Building collapse// concert fire // History repeats, repeats, repeats

[steveray]

If I am concerned, I will take fire and/or PD with me, but the legal argument will be whether or not they had a ministerial duty to perform an inspection and didn't. That will be the decider of negligence...If it is a required inspection based on a valid complaint and it was ignored they are in deep. It doesn't matter how much else you have to do or would rather do.

 

[CityKin]

Maybe these areas should send cops, inspectors, and fire marshals as teams on sweeps red tagging unsafe buildings?

We bring the police whenever we think the situation may be dangerous, and we bring the fire department if there is an issue such as nightclub over-crowding in which they may want to order everyone out immediately. If we see unsafe construction without a permit, we post it with a big sticker saying "Not Approved For Occupancy - This Seal Is Not To Be Removed Except By Consent of the Director or Buildings and Inspections" and inform the police to enforce.

 

[conarb]

In the paper today the City of Oakland has done something, they have gone to the root of the problem, the Omni Commons, the heart of the Communist, Socialist, Anti-capitalist, activist community in the East Bay. I've mentioned this before since the remnants of the Occupy movement bought the building and were grouping various activist groups there and were requesting that the city waive structural, fire, sprinkler, and disability requirements, interestingly enough this article makes no mention of the status of those waivers, but they are shutting them down on a legal technicality, Tiger supposedly took a 36 day vacation, you don't suppose Oakland hired the tiger to clean up there mess? .

OAKLAND — Oakland’s top building official last week sent city employees to shut down the Omni Commons, home to a collection of artists, hackers, educators and activists — but not for any concerns over safety or the illegal conversion of a warehouse into housing.

Rather, the alleged violation hinged on two words written on an obscure insurance map dating to 1951, which Tim Low, a senior engineer and the city’s acting building official, used as evidence the structure had, at some point, undergone a change of use, which automatically necessitates the building come up to modern fire and building codes.

The space is saved for now, but Omni founding member David Keenan said the experience calls into question public statements from Mayor Libby Schaaf that city officials would not be conducting a “witch hunt” and would be using “compassion” in their handling of fire and code enforcement complaints. Those types of complaints spiked in the two weeks after the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood earlier this month.

Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan called the city’s treatment of the Omni “outrageous” and “Trumpian.”

“Why is the administration directing senior level staff to go digging through old maps to find a technical detail that has nothing to do with life safety?” Kaplan said. “What we need to fix are the actual fire dangers.”

Because the space has operated for several years as a public venue, Keenan said he had to familiarize himself with city and state regulations long ago. And because the space is collectively run, he keeps meticulous records of past inspections and reports.

Oakland fire inspector Terrence Spencer found no violations at the Omni Commons on Dec. 16.
So, last Wednesday, when a city employee told him fire officials were on their way to shut the Omni down, Keenan was shocked. Only five days earlier, on Dec. 16, building and fire officials walked through the building and found no violations. They had been following up on a complaint filed Dec. 8 with the city’s building department that the space was illegally being used as a residence. Aubrey Rose, a city planner who handles special events permits, said he notified Keenan of the outstanding complaint after Omni filed for a special event permit to host a memorial for three victims of the Ghost Ship fire.

Following the Dec. 16 inspection, fire inspector Terrence Spencer wrote in his report, “no sign of residential use,” and marked that line with an asterisk. At the bottom, Spencer wrote, “no violations noted/proper use in place.”

Erica Terry Derryck, a spokeswoman Schaaf, said city officials were acting out of “an abundance of caution.”

“(The) visit on (the) 16th raised some issues that inspectors wanted to go back to look at, given that this is an assembly space and will likely be used for future gatherings,” Derryck said.

Despite multiple requests for comment, city officials have yet to identify what issues remained that allowed building and fire officials to clear the site of any violations but necessitated the building’s closure.

Emails exchanged between Low and Keenan, which were obtained by the Bay Area News Group, reveal the near shut-down on Dec. 21 relied on two words, “heat – stove,” that appeared below the bold-face “Ligure Club” label of the building on a Sanborn insurance company map from 1951. Low claimed the words indicated the space was being used as a store to sell stoves, rather than as an Italian social club, despite multiple public documents indicating otherwise.

“There’s no way Tim Low can tell me with a straight face he misread the simplest of city maps,” Keenan said. “And the impact is huge. It’s not like getting a traffic ticket; it’s the closure of our space.”¹

Note the bold by me, can you imagine a Mark Handler handling a disability complaint that "would not be conducting a “witch hunt” and would be using “compassion” in (his) handling of (Disability) complaints"?

JFYI here are several pictures of Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan: I have no idea what "it" is.





¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...ands-heavy-handed-approach-for-artist-spaces/

 

[SCBO1]

I think tiger was finishing up that "Thomas Kincade" puzzle while on a home va ca!

Oakland's out of his jurisdiction I bet!

 

[steveray]

Conarb....I am sure Mark can use compassion just like I do, I tell them: "I'm sorry you suck and don't know the laws or your job. Maybe you should hire someone who knows what they are doing!"

First I sympathize and then offer a solution. How much better can you get?

 

[cda]

Conarb....I am sure Mark can use compassion just like I do, I tell them: "I'm sorry you suck and don't know the laws or your job. Maybe you should hire someone who knows what they are doing!"

First I sympathize and then offer a solution. How much better can you get?

Theme park logic

 

[conarb]

I think tiger was finishing up that "Thomas Kincade" puzzle while on a home va ca!

Oakland's out of his jurisdiction I bet!

Yeah but Oakland could have borrowed Tiger, who better if you wanted to conduct a "witch-hunt"? In other news I think he's been moonlighting for the State Department of Alcoholic Beverages, who else could you get to arrest people for driving under the influence fo coffee?

Almost 18 months later, Schwab is preparing to go to trial. The only evidence the DA has provided of his intoxication is a blood test showing the presence of caffeine.

Shcwab was driving home from work when he was pulled over by an agent from the California department of alcoholic beverage control, who was driving an unmarked vehicle. The agent said Schwab had cut her off and was driving erratically.

The 36-year-old union glazier was given a breathalyzer test which showed a 0.00% blood alcohol level, his attorney said. He was booked into county jail and had his blood drawn, but the resulting toxicology report came back negative for benzodiazepines, cocaine, opiates, THC, carisoprodol (a muscle relaxant), methamphetamine/MDMA, oxycodone, and zolpidem.

The sample was screened a second time by a laboratory in Pennsylvania, according to documents provided to the Guardian, where the sole positive result was for caffeine – a substance likely coursing through the veins of many drivers on the road at any given time.¹

I know, you are going to say we have gone crazy here, look at the way we enforce disability laws, and we did vote overwhelmingly for Hillary, despite the fact that the Podesta emails show that she smells like a combination of boiled cabbage, urine, and farts.


¹ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/24/california-dui-caffeine-lawsuit-solano-county

 

[SCBO1]

Conarb....I am sure Mark can use compassion just like I do, I tell them: "I'm sorry you suck and don't know the laws or your job. Maybe you should hire someone who knows what they are doing!"

First I sympathize and then offer a solution. How much better can you get?

 

[SCBO1]

steveray, have you been watching those Dale Carnegie video's again?

 

[steveray]

steveray, have you been watching those Dale Carnegie video's again?

Carlin at Carnegie....

 

[cda]

31 fire inspectors WOW!! I know San Diego is big, but I see they put some importance in prevention::





In the wake of a deadly fire at an Oakland warehouse, authorities in San Diego are cracking down on two art venues in Barrio Logan for fire code violations.

San Diego Fire Marshal Doug Perry said the Dec. 2 blaze that killed 36 people served as a wake-up call to officials in San Diego.


“It did heighten our awareness and made us maybe a little more critical or suspicious,” Perry said. “But a lot of these places are inspected annually and have no issues.”

There are, however, problems at two buildings.
Inspections of Barrio Logan’s La Bodega and The Glashaus uncovered a lack of safety features considering the large public events the venues host, Perry said. Inspectors have prohibited large events at the venues until the violations are addressed.

At La Bodega, fire alarm and sprinkler systems are absent, and the building needs one more emergency exit, Perry said. San Diego fire marshal and city code inspectors are finalizing a list of violations that will be given to the owner.

La Bodega, which opened its doors in 2011, was inspected after the fire department received an anonymous tip shortly after the Oakland fire, Perry said.

Before that, the gallery, which includes 10 art studios, hadn’t been on inspectors’ radar because they typically check up on buildings with fire alarm and sprinkler systems — features that were not required before the Logan Avenue spot became an art gallery.


“Little by little we were doing what we thought was right, or what we thought was safe," said Sony Lopez Chavez, assistant manager of La Bodega. “We never really knew the extent of what codes were or what the city demanded."

Lopez Chavez said La Bodega is committed to being in compliance.

“We do understand and do agree that safety is a priority for any venue that is hosting art shows — or any event,” she said.

The Glashaus, which was inspected before the Oakland fire, has been making needed changes, such as adding exit signs and improving emergency exits. Inspectors more recently have pressured to the venue to meet code requirements, Perry said.


The art galley includes 15 studios, according to its website. The venue did not respond to a request for an interview.


Unlike Oakland’s Ghost Ship warehouse, neither of the two San Diego art venues serve as live-work spaces, which is commonplace for artists and musicians who disregard danger for cheaper rent in desirable cities.


The conditions in La Bodega and The Glashaus are “nothing like Ghost Ship,” Perry acknowledged.


The Oakland warehouse was a clear fire hazard, according to those who frequented the spot. City officials have said inspectors had not been in the structure for the past three decades even though complaints had been made for years.


Perry said San Diego is better suited than Oakland to enforce safety regulations. There are 31 fire marshal inspectors here compared to Oakland’s two full-time inspectors.


Typically, when inspectors show up at the door of a business, most owners or managers are amendable. In the five years as a fire marshal, Perry can recall only one instance in which inspectors had to obtain a warrant.


The tip about La Bodega was the only one officials have received since the Oakland blaze, Perry said. While most places seem to be up to code, the fire marshal said he “re-committed” himself to cracking down on unsafe structures and investigating complaints from the community.


“We do not want to repeat what happened up in Oakland," Perry said. “We would much rather take 15 minutes to half hour to get in our vehicle and go look at (a building) than to have something happen like it did in Oakland.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-venues-crackdown-20161226-story.html

 

[mark handler]

31 fire inspectors WOW!! I know San Diego is big,

San Diego City 372.4 mi²
San Diego County 4,526 mi

He is with the City 372.4 mi², 1.356 million (2013) Official population

 

[cda]

Ex

San Diego City 372.4 mi²
San Diego County 4,526 mi

He is with the City 372.4 mi², 1.356 million (2013) Official population

Ex surburan san diegoian

Still about one inspector per 12 sq miles

And minus the freeway and non build able area, kind of reduced it.

Still a better staff than normal


I worked in a city 450 sq miles and we had 10-12 inspectors
A little less population and not as many high rises

 

[conarb]

The local paper's editorial yesterday was about corruption in the fire department, will the building department be next?

She (the mayor) refused to answer our reporters’ questions about the botched hillside inspections. And her comments to The New York Times about the warehouse fire indicate she simply doesn’t get it.

“We’ve been doing what we always did, and up to this point it worked,” she said. “But now we’ve discovered that maybe what we’ve been doing is not working.”

Apparently, she’s just discovered what the grand jury, the city auditor and hills residents have been saying for years. The department is broken. Its job is not just to put out fires but to prevent them. At that it has utterly failed.¹

With their mandate to hire minorities, women, and the disabled it's difficult to run a department.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/12...-exposes-oakland-fire-department-dysfunction/

 

[linnrg]

Self Inspection by building Owners and Tenants should be encouraged and my opinion they should be required on some frequency. My opinion also extends to the fact that they should understand basic building code concepts such as so many people so many doors, or when they would be required to add fire sprinklers, alarms etc. For building departments or fire departments to enter the property and immediately condemn/close down/shutter/evict etc. ain't no way as easily done as maybe some of the press makes it out to be or the public outcry seems to expect.

There are lots of communities that do not have a fire department staffed to be able to "provide" annual fire inspection "services". If they do, at best a fire department might get to a percentage of the structures/occupancy's but in no way should be held to beas "the only credible" resource to contain the problems of these types of facilities being so dangerous. And if that fire inspector did not crawl into every nook and cranny or destruct a portion of the building each time are we going to lay the blame down on them when there is a structural collapse?

Lots of owners grumble about costs of fire sprinklers and fire alarm recurring re-certifications. Well those are just two things that do get some attention.
But owners of buildings that have obstructed exits, lack of egress components, or a dangerous/hazardous occupancy should get into the game about how to maintain their facility, and how to upgrade the facility to additional requirements. AND they should know how and when to properly get permits and inspections that hold them to installing the requirements. If they do there is a better chance to minimize losses. The correct thing to do is to NOT expect the public entities to be there for them at every turn. The owners should be liable.

There are many communities that offer help to landlords/owners/tenants etc. in the form of courtesy inspections.

Just as a car owner needs to maintain their car so does a building owner need to know about their building.

Rant over

 

[cda]

One alternative papers perspective :::


http://www.dallasobserver.com/music...n-attitude-toward-dallas-fire-marshal-9013629

 

[conarb]

“Before I was like, the fire marshal needs to **** off and leave our spaces alone … obviously I feel very differently about it now.”

No stranger to the underground music and art scene in North Texas, she advises that the communities not stop operating in the wake of the tragedy but rather learn from it. Part of that is holding each other accountable as questions have been raised recently whether there was criminal negligence on the part of the “master tenant” of the Ghost Ship warehouse, Derick Ion Almena, and other tenants who allegedly knew of safety hazards and electrical malfunctions.

“Spaces need to stay under the radar and keep it word of mouth, but make sure they're in line with the fire code for safety reasons. We need to hold each other accountable, keep each other safe and try to keep each other legal when possible,” says Ashlyn. “The only thing worse than being shut down by the fire marshal is having a building burn down and losing lives.”

These are counterculture people, they aren't going to symphonies or Beethoven string quartets, the Omni that is proposing the self-inspection/repair is a communist collective, in a true Marxist society the government "withers away" and they govern themselves, they are intent on destroying our system and deliberately are out to violate all kinds of laws, the reason these events "pop-up" is they don't want to get caught being involved in illegal activity, now they are starting to see the advantages of complying with fire codes, but they are still rejecting drug law compliance, they are going to have to start obeying all laws, like them or not, what I can see coming are demands for their "safe spaces" where they are free to violate the laws of their choices, and seeking (demanding?) inspection without notification to the authorities of other legal violations.

I just read an article yesterday about the early deaths of rock musicians, it's not jsut fire that kills and maims these lower-class people:

 

[cda]

Sanctuary art buildings ???

Hum interesting concept free of any enforcement or enforcement people.

 

[cda]

These are counterculture people, they aren't going to symphonies or Beethoven string quartets, the Omni that is proposing the self-inspection/repair is a communist collective, in a true Marxist society the government "withers away" and they govern themselves, they are intent on destroying our system and deliberately are out to violate all kinds of laws, the reason these events "pop-up" is they don't want to get caught being involved in illegal activity, now they are starting to see the advantages of complying with fire codes, but they are still rejecting drug law compliance, they are going to have to start obeying all laws, like them or not, what I can see coming are demands for their "safe spaces" where they are free to violate the laws of their choices, and seeking (demanding?) inspection without notification to the authorities of other legal violations.

I just read an article yesterday about the early deaths of rock musicians, it's not jsut fire that kills and maims these lower-class people:

There is hope for California:::

http://www.usnews.com/news/politics...res-eric-holder-to-fight-trump-administration

 

[conarb]

Holder should be disbarred, as a reminder Holder made history back in 2012 when he became the first Attorney General ever to be held in contempt of Congress over his failure to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal which involved selling guns to Mexican drug cartels. The scandal erupted on the national stage when one of those guns was confirmed to have been used to kill a U.S. border control agent, Brian Terry.

Meanwhile, the retention of Holder follows Jerry Brown's appointment of Representative Xavier Becerra to replace Kamala Harris as California's attorney general. Becerra is expected to vehemently fight the Trump administration on any efforts to enforce immigration laws.

The move by Mr. de León and his Democratic counterpart in the Assembly, Anthony Rendon, follows Gov. Jerry Brown’s appointment of Representative Xavier Becerra as attorney general last month, to succeed Kamala D. Harris, who was elected to the United States Senate.

That appointment made Mr. Becerra one of the highest-ranking Latino officials in this state, and he is expected to be instrumental in battling with the Trump White House over any attempt to enforce stringent measures aimed at immigrants. Mr. Brown has made clear that he intends to challenge the administration on global warming and that his attorney general will be a key to that battle.

If the state is going to thumb it's nose at federal law why should any of us obey state law? The state is broke with cities unable to pay their health and pension obligations, it's green industries all run on federal grant monies, all Trump has to do it cut off all federal funds including Pell grants to it's students and Brown will be forced to come begging on his knees.

Just Friday an appellate court has ruled that state employees do not have a vested right to a huge pension.

“While a public employee does have a ’vested right’ to a pension, that right is only to a ’reasonable’ pension-- not an immutable entitlement to the most optimal formula of calculating the pension.”¹

Maybe we'll be seeing school teachers rioting in the streets?

¹ http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...a-court-rules-pension-benefits-can-be-reduced

 

[fatboy]

Let's dial this back into the OP of this thread, building collapses, we have ventured far off course.

Start a new thread, this one is worth keeping open, if it stays topic centered.

JMHO

 

[conarb]

Let's dial this back into the OP of this thread, building collapses, we have ventured far off course.

Start a new thread, this one is worth keeping open, if it stays topic centered.

JMHO

Why Fatboy, this is at base a socioeconomic problem? Oakland, like many cities in the nation, has blighted areas as well as people who can't afford market rate housing and work spaces, included in those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder are people afflicted with drug and other mental problems, with those people it's either live in makeshift housing or go to the streets, and the streets around them are already filled with homeless people pushing shopping carts, as a matter of fact the daily reports we get about the fire are not about safety at all, but rather about losing their living spaces, in a forum yesterday the concern wasn't protection from fire but protection from being evicted since slum landlords are already evicting them for fear of liability and now they fear inspectors evicting them.

Oakland saw a wave of evictions at commercial and industrial spaces after a fire last month inside a Fruitvale warehouse killed 36 people. And the forum, which Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan hosted, served to place the recent tragedy in the context of the Bay Area’s larger housing affordability crisis.

“Fire doesn’t wait. And right now, this housing crisis is a fire that is ripping through our city and it’s not going to wait,” Brito said. “Work as fast as you can and do as much as you can.”

The proposed ordinance would place an emergency moratorium on evictions of tenants in properties that are not zoned for residential use, provide a 14-day advanced notice of any city inspections for violations not considered life-threatening, provide amnesty for past permitting violations at live/work spaces, apply the city’s Just Cause for Eviction ordinance to commercial properties being used as residences and strengthen other tenant protections.¹

Codes being what they are the costs to bring these drug houses up to code would be so high that it would be cheaper to tear them down, if the landlords did bring the buildings up to code nobody could afford to live and work there, yet the neighborhoods are too unsafe for people who could afford to live there to actually rent there. As a matter of fact rents are so high in San Francisco and the Peninsula that major tech companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook are running daily commute buses into other areas of Oakland, the current residents are screaming bloody murder about gentrification displacing them so they can't afford to live in Oakland anymore.

Send code enforcement around and red tag most buildings in town and see what happens. I don't know the answer, we can't have two codes, one for wealthy people and another for poor people who can't afford to live in code-compliant buildings, but that is the question that should be addressed. Codes are responsible for a lot of this, "Do-Gooders" go to code hearings proposing and passing all kinds of life safety codes, and now social engineering codes, we've reached the point that only the rich can live in code-compliant buildings.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/01...discuss-evictions-in-wake-of-ghost-ship-fire/

 

[fatboy]

Why Fatboy, this is at base a socioeconomic problem?

Because I for one,and at least one other person that filed a report, don't want to go down this philosophical path with you. This thread topic started about building collapse issues, not "sociaeconimic problems". I continue to come back to this thread, thinking that it maybe is about a building collapse issue, and find a continuation of this off topic nonsense.

Start another thread of your own.

 

[conarb]

Fatboy:

First of all it wasn't a building collapse, it was a fire and what structure collapsed was secondary to the fire. The point is, what can be done about it and that's what Oakland is facing now, all the people demanding hearings are not demanding something be done about the fire, they are demanding protection from eviction, even protection from building inspectors: "...provide a 14-day advanced notice of any city inspections for violations not considered life-threatening, provide amnesty for past permitting violations at live/work spaces, apply the city’s Just Cause for Eviction ordinance to commercial properties being used as residences and strengthen other tenant protections".

As a matter of fact I received a call from my son who lives and works in the adjacent City of Berkeley, if you recall I posted a picture of the soft-story building he works in that the city came in and forced a $60,000 seismic upgrade, he said friends had asked him if his father knew if they could bar building inspectors from entering their live/work lofts as a result of the Oakland fire? That's how much interest there is here in keeping inspectors out, JFYI I told him something to the effect: "Maybe, maybe not, if there is a public area they can come in and cite anything they see, they can't go into private areas unless they are invited; however, it would be routine if they are denied entry to notify their City Attorney and any attorney can go into any courthouse, look for an empty courtroom, approach the court's clerk and ask the clerk to have the judge sign a court order allowing them to enter for health and safety reasons, so they might just as well let them in and cooperate.".