announcement | Facebook Discriminates Against Nursing Moms | Mothers Breastfeed and Protest at Facebook HQ in Palo Alto | Mothers International Lactation Campaign

On November 20, the City of Palo Alto announced that its controversial police chief will retire on December 19. Chief Lynne Johnson sparked protests and a November 9 march on the city when she stated that she had instructed officers on her force to make "consensual contact" with African American men to counter a crime spike in Palo Alto. 

Her remarks were quoted in news reports worldwide and the topic of racial profiling became a much discussed issue at subsequent city council meetings. Some city officials took the opportunity to acknowledge that racial profiling exists and must be combatted, while others took the stance that the police chief "merely misspoke".

Although the police chief made several attempts at apologizing, many residents of the city and surrounding communities were left wondering why she directed her officers to look for African Americans with do-rags when victims of a 5-month city-wide crime spree had variously described suspects as being of African American, Pacific Islander, Latino or white descent.

Chief Johnson has been the target of other criticism in recent years, including what many feel was an over-reaction to a small anarchist rally in downtown Palo Alto in June 2005. To bolster the Palo Alto police force, Chief Johnson had all other police agencies in Santa Clara County plus the California Highway Patrol send a combined 233 officers to Palo Alto for about seven hours on the afternoon and evening of June 25. In addition Palo Alto was charged for the use of a police helicopter from the city of San Jose. The total cost to the city of Palo Alto is estimated to have been around $200,000 for police protection for a pre-announced anarchist rally, apparently organized by local teenagers, that began around 7 p.m. and ended about 10 p.m.

Read more | Previous coverage

On November 10, the Palo Alto City Council unanimously passed a resolution condemning racial profiling. In doing so they acknowledged the damage caused when Police Chief Lynne Johnson, commenting on a recent crime spike, said that she ordered her officers to question African Americans they see in Palo Alto to find out who they are.

Chief Johnson stated at a community meeting in late October that her officers would be stopping African American males and having "consensual" interviews. The purpose of the interviews would be to determine who they were and what they were doing in the city of Palo Alto, she stated. The next day she rephrased her original statement as follows: "What I meant to say," she attempted to clarify, "was that the officers, when they see not just the African American male adult, but the behavior, if the person is acting suspicious then they are to make contact and find out who that person is."

Victims of the recent crime wave in Palo Alto have variously described their assailants as being black, Latino, white, or Pacific Islander males, so many residents of Palo Alto and neighboring cities are wondering why the police chief is apparently targeting African Americans.

Community leaders including Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Palo Alto Mayor Larry Klein expressed deep concern about Chief Johnson's ability to continue to act as head of the city's police department. Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, issued a statement condemning the chief's original remarks. Eshoo said that Chief Johnson had "demonstrated a profound lack of judgment and leadership." In an official statement the Congresswoman said that the Police Chief should rescind her comments and orders or resign. Palo Alto Mayor Larry Klein said the chief's remarks were "unacceptable, unconstitutional and un-American."

A march starting in East Palo Alto, a city with a large African American and Latino population across highway 101 from Palo Alto, was held on November 9. Several hundred people then rallied in front of Palo Alto City Hall. Dr. Faye McNair-Knox, Executive Director of *One East Palo Alto* announced a seven point plan to stop racial profiling in Palo Alto. That plan included a call for a boycott of Palo Alto businesses and the immediate resignation of Chief Johnson.

Backlash Against Palo Alto Police Chief | March Against Racial Profiling | Erase + Racism = Eracism | East Palo Alto Residents Ask: Am I a Suspect?