Building Code Violations

A Topanga couple who accused county officials of extortion have been convicted of building-code violations in connection with a rental house on a feud-ridden cul-de-sac. A Superior Court jury sitting in Malibu deliberated four days before convicting Art Starz and Kathleen Kenny last week of violating Los Angeles County plumbing, electrical, health and building codes. Starz was convicted on 14 counts and Kenny was convicted on two.

An Acton man convicted of building-code violations for constructing an elaborate home complex dubbed "Phonehenge West" was ordered by a judge Friday to perform two months of community service and repay Los Angeles County at least $83,488. Alan Kimble Fahey, 60, a retired phone company technician, was found guilty last June of a dozen building code violations because he did not obtain proper permits to construct the ornate Acton property, which many of his supporters considered a work of art. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Daviann L. Mitchell ordered Fahey to perform 63 days of community service, "of which a minimum of five days must be served at the L.A. County or Kern County morgue," Mitchell said.

Homeowners in Buena Park will now have a chance to make improvements to single-family homes with the assistance of low-interest loans available through the city. Just over 100 of the one-time-only loans for up to $20,000 each are available to qualified homeowners in the city on a first-come, first-served basis. And up to $30,000 is available to those residents hoping to build room additions to relieve overcrowding in their homes.

Growing up next door to Chuy Carburetors in Cypress Park meant Christian Martin got his bicycle tires filled up by brotherly mechanics and, when he got older, his car battery jumped for free. Over the years, additional mom-and-pop auto shops cropped up in his neighborhood, just north of where the 110 and 5 freeways intersect, and Martin, 30, says he'd welcome more. "It's convenient, and they're local so they won't try to rob you," he said. "They're just part of the neighborhood."

A last-minute agreement Friday has spared the "Kron Street Castle," an architecturally unique residence that city officials have been threatening to demolish for more than 10 years. A wrecking ball was scheduled to hit the house today after city officials said they were left with no other means of forcing Haym and Fern Ganish to finish a remodeling job they launched in 1982.

The Extasy, a Northridge club featuring nude dancers, will remain open through the weekend, despite action against it by the Los Angeles City Council and building inspectors. "We're open and we're planning to stay open," said Steve Gamer, a spokesman for the club on Corbin Avenue near Nordhoff Street. "We're going to adhere to the law. We plan to fight any attempt to close us down."

At a dilapidated four-story apartment building just west of downtown, the city attorney's office announced Tuesday the formation of a unit to handle all criminal and civil cases involving properties with code violations. City officials said owners of the building at 421 S. Bixel St. will be arraigned next month on 26 building and safety, fire and health code violations. The owners, Rolland Gene Johnston, 70, Duretta Joyce Johnston, 67, and Henry Chaing Pun, 34, could not be reached for comment.

For years, housing advocates have complained that the Los Angeles city attorney's office was being too soft on slumlords, too hesitant to prosecute property owners who ignored warnings about cockroach infestations, bad plumbing, faulty wiring and leaky roofs. Now, it seems, slumlords have reason to be wary. Last month alone, the office charged the owners of 11 buildings in the MacArthur Park area with violating fire, building and safety and health codes.

Turn down a side street in the Clinton Hill neighborhood and a strange structure rises above the skyline. It is wooden, and handmade, and -- depending on your angle of approach -- it can resemble a 15th century flying machine, or a warped Gothic cathedral, or a pile of sharecroppers' shacks poised deliriously over Brooklyn. The building is the work of Arthur Wood, a slight man of 75. For 27 years, Wood's neighbors have watched him climb to the top of his building to begin work on its next level.

They're coming to a neighborhood near you. And they're taking notes. Beginning today, teams of roving volunteers will be scouring city streets, on the lookout for the kind of annoying building code violations that reduce property values, give visual offense and belong in City Hall's favorite new category of criminality--affronts to "quality of life."

In the eight years he has hosted the hippest haunted house in Simi Valley, Kyle Killips has dealt with his share of monsters, bloody ghouls and even a sadistic clown. But his scariest encounter occurred Oct. 16 when a city code enforcement officer posted a notice ordering him to tear down his 1,200-square-foot "Haunted Hills" maze in 72 hours or be fined. "We thought, 'That's it, it's over,' " said Killips, 37, whose day job is running the family's plastics company in Burbank.

Merejildo Ortiz towed his sagging 30-year-old mobile home into Duroville in 2000, when the infamous desert slum was just beginning to take shape on the Torres Martinez Reservation near the Salton Sea. The trailer park wasn't pretty. The infrastructure threadbare and shoddy, but the $430 monthly rent made it possible for Ortiz, his wife and three children to finally afford a home. Now that home is under serious threat.

Los Angeles officials thought they were being generous last year when they agreed to allow Hollywood-based CIM Group to place three supergraphics, or oversized vinyl advertisements, on an office building on Highland Avenue. Three months later, that same building has six supergraphics, twice as many as were approved by the City Council. CIM Group also has not removed two billboards from the building's roof, as required under the agreement.

The owner of an apartment building that collapsed Sunday in Los Angeles' Koreatown, injuring four people, was convicted last fall of numerous fire and health code violations and agreed to sell all of his roughly 150 rental properties as part of a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid jail time, records show. Frank McHugh, 82, of Marina del Rey was given three years to sell his apartment buildings in an agreement approved by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Spurgeon Smith.

A federal judge Thursday removed Harvey Duro, owner of the notorious desert slum known as Duroville, from any further involvement with the trailer park and ordered him not to interfere with the future management of the facility. U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson had earlier issued a list of 21 standards that had to be met for the park to continue operations in the face of government demands that it be closed. The park is on the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation in Thermal where Duro is a member.

Saying there needs to be "an endgame" to the ongoing problems surrounding Duroville, a federal judge set a trial date Monday that could determine whether the sprawling trailer park in Thermal remains open. Judge Stephen Larson, who has handled the case since October 2007, expressed frustration with the bickering and lack of communication among the lawyers and park managers involved.

Every now and then Sid Soffer likes to flirt with disaster. In the wee hours of the morning he slips behind the wheel of his '76 Caddy--a "parts" car for his real wheels back in Costa Mesa--and heads south along Interstate 15, hurtling away from the bright lights of Bugsy Siegel's city and into the soft star-glow of the desert. His destination: The California border. "I felt like Al Capone," Soffer says of one such excursion onto his native soil. "I felt like the biggest felon in the world."

NEAR the 18th hole of the Bighorn golf course in Palm Desert, publishing tycoon Duane Hagadone laid out his vision for a dream home to his architect. It would be set high on the bald mountain rising near the green yet be so inconspicuous that he'd have to point it out even to golf buddies.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said Tuesday that his office secured a $10-million settlement from a company accused of engaging in a scheme to drive low-income people out of more than 800 rent-controlled apartments. Darren Stern, the owner of Landmark Equity Management Inc., agreed to pay a $1-million penalty and establish a $9-million restitution fund to repay tenants who were forced out of the company's apartments since 2002, according to Delgadillo's office. The settlement will also ban Stern from the city's residential real estate market for four years and six months, city officials said.

A federal judge took partial control of the Duroville mobile home park Monday, appointing three overseers, including a former diplomat, to investigate conditions, make emergency repairs and temporarily take over all financial operations of the Thermal shantytown. U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson in Riverside could have closed the park but decided instead to give the experts two months to make recommendations. "After 60 days I want to be able to make an intelligent decision," he said.