Los Angeles Times - 31.10.2019

LATIMES.COM THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2019B

CITY & STATE

WIND POWER

Irfan KhanLos Angeles Times

A semi-truck on Interstate 15 in San Bernardino lies toppled by strong winds on Wednesday. The ex-

treme Santa Ana gusts are being generated by a high-pressure cold front parked over Utah.

that tenants cannot seek the

money for rent payments

that they have already

made, but could apply the

subsidy toward rent pay-

ments that are in arrears,

they said.

The vote comes amid re-

ports that some landlords

have jacked up rent or

quickly booted low-paying

tenants to maximize profit

before the new state rules

take effect in January.

Under those rules, annu-

al rent increases for tenants

in buildings older than 15

years will be capped at 5%

plus inflation.

Landlords covered by the

law will also need just cause

to remove renters who have

lived in their units at least a

year.

Last week, the City Coun-

cil approved a moratorium

on no-fault evictions and

tenant groups urged them to

go further.

Under the new state law,

recent rent increases above

the coming cap will be can-

celed as of Jan. 1. But tenants

still have to pay now and

landlords aren’t required to

return any money, raising

fears that large hikes are

tantamount to an eviction.

Martinez, who proposed

the rental subsidy program,

had asked city staff to ex-

plore capping rents out-

right, before the state law

took effect.

However, the city attor-

ney advised the council that

state law prohibits the city

from placing caps on build-

ings not subject to its exist-

ing rent control ordinance,

which generally covers

buildings built on or before

Oct. 1, 1978.

The rent subsidy pro-

gram stands to mostly bene-

fit people who already have

received a hike. Landlords

giving rent increases greater

than 10% must already give

60 days’ notice, leaving

hardly any time before the

new state law kicks in.

Furthermore, a state of

emergency is in effect as

wildfires burn in Northern

and Southern California.

According to the state attor-

ney general’s office, land-

lords at the moment gener-

ally can’t raise rent by more

than 10%.

Craig Mordoh, general

counsel for the Apartment

Assn. of Greater Los Ange-

les, said officials have tended

to enforce those rules only in

cases of particularly drama-

tic increases, where there’s a

reasonable connection be-

tween an emergency and in-

creased demand for a given

unit.

However, he said he ad-

vises all landlords to abide

by the 10% cap while the

emergency is in effect.

Los Angeles will cushion

the blow of rent hikes for

some tenants facing big in-

creases, under a new pro-

gram approved Wednesday

at City Hall.

The Emergency Renters

Relief program is meant to

help tenants who are facing

“exorbitant” hikes before

California implements a new

law capping rent increases.

Under the program, L.A. will

provide payments for up to

three months to help eligible

tenants who are facing rent

increases exceeding 8%, ac-

cording to housing officials.

“People are being

gouged.... They’re having in-

creases of 25, 50% of their

rent. To me, that should be

an emergency,” Council-

woman Nury Martinez said

to applause in the council

chambers.

The rental subsidy, which

would be paid directly to the

landlord, would cover the

amount of any increase be-

yond an 8% hike. (City offi-

cials had earlier pegged the

amount at 9% , but later ad-

justed it based on criteria

matching the state law.) If a

family was facing a 50% rent

increase, for instance, the

city would cover the amount

equal to a 42% increase.

Tenants and families

who make 80% of the area

median income or less —

around $80,000 for a family of

four — will be able to apply

until Dec. 31, 2019.

To be eligible, tenants

must still be living in their

units and any eviction law-

suit for failing to pay the rent

cannot have been adjudicat-

ed, a city report states. Ac-

cording to the housing de-

partment, the rent increase

must have been effective on

or after March 15 of this year,

which is just after the new

state rental rules were pro-

posed.

Housing officials have es-

timated that for every $1 mil-

lion spent on the program,

approximately 250 to 400

families could be assisted,

depending on how much aid

they need. The council voted

unanimously Wednesday to

provide roughly $3 million

for a city contractor to ad-

minister the subsidy pro-

gram, drawing from funding

already budgeted to assist

tenants.

Councilman Paul Koretz

called it an “excellent use”

for the money, which he said

was supposed to keep peo-

ple off the streets.

“This is the most urgent

case in which landlords are

doing this en masse,” Koretz

said Wednesday.

Housing officials said

L.A. approves

aid for renters

facing big hikes

By Emily Alpert Reyes

and Andrew Khouri

Jeffrey Bizzack watched
in March as 33 parents were
arrested and charged with
crimes he knew he too had
committed. Bizzack, a So-
lana Beach entrepreneur
and well-known name in the
surfing world, quit his job.
He resigned from his board
posts.
He hired lawyers and,
through them, told the gov-
ernment he wanted to come
in and admit what he had
done — pay a now-infamous
college admissions fixer
$250,000 to guarantee his
son’s admission to USC
through fraud and bribery.
Bizzack received his final
punishment Wednesday,
when U.S. District Judge
Douglas P. Woodlock sen-
tenced the 59-year-old to
two months in prison. He
must also pay a $250,000 fine,
remain on supervised re-
lease for three years after
leaving prison, and perform

300 hours of community

service.

Like 11 parents who have

pleaded guilty and were sen-

tenced before him, Bizzack

admitted conspiring with

William “Rick” Singer, a

Newport Beach consultant

who fixed SAT and ACT

tests for his clients’ children

and passed them off as top

recruits for sports they

didn’t actually play.

In Bizzack’s case, Singer

misrepresented his son to

USC as a volleyball stand-

out. Accompanying his re-

cruiting profile was a picture

not of Bizzack’s son — the

boy didn’t play the sport

competitively — but of a real

volleyball player.

Prosecutors say Singer

engineered dozens of such

ruses that allowed him to

slip his clients’ children into

USC, UCLA, Georgetown

and other elite schools.

But Bizzack’s case is

unique: He was not among

the 33 parents arrested in

the March 12 takedown of

Singer’s scam. Overcome

with shame, Bizzack’s law-

yers said in a sentencing

memorandum, he contacted

federal prosecutors in Bos-

ton soon after, offering to

turn himself in and provide

whatever information he

could. At a meeting with

prosecutors and agents in

May, Bizzack “engaged in a

truthful, complete and can-

did discussion of his ac-

tions,” his memo says.

It is unclear from court

papers whether Bizzack was

aware at that point he had

been under investigation for

months. At the direction of

the FBI, Singer had called

Bizzack in October 2018 and

tried to elicit from him in-

criminating statements.

Bizzack also met with in-

vestigators from USC, his

lawyers wrote, adding that

they believed he was the only

parent charged in the scan-

dal to do so. For several

hours, he spoke “openly and

honestly about everything

he knew about the scheme

and his participation in it,”

and turned over documents

that the school investigators

had requested, his sentenc-

ing memo says.

While Singer peddled il-

legal access to universities

across the country, no

school was infiltrated by

more of his clients’ children

for more years than USC, ac-

cording to the government.

In an indictment unsealed

last week, prosecutors al-

leged that Singer began

bribing employees of the

school in 2007. Nineteen par-

ents of former or current

USC students have been

charged in the scandal,

along with three coaches

and a senior administrator.

Bizzack — a former exe-

cutive for the World Surf

League, the clothing com-

pany Outerknown and the

Kelly Slater Wave Co. — met

Singer in April 2017, after be-

ing introduced by a friend,

according to a report pre-

pared by a probation officer.

Just a few months later,

prosecutors wrote in a mem-

orandum, the two had

agreed to tap what Singer

called his “side door” at USC

— a scheme that required

bribing coaches or school of-

ficials to usher in his clients’

children as phony athletic

recruits.

Singer tasked a former

USC coach with creating a

bogus recruiting profile for

Bizzack’s son, which de-

picted the boy as a “nation-

ally ranked volleyball player,

high school team captain

and starting setter,” Kristen

Kearney, an assistant U.S.

attorney, wrote in a sentenc-

ing memorandum.

Because Bizzack’s son

didn’t play volleyball com-

petitively, his profile fea-

tured a picture of someone

else playing the sport.

Singer passed the profile

to Donna Heinel, then a

high-ranking administrator

in USC’s athletics depart-

ment, Kearney said. Before

putting Bizzack’s son up for

consideration with an ad-

missions committee, Heinel

made one tweak to the boy’s

profile — she deleted “a logo

from the photograph indi-

cating the name of the ath-

lete actually pictured,” Kear-

ney said.

Heinel has pleaded not

guilty to conspiracy to com-

mit racketeering. She was

indicted last week on new

charges of conspiracy to

commit fraud and bribery.

USC fired her the day of her

arrest in March.

Once Bizzack’s son was

conditionally accepted in

November 2017 to USC as a

volleyball recruit, Singer

told Bizzack to write a

$50,000 check to an account

for USC’s Galen Center,

which prosecutors de-

scribed as “a restricted ac-

count that operated under

Heinel’s oversight.”

Bizzack intercepted the

conditional acceptance let-

ter, and his son had no

knowledge that he was pre-

sented as a fake volleyball

player, his admission

greased with a big payment,

prosecutors and Bizzack’s

lawyers say.

Four months later, the

boy got a formal acceptance

letter in the mail. Bizzack

sent Singer a $100,000 check

and a handwritten note that

read: “Rick, a big thank you

for all your help with [my

son]! He is thrilled about

USC and is still on cloud

nine!”

Bizzack paid another

$100,000 the following month

to Singer’s foundation,

which was little more than a

sham used to funnel money

to coaches, test proctors and

others allegedly on his pay-

roll, prosecutors say.

Ex-surfing exec gets 2 months in college scam

In March, Jeffrey

Bizzack watched as

others were arrested.

He turned himself in.

By Matthew Ormseth

JEFFREY BIZZACK

arrives at federal court in

Boston on Wednesday.

Josh ReynoldsAssociated Press

Los Angeles Interna-
tional Airport officials
apologized late Tuesday
night for an “unacceptable
level of service” after trav-
elers using the new Uber,
Lyft and taxi pickup system
faced gridlock, packed shut-
tle buses and long wait times
for rides.
Tempers ran high as trav-
elers encountered heavy
traffic on the way to the new
pickup area and wait times
for Uber and Lyft that often
exceeded an hour. Some
travelers said it took them
longer to find a ride home
than it did to fly to Los Ange-
les.
“We really, really apolo-
gize for people who got
caught in that,” said Michael
Christensen, LAX’s deputy
executive director of opera-
tions and maintenance. The
new system began operation
Tuesday.
Under the new system,
travelers must take a shuttle
or walk to the new pickup
area east of Terminal 1 to get
a taxi or be matched with an
Uber or Lyft driver.
About 9:30 p.m. Tuesday,
after a relatively quiet morn-
ing, Christensen said, the
airport saw “levels that
started stressing the
system” on the shuttles to
the pickup area and in the
lot itself, which is called
LAXit (pronounced “L.A.
exit”).
The congestion was
caused by a number of is-
sues, he said, including a
high volume of travelers and

confusion on the part of

Uber and Lyft drivers who

had not used the new pickup

system. Some private driv-

ers also accidentally wound

up in the lot, causing con-

gestion, he said.

Uber and Lyft had some

issues, too, Christensen

said, including early prob-

lems with efficiently match-

ing riders with drivers. The

companies also activated

surge prices, temporarily

raising their rates, to ad-

dress a shortage of drivers,

many of whom work for both

companies. Some Uber driv-

ers switched to Lyft once

they were already in the lot,

and vice versa, he said, cre-

ating more congestion.

Overnight, LAX made

changes to road striping,

signage, traffic routes and

assignments for traffic offi-

cers, Christensen said, with

more changes planned later

this week.

Uber and Lyft are also

working to make adjust-

ments, he said, including

sending clearer communica-

tions to drivers about what

to expect at the airport.

An Uber spokesman said

the company was “working

with LAX to resolve some of

the early issues for riders.” A

Lyft spokeswoman said the

company has “an experi-

enced team on the ground

making real-time adjust-

ments to improve our opera-

tions for both riders and

drivers.”

A bright spot of Tuesday

was taxi ridership, the air-

port said. Taxi drivers did

better business on Tuesday

than they typically do on

Sunday, the busiest day of

the week, said spokeswom-

an Becca Doten.

“In some respects, they

kind of saved the day, be-

cause they put a lot of units

in and were moving a lot of

people,” Christensen said.

Airport officials have

banned Uber, Lyft and taxi

pickups from the curb in an

effort to address the infa-

mous congestion in the

horseshoe-shaped terminal

roadway.

The move was necessary,

the airport said, because an

increase in passenger travel

and two major construction

projects — an overhaul of the

aging airport, and the con-

struction of an airport train

— will cause significant curb

and lane closures.

Bumpy takeoff for LAX plan

LAX OFFICIALSapologized late Tuesday after their rollout of a new ride-hailing

pickup system led to gridlock, long wait times, and complaints from travelers.

Al SeibLos Angeles Times

By Laura J. Nelson