A judge has thrown out the city of Los Angeles’ latest attempt to tow and destroy broken-down recreational vehicles, handing a legal victory to a group of Westside homeless advocates.
In a two-page ruling, Superior Court Judge Curtis A. Kin said Los Angeles officials do not have the legal authority to enforce a state law that allows the dispersal of abandoned or idle RVs in key parts of the state.
Assembly Bill 630 allows only two areas — Los Angeles and Alameda counties — to implement plans to separate and eventually dispose of RVs valued at $4,000, Kin said in Thursday’s ruling.
“AB 630 gives no such authority to the City of Los Angeles,” he wrote.
The Los Angeles County government covers 10 million people. Los Angeles is one of 88 cities within the state.
AB 630, and the city’s efforts to implement it, have been strongly opposed by advocates for homeless Angelenos, who say it would make it easier for the city to seize and destroy vehicles that serve as much-needed shelters for the city’s homeless residents.
The state vehicle code currently requires cities and counties to sell impounded vehicles worth more than $500 at auction.
AB 630, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in October, raised the financial limit in LA and Alameda counties, allowing them to dismantle vehicles valued at $4,000. That, in turn, protects those areas from entering the more difficult system of selling cars, say the supporters of this bill.
Assistant City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto declined to comment on the judge’s decision, saying “lawsuits are pending.” But City Councilwoman Traci Park, who represents coastal neighborhoods, expressed dismay at the decision, calling it “another example of activist lawsuits that interfere with our ability to address urgent health and safety issues while getting people back into their homes.”
Park, whose district stretches from Los Angeles International Airport to Pacific Palisades, said idle RVs are often a public safety hazard — attracting crime or leading to waste being dumped into storm drains and waterways.
“Citizens are rightly tired. We cannot allow idle, abandoned cars to be a place of residence on our road. We also cannot allow ‘van owners’ to exploit the homeless,” he said in a statement.
Park said he is committed to working with state legislators to revise the law, sponsored by Mayor Karen Bass, to include LA.
The lawsuit was brought by the CD11 Coalition for Human Rights, which is made up of organizations and individuals who represent “the human rights and communities of homeless and homeless people.” CD11 is the abbreviation for District Council 11, which is represented by Park.
The City Council voted 12-3 in December to order Feldstein Soto to “immediately” implement AB 630. The council also requested a report within 30 days outlining a strategy to “identify, notify, and process abandoned recreational vehicles.”
Three members of the council – Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado and Hugo Soto-Martínez – voted no.
The coalition filed a lawsuit a month later, accusing the city of “negligence” over a plan it had no legal authority to implement. Some members of the cooperative who live in RVs may be confiscated and dispersed if the city is allowed to implement the ordinance, the organization said in its complaint.
Attorney Shayla Myers, who represents the CD11 coalition, said the council’s vote was part of a larger pattern of “political correctness that is illegal.” The judge’s decision, he said, shows that the law was not clear – and that “the county means the county, not the city.”
The CD11 Coalition “gave the entire city an opportunity to overturn the City Council’s illegal orders, but the city attorney’s office continued to fight until the final decision, wasting taxpayer resources all the way,” she said.
Assemblyman Mark Gonzalez, D-Los Angeles, said he is working on a new bill to ensure that all 88 cities within LA County can dispose of broken-down RVs.
Gonzalez, who authored AB 630, also pushed back on the idea that RV removal efforts would harm homeless residents. In an interview, he said that dozens of RVs in his Eastside district have been used for prostitution, drug dealing and other crimes.
“The intention was never to punish a homeless person,” he said. “The aim here is to eliminate those bad actors and get them out [homeless] people who need urgent help.”
