At the Lake: City cracks down on apartment care

Property owners and managers of South Lake Tahoe apartment buildings: Beware.

Leaky roofs, moldy walls and running cockroaches are unacceptable in this town.

The city is cracking down on those dwellings deemed unfit to occupy or in need of repairs that reflect health and safety standards. Through the years, there have been a number of horror stories " from roofs caving in on the occupants to broken windows. In most cases, apartment units have no smoke alarms. The finding was somewhat alarming for Jean Beemer, an El Dorado County Health worker who rode around with building inspector Bill Potts to the various locations.

"There are some decent and livable housing. Some are better than others," Beemer said. She cited a problematic scenario for a fire at Bart's Tahoe because it has three floors.

The Ski Run Boulevard apartment building takes home the distinction as the one dwelling inspected that's not making the grade. The city is considering legal action against the place, which is owned by an absentee owner from Washington. Fifteen units were condemned last June, sending residents " many of whom speak little English " scrambling.

About half the 22 apartment buildings in the city with more than 15 units are considered fully compliant. The rest except for one are kept up to an acceptable level. And the scrutiny won't end there.

A follow-up to a recent inspection program, the City Council Tuesday decided to ramp up its code by unanimously deciding to cast a bigger net. It plans to inspect buildings with more than a dozen units and may go for all the city's rental dwellings when staff returns with a report that tells the council whether it's feasible to do so.

"This is not only a public safety. It's a quality of life issue," Mayor Kathay Lovell said, adding the menace runs near and dear to the council's heart.

The issue certainly lit a fire under the quieter Councilman Jerry Birdwell, who for years has complained of noise and substandard living conditions at Bart's Tahoe, next door to his Black Bear Inn.

Birdwell's cackles were raised at the notion of an inspection exemption of five years for properties found in compliance for three years.

It's a question that can evoke immediate responses from people. It takes a bit longer, though, to contemplate a thoughtful answer or two.

What makes people snap?

This is not to provide lenience to 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui, the gunman behind the deadliest shooting in U.S. history at Virginia Tech on Monday when most of us on the West Coast were still sleeping.

We all have a sense of our boiling point, where our cliffs lie and how much stress we can shoulder. Most of us cope with a stiff drink, exercise, conversation. A few relieve stress with violence.

Some, like Dr. Edwin Megargee in the psychology department at Florida State University, have an educated insight into where those crevices are located in human behavior.

Based on limited information on Cho, Megargee believes the English major had an overcontrolled hostile syndrome. And he didn't snap, or go berserk, but had a detailed plan to relieve his aggression, Megargee said.

Those that are overcontrolled are often very quiet and unassuming, Megargee said. The motivation for violence accumulates over time until the motivation exceeds any inhibitions and a "very extreme reaction" occurs, Megargee said.

Megargee said he would be surprised if Cho gunned down strangers.

"The people closest to us are those that can push our buttons the most," he said.

Dr. Kathy Seifert, author of "How Children Become Violent," said a person must have a mix of several risk factors " including being raised in a violent household or exposed to violence, learning problems, poor social skills, behavior problems " then reach a tipping point from stress.

"A lot of us get stressed, but we're not going to resort to shooting up a classroom to solve our problems," Seifert said.

A student who shared a playwriting class with Cho described his writings as "morbid" and his behavior as "really, really, quiet," according to a story by the Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech's student newspaper.

Seifert said Cho's writings should have raised a red flag and been seen as a precipice.

"This is a young man who should have had services before he got to this point. ... We need to act and we need to act early," Seifert said.

The interim head of the mental health department of El Dorado County, Dr. John Bachman, said a quiet English major could fly under the radar of a person who might be on the psychological edge, rather than somebody who has a history of violence and has a familiarity with firearms.

"It's so damn hard to predict this," Bachman said.

Psychologically assessing more than 15,000 criminals since the Jimmy Carter administration, Dr. Shawn Johnston of Sacramento believes violent behavior boils down to "plain, old-fashioned egotism."

A part-time instructor in the psychology department at UC Davis, Johnston said people who believe they are not getting their due, or what they're entitled to, could feel they have the right to hurt people.

"These people want us to know who they were and why they did what they did," Johnston said. "That's a part of the ego trip for them. Kind of a one way trip."

Bring out those winter clothes and extra layers because it will be much colder today. Expect mostly cloudy skies with isolated snow showers.

Highs will struggle into the mid 30s at best with lows tonight in the 20s. If going skiing, temperatures at 8,000 feet will only make it to the mid 20s. Winds will be westerly 10 to 15 mph.

A more significant storm system may affect the area later Thursday into Friday with more snow and cold temperatures.

Yet another system may move into the area by Sunday.