Today's Sunday Bee had a front page feature story.  about the dreadful situation at the Palms Apartments on Marconi at Wright. The article, entitled "Broke and Broken" is behind the Bee's paywall. Here's a summary: A fire burned half of the complex over a year ago and the rest of the units are in a dreadful state. The tenants have tried and tried to get the problems fixed. So far they have not been successful. They are not happy. Their out-of-area owners aren't losing sleep over the situation and neither, it seems, is the County. State laws appear to protect landlords, even when it is crystal clear that tenants are being ripped off.                                                            

The plight of the residents of the Palms Apartments is not unique. Since ours is a post-WWII suburb, apartments here tend to reflect the minimum building standards and amenities of their day. And, given the less-than-stellar stewardship exercised by the Board of Supervisors over the years, there has been a long history of failing to prioritize correction of problems, along with steadfast deference to property owners and corporations - many of which are absentee owners, not part of the community. So now, even when problems arise in the designated West Arden Arcade Environmental Justice Area, there is no real sense of emergency at County Hall for making things right for the residents. Keep in mind, this latest example is about health and safety, not nice-to-have amenities.

Will anything change? Hmm...here's what the article reported about our Member of the State Assembly

"Democratic Assemblymember Maggy Krell said she wanted to try and help the tenants get their current needs addressed and that she would think through the best ways that she as a state legislator could help all tenants in these situations. "I am dedicated to doing what I can to helping these people and also thinking through a more systematic fix." she said. "What it appears to me from this situation you've described is that there's really insufficient enforcement of existing laws that are in place to protect tenants from unsafe and unhealthy housing conditions. I think the solution to that requires real, legal precision."

Getting state laws changed isn't a simple process, even when lessons can be easily gained from the 19 other states have tougher tenant-protection laws than California's. In the meantime, the County could up its game to get things moving much faster and to see that the tenants get more than tokenistic compensation. Maybe that's why the Bee decided to run the story. We'll see, won't we?