On Feb 13, 2012, SeaSol mobilized to join hundreds of port truck drivers in a strike rally by the Seattle waterfront. Roughly 500 drivers stopped work during the first two weeks of February, seeking respect and higher pay. It was the first major action of the Seattle Port Trucker Association, an independent association started in early 2011 and run entirely by working truckers. As a result of the strike, some Seattle port trucking companies are now paying significantly higher rates per container, treatment of drivers at the BNSF rail facility has improved noticeably, and state police have ceased randomly pulling over truckers near the port and ticketing them for chassis and container problems. However, it remains to be seen whether these improvements will last, and meanwhile some drivers have been suffering retaliation for their actions. We will continue to stand by the drivers in their struggles to come.
Category Archives: Fight Update
SeaSol Takes on the Low Income Housing Institute
SeaSol’s months long dispute with the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) and executive director Sharon Lee has turned nasty. LIHI accuses SeaSol of racism, and has produced fraudulent photographs to discredit SeaSol and our member at the heart of the fight, George Berumen. This statement is to clear SeaSol’s record and to present the actual facts of the dispute.
George Against the Giant
In June of 2011, SeaSol was contacted by George Berumen, a former tenant of the Frye Apartments, an historic hotel managed by the Low Income Housing Institute. George met with SeaSol, became a member, and told us his story, backed by copious documentation including letters to and from LIHI. George had been wronged by LIHI. While a tenant at the Frye, his apartment was routinely filled with fumes he believed was smoke from crack cocaine, fumes that were making him feel sick. George repeatedly tried to bring his situation to the attention of the Frye manager and LIHI staff, but he says they didn’t believe him and failed to resolve the situation to his satisfaction. At this point, in April of 2011, he decided to move out into a homeless shelter rather than continue to endanger his health at the apartment.
After leaving the Frye, LIHI hit George with a bill for cleaning fees totaling $139.50, and withheld George’s deposit and advance rent totaling $99. These bogus charges are at the heart of SeaSol’s dispute with LIHI. While LIHI offers no justification whatsoever for its continuing to withhold George’s security deposit and advance rent, they claim that the cleaning fees are justified. They say it took Frye staff nine hours to clean a ten-foot by twenty-foot apartment, and have produced photos to show the state of the apartment after George’s departure. However, these photos are fraudulent.
Fraudulent Photographs
On October 21st, we received an email from LIHI CEO Sharon Lee that included six photos, with filenames “Berumen Unit 1” through “Berumen Unit 6”. As we later learned, she sent the same photos to Real Change News, which describes them in a front-page article published October 26.
Four of the six photos merely show a few personal items left behind on otherwise clean shelves and tabletops – hardly something to require nine hours worth of cleanup, as LIHI has claimed. But the other two, named “Berumen Unit 4” and “Berumen Unit 6”, show filthy stove burners and a filthy bathroom floor and toilet.
Those photos are fraudulent, as you can see in the images below. The photo on the left was produced by LIHI, and claims to be of the bathroom in George’s apartment, 302. The one on the right is a still from video obtained by SeaSol and George of apartment 302.
These images are clearly of different bathrooms. In the first, the wall is to the left of the toilet; in the second image, which actually represents the bathroom of George’s apartment, the toilet is bounded by a wall on the right.
The complete video is available on YouTube.
The video we obtained is corroborated by publicly available floor plans of the Frye third floor. Linked here are the plans for the entire floor. Below are details of the plans highlighting apartment 302, George’s apartment, which show that in that apartment the toilet should be bounded by a wall on the right.
Check for yourself: we’ve posted the floor plans from 1998 and 2001.
Finally, we noticed a discrepancy in the camera-generated “date taken” label within the photo files Sharon Lee sent: while the other four photos indicate they were taken on April 27th, the day that George moved out, those of the dirty stove top and bathroom indicate they were taken on April 11th, more than two weeks earlier. It appears that these two were older photos taken from a different apartment, which Sharon Lee found and renamed to “Berumen Unit 4” and “Berumen Unit 6”.
Sharon Lee’s use of inaccurate photographs to discredit George and SeaSol is a disgrace to the history of LIHI. However, even if the photos were legitimate, it is unjustifiable to charge George for nine hours of cleaning for such a small space. Either LIHI cannot properly manage its facilities, or the charges are bogus. Either way, George is not responsible for them.
LIHI takes fight to the gutter
Sharon Lee’s use of fraudulent photographs is just the tip of the iceberg. Throughout George’s dispute with LIHI and Sharon Lee, they have proved over and again their willingness to use dishonest tactics to discredit the legitimate claims of a former tenant.
Sharon Lee recently told Real Change news reporter Rosette Royale she first learned of the dispute through a series of posters SeaSol had distributed in Belltown. In fact, twenty SeaSol members personally delivered a letter addressed to Ms. Lee on June 28th describing the situation as we understood it. The letter gave Sharon Lee and LIHI two weeks to respond to resolve the situation. Sharon Lee and LIHI ignored us; they did not respond at all. LIHI produced no evidence at this time to challenge our assertions of the situation, or to move to seek an amicable resolution.
After two weeks, SeaSol began a poster campaign in the neighborhood of LIHI’s administrative offices, and we staged a small picket outside. LIHI finally decided to respond, by sending a threatening letter from the law offices of Puckett and Redford, a firm specializing in representing the interests of large landlords and property managers. The letter threatened to sue George, newly homeless and staying in a shelter, if he did not stop the campaign. These are hardly the actions of a group with a “sense of mission and…commitment to social justice.”
At this point, SeaSol and George learned that one of our claims around the manufacture of drugs in the adjacent apartment could not be independently corroborated, and we withdrew it from our future literature, posters, and press releases. But we continued to picket and poster at the LIHI offices and at LIHI properties throughout the city.
After the threatened lawsuit failed, LIHI and Sharon Lee changed tack. In an August 24th letter, LIHI invited George and SeaSol to discuss the issue in a face to face meeting. At that meeting, held on September 13th, Sharon Lee came into negotiations with a police escort, and proceeded to berate our members for exercising first amendment protected activities. Ms. Lee then promised to send us photographs of George’s apartment, but reneged on her promise, producing them only to the Real Change reporter a full month and a half after our request, and only one day before the article was set to print. (These are the photographs we soon learned were of another apartment). At the conclusion of our September meeting, Ms. Lee stubbornly refused to resolve the situation.
Deceit and Cynicism in “Racist” LIHI Press Release
As their twentieth anniversary celebration approached, LIHI and Sharon Lee intensified their attack on George and SeaSol. In an October 19th press release on LIHI letterhead, Sharon Lee called SeaSol racist on completely spurious and cynical grounds. LIHI argued that because SeaSol took the side of George, who they repeatedly identified as a white man in the press release, we must be racist. However, George is Latino. It is unlikely having met George at the September 13th meeting that Ms. Lee did not know this. We wonder if Ms. Lee’s identification of George as a white man was a cynical ploy, counting on the fact that his name “reads white,” to slander a dedicated social justice organization.
The second ground for LIHI’s racism claim is that SeaSol distributed posters in the International District. Sharon Lee’s highlighting of ID postering as evidence of our supposed racism is ridiculous. The ID is a heavily trafficked neighborhood just a few blocks from the Frye apartments. Sharon Lee also knew at the time that we postered in many other neighborhoods in Seattle, including Belltown, the University District, Ballard, and elsewhere. We have a proud history of fighting racism, taking on fights for people of color, and at times including anti-racist demands as part of our campaigns – as our website attests. Furthermore, we are a multi-racial organization, and seek to end racism through organizing all peoples to work together to empower and support each other. The claims of racism made against us are incredible.
Sharon Lee Supporter Threatens to Kill SeaSol Member
SeaSol members have now twice been threatened during our dispute with LIHI. In the most recent incident, a SeaSol member putting up posters in Sharon Lee’s neighborhood in the evening was pushed, threatened, and followed by the unidentified man in this video (YouTube). The assailant can clearly be heard saying “I will find you and I will kill you.”
In another incident, seen in the next video, a man we later learned was Sharon Lee’s boyfriend tried to intimidate members during an August picket line. His behavior was caught on video (YouTube).
In this incident the boyfriend stood immediately in the face of members, calling them obscene names, like “a fucking asshole” and “motherfucker,” and encouraging members to “take a swing” at him. At one point he claimed we had assaulted him and called the police. However, there was no assault – except his verbal abuse and attempt to intimidate our members. We believe his actions were designed to provoke violence on our picket line.
We hold Sharon Lee and LIHI responsible for the climate that led to both of these attacks. In the case of the intimidation from her boyfriend, the assailant and Ms. Lee have a direct personal relationship. In the case of the assault from her supporter, Sharon Lee and LIHI have produced a climate of vitriol against SeaSol. In numerous handbills, press releases, statements to the media and her supporters, Sharon Lee has called us “racists,” “liars,” “bullies,” and “extortionists.” This rhetoric has produced a situation where individuals may feel justified taking violent action against our members.
SeaSol takes any threat of violence very seriously. We have taken precautions to protect our members from those who wish to do us violence at future actions. The methods and tactics of Lee, LIHI, and their supporters are deplorable.
Sharon Lee Embarrasses LIHI
The repeated history of such dishonest and outrageous behavior is a discredit to the history and tradition of LIHI, an organization that bases its principles on tenant self-management and social justice. Instead, Ms. Lee’s and LIHI’s behavior has been unethical from the beginning. George and SeaSol have justice on our side; we will not give up until George gets the money he is owed.
Panama Hotel pickets continue
SeaSol has been supporting the campaign by the recently formed Olympia Solidarity Network (OlySol) against Jan Johnson, owner of rental properties in Olympia and the Panama Hotel in Seattle. While living under Jan Johnson’s iron heel OlySol members Scott and Patty have had to endure an antiquated septic system that Ms. Johnson habitually allowed to be overfilled, thus venting human waste throughout their yard. This in turn led to mold and rats, and a strong likelihood of the building being condemned.
Now Scott and Patty are fighting back for relocation assistance (three months rent and their full deposit) and reimbursement for out of pocket costs they suffered in trying to deal with the septic problem themselves. As Jan Johnson’s primary business is the Panama Hotel and Tea House in Seattle, we have been organizing ongoing pickets as a part of the OlySol campaign that we’re hoping will put more pressure on Jan to make a movement and clean up her filthy business with Patty and Scott once and for all.
Talks break down as Lorig demands permanent gag on future abuses
Three months of offers and counter-offers between developer Lorig Associates and SeaSol seem to be ending in failure. The sticking point: Lorig’s insistence on a permanent license to engage in predatory and/or racist behavior against workers, tenants, and communities in the future, without ever facing any form of criticism from SeaSol.
Gaining this extreme form of protection is apparently very important to Lorig–so much so that Chief Operating Officer Tom Fitzsimmons (who you may remember from our last face-to-face Lorig negotiation) has been personally calling ex-receptionist Patricia at her home and dangling the prospect of thousands of dollars in compensation in front of her (“We have the papers drawn up and the check ready for you!”), if only SeaSol will sign their permanent, blanket gag agreement.
Our answer: never. Unlike Tom Fitzsimmons, we have integrity and basic principles to uphold. SeaSol has never granted any employer or landlord a blanket protection to carry out unjust practices in the future without fear of repercussion. If Lorig is unwilling to come to a reasonable agreement, we must be prepared to carry on and step up our efforts at pushing individuals and institutions to cease doing business with this company. If necessary, we may have to proceed all the way to the trial in 2011, where we will beat back their ridiculous lawsuit in a manner that is as public and as costly to them as possible. If Lorig chooses this course, they will still end up with no immunity whatsoever from future criticism and protest.
Can you spare a dime for a developer in need?
Bruce Lorig, CEO and owner of Lorig Associates, has fallen on hard times. So desperate is his need for money, he has been forced to sue his own former receptionist, Patricia, and the rest of Seattle Solidarity Network in hopes of squeezing a little money out of us after we protested racism at his company. Instead of bringing relief, this lawsuit has impoverished the developer even further, as the law firm he has hired piles on endless fees while promising him results that never come.
Beginning in March, we launched the LorigAid campaign–a monthly series of charity bake sales asking passersby, “please spare a dime for a developer in need.” At the first, festive LorigAid charity bake sale, we collected a lovely jar of change (and a few pebbles), jingled many cans, gave away many cupcakes, and sang a song composed specially for the event:
Won’t you please help Bruce Lorig?
He has fallen on hard times
He has to sue his former secretary
So won’t you spare a dime?
The full song is available for download. (mp3)
We got covered in the Belltown Messenger, and we hope Bruce appreciated the coins we delivered to him a few weeks later, which we estimate should buy about 3 billable minutes from his lawyers.
What’s next for LorigAid? On April 29th, we will be holding our second bake sale and soliciting change for Lorig outside the offices of their “preferred lender,” Bank of America. Like many people, the bankers may be wondering, “Why is Lorig so desperate for money?” To help them understand, we will be sharing information about Lorig’s many recent business problems, from empty condos to stalled and canceled projects to discrimination and nasty lawsuits. If Bank of America (understandably) no longer sees Lorig as a good investment, perhaps out of charity they can still spare a dime for this impoverished developer. Drop by701 5th Ave around 12pm to take a fresh-baked snack and donate a penny, a nickel, or a dime whatever you can spare.