Fifty-six percent of Blackstone residents in Los Angeles County reported troubles with their pipes, according to a survey of renters in 1,400 Southern California properties owned by the firm. In Riverside County, 38% of respondents complained about having roaches or insects in their homes. Ninety-six percent of the tenants in Los Angeles County, and 85% in Riverside County, were people of color. Their rents were, buy and large, unaffordable by HUD standards.   read more

The billboard is sponsored by Badideasca.com, which is a project of the Employment Policies Institute (EPI). The conservative non-profit “research organization” does a lot of work for the restaurant industry, according to Pando. The institute was featured in an article by Salon last November that ripped the media for accepting claims by industry public relations firms that they are respectable think tanks.   read more

When Alan Trounson announced he was quitting his job as president and CEO of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the official release said he was leaving to spend more time with his family in Australia. It was a short reunion. Within a week of his June 30 departure, he joined the board of StemCells, Inc, a recipient of $19.4 million from CIRM for Alzheimer's research.   read more

The continued influx of tech employees rolling in stock option money and Asian investors offering all-cash deals drove prices up 13.3% compared to a year ago, according to DataQuick. That is actually a slower pace than a year ago, when prices were up 23.8% over 2012. Not surprisingly, rents in San Francisco are also impressive. While RealFacts says the average rental asking price in the Bay Area for apartments and townhomes is $2,158 a month, San Francisco tops out at $3,229.   read more

California will receive $200 million of the settlement with Citigroup. $102.7 million will go to the state’s public employee pension funds that were hammered in the economic collapse and $90 million will be available to the thousands of people directly smacked by the mortgage meltdown. But they will share that money with those receiving down-payment and closing-cost assistance, and organizations who are involved in redevelopment and affordable rental housing for low-income families.   read more

The lawsuit was the latest iteration of a conflict dating back nine years. Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a Republican, announced his intention in 2008 to sue UnitedHealth for $1.3 billion over its slipshod takeover of PacifiCare in 2005. The insurance department alleged the company violated state laws 992,936 times between 2006 and 2008, with each violation punishable by a $10,000 fine.   read more

Frederico Buenrostro Jr. pleaded guilty to federal charges he accepted a series of bribes beginning no later than 2005 from his longtime friend and well-connected financial middleman, Alfred J.R. Villalobos, to influence who received investments from the giant public pension fund. Buenrostro admitted taking $250,000, expensive gifts, and travel and entertainment perks.   read more

Superintendent Jose Fernandez came under fire in February for making more than $750,000 last year to run a 6,600-student school district. He received a 40-year, $910,000 loan with 2% interest from the district to buy a home, a generous pension, the right to cash out vacation days and a guaranteed 9% annual pay raise. On Tuesday the board unanimously voted to fire the former Inglewood city councilman.   read more

Real estate investors would gather on the steps of the Alameda County Courthouse for what appeared to be an open auction of foreclosed properties. It was a group of familiars who decided the system would work better if they agreed to not drive up the price by bidding against each other with a crowd of unfamiliars and an auctioneer they didn’t totally control. Instead, they would designate a single person to bid, grab the property on the cheap and hold their own private auction later.   read more

Judge Hatter ruled in April that the National Forest Adventure Pass program improperly charges people who are on federal property―hiking, biking or otherwise recreating―but aren’t using “developed facilities and services.” The ruling applies to the Angeles, Cleveland, Los Padres and San Bernardino national forests in California.   read more

The state acknowledged that its law was outdated, but has not walked away from regulatory oversight of virtual currencies like bitcoin. The state issued an advisory in April that the government was still trying to figure out how they fit into a regulatory framework, and warned that the “crypto currencies,” “digital cash” or whatever they are called, are “high-risk,” vulnerable to cyber attacks, sometimes “associated with criminal enterprises” and have a “significant” potential for loss.   read more

Spinal fusion patients are filing lawsuits revolving around allegations that Spinal Solutions LLC of Murrieta obtained the bogus hardware from a mom-and-pop tool shop, inflated the prices and paid kickbacks to doctors who used them. The doctors then participated in an insurance scam that may have netted $500 million. The screw cost $300 to make and may have been billed at up to $12,500. The scam was allegedly facilitated by Democratic state Senator Ronald Calderon.   read more

The cheerleaders filed a class-action lawsuit in January, complaining that the $1,250 they are paid for working before, during and after games, including special events and team promotions, was nowhere near the minimum wage. The Raiders argued that they couldn’t be sued by the Raiderettes because their contracts obligated them to submit their claims to binding arbitration with the NFL commissioner as the arbitrator.   read more

The number of alleged scofflaws doubled overnight to 13,500 a day when the Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) removed its tollbooths and went cashless last month, relying on an electronic system to track the violators and issue them expensive tickets. The move was meant to save money for the troubled agency by removing the human factor (80 full- and part-time workers), but could also be a bonus on the revenue side.   read more

While Whole Foods may “satisfy, delight and nourish” its customers, the company also weighs the salad bar containers with the salad, sells packages that weigh less than advertised and sells items by the piece instead of by weight. That is all illegal. City attorneys of Santa Monica, Los Angeles and San Diego pursued a civil protection case on behalf of the state after a yearlong investigation by state and county weights and measures inspectors.   read more

SB 1439 would have limited evictions by forcing new property owners to wait five years before invoking the 1986 Ellis Act, which lets landlords evict tenants and sell the apartments as tenant-in-common units, on their way to becoming condos. Ellis Act evictions in the city nearly doubled in the past year. A review of all Ellis Act evictions since 1997 revealed that 30% of Ellised units were by owners who had Ellised at least one other property. Tenants Together calls them “serial evictors.”   read more