City of Oakland Public Works Agency referred this issue to CODE ENFORCEMENT, service request # 433076. Please contact that agency to follow-up. For more information, please visit the "Helpful Links to Other Resource Partners" at the link below.
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/PWA/Connect/ReportaProblem/index.htm
Thank you.

The Homeless are gone. Someone built a new fence there and cleaned up the encampment and cleaned up the brush.Let's see how long that fence lasts. This is a problem that needs regular auditing to keep it secure and clean. Those who use this area are like rats and they will find access, so lets make sure code enforcement keeps an eye on it.

I have to ask the question, is the City of Oakland's Code Compliance any longer effective in getting private property owners to abate grafiti or is Code Compliance the REAL PROBLEM? I have lived in Oakland for 35 years and I have never seen such grossly irresponsible behavior by a publicly funded agency in all those years. In my opinion, Code Compliance is a disgrace as a public agency.

The City of Oakland has NOT resolved this November 2012 graffiti issue. Petitions have been sent to the City of Oakland, CalTrans, and State of California officials. Code Compliance continues being totally ineffective in requiring the owners of the Public Storage building at 1551 MacArthur Blvd. to maintain their building in compliance with the Blight Ordinance.

The horrible graffiti remains on the Public Storage warehouse and is situation is getting worse with an adjacent homeless encampment. Ray Derania, the head of Code Compliance, did not respond to our neighborhood petition with effective action or even the courtesy of response by phone call acknowledging the concerns stated in our petition. We were exercising our Constitutional rights by redressing of our grievances to our government though the petition process. As we all know, this is hardly the first time the City of Oakland has violated the Constitutional rights of Oakland residents.

Since our Councilman, Mr. Gallo, offered to assist our neighborhood to get the grafitti abated, it is now WORSE THAN BEFORE. The grafitti has INCREASED 70-75% since Councilman Gallo visited the site with me and spoke with the Public Storage employee in the rental office and got the Public Storage District Manager's phone number. The grafitti now extends up to the 2nd story of the building and I have to look at it from my living room window. Blight lowers property values and caues people to just give up on on Oakland. .

After months and months of negligent and/or ineffective enforcement by the City of Oakland Code Compliance, more and more grafitti is being sprayed on all sides of the Public Storage building. The owners of the building continue to ignore letters from member of the neighborhood. Why do corporate scofflaws have the right to violate the law with impunity in Oakland. Are elected officical asleep at the wheel? Where is this elusive "Oakland Pride"?

The Public Storage warehouse just gets worse. There is new grafitti evey week on this building and the owners are getting off "scott free". My questions, "Did someone in Code Compliance at the City of Oakland receive a bribe for 'doing little or nothing' to enforce the OMC against this very weathy corporation or has the level of incompetence and indiffernce in city services really reached this level? The taxpayers really should start thinking about such matters and start calling and writing their councilpersons, the Mayor, and the City Administrator and let them know.

The City of Oakland has NOT seen to it that the owner or District Manager of this blighted building is in compliance with the Blight Ordinance. The grafitti has spread to other buildings near the Public Storage warehouse. The neighborhood is so degraded that property values are now going down even in this real estate market.

Once again, there is absolutely no progress. A old sofa, sprayed painted with graffiti remains sitting on Public Storage property, the graffitti continues to blight the City of Oakland the the Scenic Highway it faces, the City Council, the Mayor, and Code Compliance continue to do absolutely nothing. Everyone in government looks forward to their paycheck, but are they doing their jobs?

I received copies of the Code Compliance Inspector's letter to Public Storage. The efforts of this inspector are laughable. The letter asks Public Storage to "help beautiful Oakland" and "please" clean up the grafitti. This is the sum total of the City of Oakland's effort to get a chronic, corporate scofflaw to clean up hundreds of feet of grafitti that has been there for a year. No wonder Oakland has a bad reputation.

No progress. I alerted Barbara Parker, City Attorney. The Office of the City Attorney has the authority and responsibility to take Public Storage to court and obtain a court order requiring them to clean up their property, but Barbara Parker has done nothing to protect residents from this rogue, scofflaw business.

I also sent an email to the city's attorneys office regarding the graffiti in Oakland in general. there has been no mention publically of going after "taggers" like they are supposedly going to start doing with illegal dumpers. the waste of money to clean up this crap is ridiculous. they need to start arresting these prolific taggers and make businesses clean up - it has spread throughout every major corridor in Oakland - looks like crap.
Obviously city government is doing nothing about it.

My thanks to the author of the previous comment and and thanks for supporting prosecution of these taggers. Anyone from out-of-town, who drives through Oakland, must get a real shock at seeing all the grafitti, sofas, and mattresses and, most likely, would form a very negative view of Oakland and is very likely to believe that no one in Oakland, including the city governemen, cares a rat's @#$% about environmental crimes.

Another month has gone by and Code Compliance has been completely ineffective at acheiving any enforcement againt Public Storage. I think the time is near for a lawsuit. If anyone is interested in joining in a lawsuit against Public Storage and/or the City of Oakland, please leave a comment. Thanks.

Claims for damages are being prepared and justice will prevail.

NO progress.

Hi Sentinel,
A couple of thoughts. Perhaps some interested person could go to the county assessors office and check the plat maps to verify the title description of the subject property. This description could provide proof to the shruggers the true ownership of this area in question. Is it state's responsibility, the cities, or the property owner. As it is now there is no way to dispute who owns the strip of land. Of course the building is owned by PS and there are normal provisions for property line set backs. These must be investigated to the legal description. Secondly, we all know that the fence installed didn't do much to deter the scum from trespassing. What about lobbying the community (crowd source?) to build a better fence that will not be so easily crossed? I'm all for trespassing, only if the results are benign and may enhance the quality of the hood. At no great expense we could get 5 gallons of paint at the household hazardous waste facility, some rollers, and extensions and do the job our selves to cover up the graffiti. There is the issue of the homeless' stuff there, so it might be a good idea to have a problem solving officer in on the mischief.
Please provide more information on the lawsuit.

Thank you for your thoughts. This building was built with zero clearance on the freeway frontage so the building in within the boundaries of the City of Oakland and the jurisdiction of Code Compliance NOT CalTrans. In fact, CalTrans has been urging Code Compliance for over a year to take more vigorous enforcement action, but it has fallen on Ray Derania's (supervisor) deaf ears at Code Compliance. The City of Oakland has written them numerous "Courtesy Notices" asking them to "help beautify Oakland" by cleaning up their blighted building. It is clear that Public Storage has no interest in Oakland, expect for the money they can extract from it.

This building was built with zero clearance on the I-580 frontage (side with grafitti). If the building encroaches on I-580 anywhere on that frontage, the State of California could get to order Public Storage to move or demolish the rear building.

(Continued). The height of the fence has been raised by CalTrans at my request and the homeless have been removed 3 times at my request. I informed PS that the key to the access gate for the painters they promised 6 months ago to clean up the grafitti is readily available from CalTrans' Mr. Nuti (maintenance supervisor). They NEVER called him which is no surprise. I thought that it would be a simple and direct to just ask for community volunteers to paint out the grafitti. However, it is very illegal for private citizens to enter State of Califorina property without a permit and a signed waiver releasing the state from any liability for injuries. This issue could be resolved in Small Claims Court that has the power to issue a court order requiring PS to paint out the grafitti and KEEP IT OFF in the future. If PS does not comply, they would be in contempt of court and could be fined for each day they are not in compliance with the order..

Thank you for your work here. So what exactly is your petition and to who? Is there actually pending litigation?

I appreciate your positive comments. The signed petition was directed to the City of Oakland, Code Compliance. They "misplaced" it and did not even have the courtesy to respond or acknowledge our neighborhood petition. I demanded that they "locate" our petition and after much rangling over weeks, they "found" it, but still refused to respond and address the specific issues raised in the petition. What happened to democracy and the right of citizens to petition the government to redress grievances through the First and Fourteenth Amendments?

The litigation process is in the draft stage, all issues are being defined, witnesses are being identified, and monetary damages are being assessed.

Public Storage, after more than a year of pressure from the community for a year, cleaned up the back of their building, but within 72 hours 200 feet of graffiti was sprayed all over the back once again. That was last week and I do not intend to look at this new trash tagging for another year. Other merchants in the area clean up their buildings in a timely manner, why not the billionaire corporation, Public Storage?

The Public Storage circus continues. Since Oakland is being ruined by graffiti and it a a criminal offense, why can't OPD do an overnight watch on this place and start catching these people? We pay high taxes and get very little in return. If anyone have some creative ideas on dealing with this problem at Public Storage, please post a comment.

Sentinel - that is exactly what I have been requesting. we did not used to have this problem.
of course nothing is being done about it. Quan needs to go. all of district two is covered in grafitti

TO: SWANK7
I agree that Mayor Quan must go. She usually avoids answering direct questions or postpones effective problem solving. I have lived in Oakland for 40 years and I have NEVER seen such a mess before, illegal dumping, blighted homes, graffiti, crime, litter, and rotten roadways in all city districts. I report these issues, but the response by city government is less than enthusiastic.

Public Storage has cleaned up the grafitti ONCE in the past year, but the small, corner market across the street on Ardley Avenue cleans up the grafitti on their building very fact. In fact, that corner store has been completely repainted 3 times by the owner. Ever since the Public Storage warehouse was built in the 1980s, they have been very bad neighbors. When the building was completed, it received the "ONION AWARD" for the ugliest building built for that year in Oakland.

As I stated previously, the Ciyt Attorney could easily solve this problem with a court action.

Thanks to other ClickFix contributors for supporting this serious blight issue. I don't think the City of Oakland is very motivated to help the residents clean up Oakland. The politicians at City Hall only talk about a better Oakland, but they seem to have too many special interests to please especially self-interest. Most of the problems in Oakland can be mapped back to very poor leadership. With good leaders, there can be no change.

Oops. My previous, last, comment should read "WITHOUT good leaders, there can be no change".

From the lack of comments recently, I am discouraged that neighbors are getting used to hundreds of feet of grafitti on the back of this storage facility. If anyone want to go in with me on a lawsuit in small claims court to get a court order to force Public Storage to clean up this eyesore, sent email to me at
italica@msn.com.

I am breathless! The 200 feet of graffiti on the freeway side of Public Storage has been cleaned up after more than 550 days of waiting. I hope the management of Public Storage will begin to regularly keep the freeway side of the building free of graffiti on a regular basis.

GOD BLESS AMERICA