East Palo Alto Activist, Landlord Trade Attempted Bribery, Extortion Allegations

Friday, February 6, 2009
Jessica Bernstein-Wax
San Jose Mercury

A bitter legal conflict between East Palo Alto's biggest landlord and unhappy tenants took a strange twist this week as the company and a prominent activist traded accusations of attempted bribery and extortion.

Christopher Lund - a community organizer and tenant at a four-plex under the control of Page Mill Properties' management company, Woodland Park Management LLC - says the firm is harassing him with a $600 rent increase, threatening letters that demand paperwork he already submitted and visits to his home by an off-duty Palo Alto police lieutenant.

Page Mill officials counter that Lund tried to extort $20,000 from them in exchange for agreeing to vacate his unit and solve the company's problems with community groups and unflattering media coverage.

On Tuesday, Page Mill's attorneys sent Lund a letter ordering him to stay away from the company's offices and employees because of his "erratic and harassing behavior."

Lund said he plans to respond with an anti-SLAPP (A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuit.

The only thing both parties seem to agree on is that Lund visited Page Mill's Palo Alto office Nov. 3 and met with General Counsel Jim Shore and Director of Operations Russell Schaadt.

Shore said Wednesday that Lund, who has worked with other tenants to oppose Page Mill's rent increases, offered to abandon his activism for $20,000. Lund, however, says he merely suggested that Page Mill could cut its losses and buy out those tenants who wanted to leave - rather than engage in costly legal battles with residents and the city.

Four days later, Page Mill's attorneys sent Lund a letter rejecting his "demand for a $20,000 'buy-out.'"

Lund responded Nov. 20 by calling that allegation "patently false."

"The query regarding voluntary vacate agreements was exploratory, and at no point in this meeting was there a suggestion of either implicit or explicit quid pro quo," Lund wrote.

In the days that followed, Page Mill approached the Palo Alto Police Department, which initiated an extortion investigation.

As part of the investigation, Schaadt called Lund on Dec. 5 while officers listened.

In that tape-recorded conversation, Schaadt offered Lund $20,000 to "get you out of the picture."

"You said, 'Hey, maybe we buy you guys out and we get you out and you go down the road and all of this stuff disappears,'" Schaadt said, referring to the alleged Nov. 3 conversation.

"That's not on the table, and it has never been about personal settlement," Lund responded, later adding, "That was exploratory for all of the people in the neighborhood."

Palo Alto police Agent Dan Ryan confirmed his department recorded the call as part of an investigation into Lund based on a complaint Schaadt and Shore filed.

"We received a complaint about a possible extortion, and we did investigate that allegation," Ryan said. "We did submit the case to the district attorney's office. They have declined to file any charges."

Ryan noted that the case was closed.

But Shore insists that Lund attempted to extort the company, then "backtracked" during the police call.

"Mr. Lund said that he was the source of all of our problems with CalPERS (California Public Employees' Retirement System), with the newspapers, that he was the one who was leading all of the advocacy groups in East Palo Alto against us and that he could make that all stop," Shore said Wednesday in an interview. "He said, 'You could give me money.'"

Lund, who was unaware of the police investigation until this week, said he interpreted Schaadt's phone call as a bribery attempt and went public with the story in December.

After he launched the Web site www.epa-tenants.org, which is critical of Page Mill, Lund said the company began stepping up its efforts to discredit him and paint him as a "crazy activist."

On Jan. 29, Lund said Palo Alto police Lt. Tim Morgan, who does contract work for Page Mill, was loitering outside his house snapping photos. Lund said he asked Morgan to identify himself and got no response but recognized him as the man who accompanied Schaadt and Page Mill attorney Christine Griffith to their cars at a January rent board meeting. The lieutenant was dressed in plain clothes on both occasions, Lund said.

Lund said he later called East Palo Alto police, but Morgan had left the scene by the time officers arrived.

Morgan went to the residence to take pictures of Lund's car after an unidentified person followed Shore's wife, Shore said. That alleged incident occurred the same day someone posted anti-Page Mill flyers near the Shore family home.

"My understanding is that Mr. Morgan, who advises us on security issues - he's not an employee - went to take a picture of Mr. Lund's car to see if it was the same car," Shore said. "Mr. Morgan took a couple of photos of Mr. Lund as well."

Ryan, of the Palo Alto Police Department, said former police chief Lynne Johnson authorized Morgan to do contract work for Page Mill early last year, and he began working for the company some time in the summer.

"We have a policy in the department that carefully regulates outside employment, and the purpose of that is to avoid any conflict of interest or the appearance of conflict of interest," Ryan said.

"We understand there's some controversy in recent months, and we understand the history of the lawsuit and the allegations back and forth between Page Mill and some of the tenants groups," he added. "This may be a point where all of our current agreements might be reviewed, but that's a personnel matter."

The department's policy manual prohibits employees from accepting outside employment "as a private security guard, private investigator or other similar private security position" to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

"But that doesn't mean they can't have outside employment if it's not in conflict with their job responsibilities," Assistant City Attorney Donald Larkin said.

The lieutenant played no role in the department's extortion investigation of Lund, Ryan said. Morgan echoed that statement in an interview Tuesday, noting that his contract with Page Mill is for emergency preparedness consulting.

"As far as the extortion in Palo Alto - I'm not involved in any of that," Morgan said. "I'm just consulting for Page Mill Properties. ... It has nothing to do with the police department."

But Lund said he wants authorities to look into the possibility that Morgan's work with Page Mill influenced the extortion case.

"If he was in any way involved in initiating that investigation or getting his buddies on it, they've got a serious problem on their hands," Lund said.

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