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| PASADENA WEEKLY EXCLUSIVE |
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To all Caltrans tenants:
As the recent February 18th article in the Pasadena Weekly by Chip Jacobs was not posted on their web site, we had some difficulty getting it to you. We apologize for any delay and thank Chip for interceding on our behalf. We once again thank Chip for an outstanding article regarding Harry Nickelson. Chip has gone into the in-depth facts and laid out the sequences of events leading up to Caltrans denying Harry purchase of his house under the provisions of the Roberti Bill. It is a compelling story and we intend to get it to our elected officials and decision makers. We hope you will get it to as many people as possible. Harry's story provides the proof that our tenant struggle is a long and arduous path filled with many road blocks and with what we believe to be Caltrans' continuing obstructionist behavior. We will keep you posted on Harry's status, because it may well be one of us down the road.
Harry Nickelson - Caltrans to Deny His Rights?
By Chip Jacobs
By day, Harry Nickelson is an animator, with “Scoobie Doo” and “The Power Puff Girls” among his credits. At night, inside the state-owned house he has wrestled to buy for six years, he’s more simpatico with Wiley E. Coyote awaiting his lumps.
Nickelson’s Pasadena Avenue rental was supposed to have been sold to him after the California Department of Transportation in 1995 deemed it outside the adjusted route of the long-delayed Long Beach (710) Freeway extension. Since then, the reserved, 47-year-old single father has dealt with sneaky rats, a porous roof, bumbling contractors, ductwork asbestos and enough aggravation to take out “Johnny Bravo,” one of the other cartoons he’s shaded in.
Like other tenants stymied from buying, he frequently considered moving to chop Caltrans out his life. It was a dream that kept him put, the dream of bequeathing the house to his eighth-grade daughter once she grew up. In embracing that goal, Nickelson may well end up where he started with Caltrans over a previous dispute: Los Angeles Superior Court.
“I ask myself why I didn’t walk away,” Nickelson said glumly last week. “It was the carrot being dangled of owning someplace.”
If he is in limbo, he’s merely in front of the line.
Caltrans owns roughly 600 properties on the proposed 4.5-mile roadbed wending through Pasadena, South Pasadena and the El Sereno section of Los Angeles. The homes, the majority of them single-family residences in varying states of neglect, were acquired decades ago by the state in the anticipation they’d be bulldozed or relocated once freeway construction started. But opposition by the city of South Pasadena, which fears the $1.4- billion extension would destroy the town, has transformed that anticipation into 50-plus-years of lawsuit-sodden stagnation.
The Federal Highway Administration confirmed its doubts about the project Dec. 30 when the FHA announced it would require a new environmental study before it resumed its support. That move effectively mothballed something already on life support thanks to the lawsuits, community wrangling and gutted transit budgets. As the Weekly has reported, some insiders expect the state will soon formally yank its endorsement as part of an “exit strategy” to escape the 710-marathon so it can pursue either a tunnel or other gridlock-relief measures.
Because of that, renters who hoped to be buyers are closer to their aspiration than ever -- if they can pry the land from Caltrans.
Nine years ago, when the extension’s prospects were brighter, Caltrans was found to be retaining 56 properties worth $27 million it didn’t need for the adopted “Meridian” route. State law, known as the Roberti Act for the legislator who authored it, requires agencies like Caltrans to make a good-faith effort to sell unneeded property within a year of the time it’s declared excess. Previous owners and existing tenants get the first shot to buy the house at affordable-range prices if their income meets the criteria. The logic is to keep government holdings lean while promoting reasonably priced housing.
Of those 56, 35 have already been sold, roughly one-third of them to a South Pasadena organization for the disabled. A dozen of the remaining 21, including Nickelson’s, are being solicited to non-profits.
A tug-of-war is being waged elsewhere. Tenants on St. John Avenue and nearby streets in western Pasadena have campaigned to have their houses declared surplus so they could snap them up. Pasadena officials, cognizant of the 710’s problems and their own affordable-housing crunch, have maneuvered themselves to buy vacant Caltrans properties -- a gambit that has left many renters antsy.
Those tensions aside, Assemblywoman Carol Liu, D-La Canada-Flintridge, said she’s lost patience with the ponderous way un-needed homes have been liquidated. On Feb. 6, she asked the Joint Legislative Audit Committee to review how Caltrans disposes of excess land with a special eye on Nickelson situation and another frustrated buyer highlighted by the Weekly this summer.
“They just seem to have a lack of respect for taxpayers,” said Liu, who also has battled the highway department over rent hikes and general property management that critics compare to slumlords. “If Caltrans won’t be responsive, maybe we should take the houses from them. We have talked about it.”
Caltrans spokeswoman Deborah Harris said the agency welcomes the audit to tighten up “quality control.” An agency analysis of how tenant-made repairs affected property dispositions put a hold on sales from late 2000 to early 2002, she added.
Tell that to Harry Nickelson.
His tango with Caltrans started in 1990 at a California Boulevard townhouse where he and his wife and young child lived for three years. Renters knew the tradeoff: sub-market rents for properties they had to maintain because the state’s upkeep was usually woeful.
One day in 1993, raw sewage from a blocked city line gushed into the ground-floor units. In Nickerson’s, it poured through the kitchen faucet so fiercely the waste piled up shin-deep. All people could do was try bailing.
Cleanup contractors hired by Caltrans made it worse. They lifted up linoleum flooring containing asbestos, though officials at first said it wasn’t hazardous. Air quality inspectors were summoned. The District Attorney’s office sniffed around for criminal negligence. Soon, Nickerson was informed his family could only take the clothes on their back because all his possessions were contaminated.
He filed a claim and was offered him $25,000 -- for everything. Dissatisfied, Nickerson sued Caltrans and Pasadena. The case was settled in 1997 with a $550,000-payout for all plaintiffs. That amount didn’t include hefty attorney fees borne by the state.
With his townhouse under quarantine, Nickelson relocated just down the street to his current rental near the Pasadena-South Pasadena border.
The mid-size, turn-of-the-century Victorian would prove no palace. When state contractors removed the old roof, they postponed installing new shingles. Heavy rains that hit in 1996 drenched the felt sub-roof, and large pieces of plaster fell in four different rooms.
Nickelson decided the next year he wanted to be his own landlord. Caltrans, however, said he’d have to wait to buy until administrative issues were resolved. Nickelson’s zeal to leave the place to his daughter eroded.
“Every time I contacted Caltrans, they said the legal department was still evaluating their sales procedures. Times passed. You get zapped.”
In Aug. 2001 his interest revived when Caltrans tried imposing a bitterly fought rent increase. Nickelson appealed and lost; the math was hard to forget. Between 1997 and then, he’d paid approximately $100,000 in rent that could’ve gone towards a mortgage. After he threatened another suit, Caltrans agreed to a tentative sale.
Then it flip-flopped.
Highway officials this time explained nothing could be done until there was an approved state budget. Nickelson kept pestering anyway. In March 2002 a deal silhouetted itself. Caltrans determined Nickelson qualified to buy the house at a discounted rate based on his wages as a contract cartoonist.
“They told me they’d screwed up by not having sold it to me a long time ago,” he recalled.
According to his sales contract, Caltrans had to decide by the end of October whether to finalize the transaction or relocate him to a comparable house because the price of lender-required repairs it had to finance were excessive. The deadline passed with no word.
Meantime, the heater’s ductwork was found to contain asbestos. From September 2002 to January 2003, Nickelson and his daughter didn’t use the unit once, deciding to weather the 50-degree indoor temperatures rather than risk inhaling carcinogenic particles. Complaining – and threats to call authorities – got the ducts and heating unit replaced.
Time to stencil in a happy homeowner ending? Nope.
Last April Nickelson’s dream was torpedoed again when Caltrans concluded the price of lender-required repairs was too high. He’d had to go! The cost of the fixing the foundation and chimney, dealing with the lead paint and other problems added up to $250,000. Other Caltrans tenants had run up against the same pickle, told they must buy their rental “as is,” at fair-market prices, or not at all.
Nickelson still had some fight in him, so he hired the lawyer who wrote “the law,” former state Senate pro tem David Roberti. Negotiations ensued. Nickelson even acceded to using cheaper contractors to lower the required repairs by some $150,000.
Caltrans crunched the numbers again. Nickelson was in disbelief at the results. The agency determined he made too much to qualify as a moderate-income buyer because he’d earned double what he had forecast one year. Roberti counterpunched. Property managers, he suggested, should calculate Nickelson’s average income over a longer stretch where he made about $50,000-a-year, $7,0000-a-year below the threshold. Caltrans refused.
“His income was found to be above the eligible limits,” spokesperson Harris said. “We’ve worked with him, gave him several extensions and the bottom line he didn’t qualify.”
Nickelson not only disagrees. He said Caltrans property official Linda Wilford bragged about “beating Roberti.” She questioned in a letter whether he tweaked his income statements through a family friend at his lending institution.
Harris denied there was mistreatment or any vendetta against Nickelson dating back to the sewage incident. Because he is considered out of the running for the house, Caltrans is planning to host a tour of it for interested groups. Wilford was unavailable for comment.
Nickelson is almost speechless himself. A best friend once exuberant about Nickelson’s homeowner plans died before his buddy got his deed. The same fate befell Nickelson’s brother, a flooring contractor who wanted to help his sibling do renovations. If that weren’t enough, Nickelson’s daughter has turned jaded about government before she can vote.
“What it comes down to,” Nickelson said, “is that I have sue them to force them to pay them for the house. Is that outrageous?”
Nickelson has parted with Roberti and is now working with local attorney Chris Sutton, who represented him previously. Does Sutton, who has warred with Caltrans for years, suspect ulterior motives?
“All District-7 cares about is minimizing staff time,” Sutton said. “The prime directive is to do as little work as possible. The secondary objective is don’t do anything wrong. Piece by piece, the houses will all be sold to the private sector, and Caltrans will maintain the fiction the freeway will be built until we are all driving hovercraft.”
• Chip Jacobs can be reached at machimbo1@earthlink.net.
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