Low-income tenants at a residential hotel have filed a $53 million claim against the city of Oakland, alleging that city officials may have been involved in a scheme to violate their rights.
Attorney John Murcko alleges in the claim filed Wednesday on behalf of 53 tenants at the California Hotel, which is located at 3501 San Pablo Ave., that city officials and Oakland Community Housing Inc., a nonprofit group, violated an agreement to provide low-income housing to the hotel's tenants for 30 years.
Specifically, Murcko alleges that Oakland Community and Economic Development Agency officials directed the firm that was managing the California Hotel to stop leasing units at the hotel after some tenants moved out starting in June 2007.
Murcko also claims that those officials directed the management company to pull out of the hotel by July 15 "as further incentive to unlawfully frighten the poor, elderly and disabled residents out of their housing."
Officials at the Oakland Community and Economic Development Agency and the Oakland city attorney's office couldn't immediately be reached for comment Thursday morning.
Murcko alleges that on July 21, city officials directed a team of eight police officers and numerous inspectors to raid the California Hotel to search for code violations that could later be used as a pretext to shut down the hotel.
The claim against the city is related to a lawsuit Murcko filed on behalf of tenants on July 3 accusing Oakland Community Housing of breaking a 30-year requirement to provide housing to low-income residents at the California Hotel.
A judge has issued a temporary restraining order that prevents the nonprofit group from shutting down the building or evicting the tenants.
Another hearing in that case will be held in Alameda County Superior Court on Aug. 27.
Murcko alleges that Oakland Community Housing abandoned the building on July 15.
He said that since then, the tenants and their friends have been operating the building themselves and have formed a cooperative.
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