L.A. Clippers Owner Donald T. Sterling Inducted into Landlord Hall of Shame

Mr. Fish

Donald T. Sterling

L.A. Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling will probably never become a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, but yesterday he did receive a different kind of honor: A statewide renters' rights organization inducted Sterling into its Landlord Hall of Shame.

"For too long California tenants have suffered from their landlords' bad behavior with little recourse," says Tenants Together Program Coordinator Gabe Treves in a press release. "As Sterling and (David) Taran have learned, thanks to the Landlord Hall of Shame, bad behavior will no longer go unnoticed. California tenants have delivered a clear message to landlords: clean up your act or be publicly shamed."

San Francisco-based Tenants Together sent out ballots to its members in December, with the results tallied earlier this month. Sterling was among six candidates considered for the Hall of Shame, and he and East Palo Alto landord David Taran came out on top.

According to Tenants Together, Sterling won the dishonor due to two recent housing discrimination lawsuits that the L.A. Clippers owner settled out of court -- one of them with the Department of Justice in 2009.

Sterling is known for placing ugly-looking advertisements in the Los Angeles Times that tout his good work with charities and often announce that he's receiving some kind of "humanitarian" award from them.

Those ads have become something of a running joke among people who know better.

Sterling even went so far as to make a bogus claim in a series of L.A. Times advertisements that he was building a homeless shelter in L.A.'s Skid Row. That project never materialized.

Angelenos probably won't see a Sterling advertisement in the L.A. Times' A section trumpeting his Landlord Hall of Shame induction anytime soon.

Contact Patrick Range McDonald at pmcdonald@laweekly.com.