Sacramento councilman has vehicles violating code parked in his yard. Will city take action?
The front yard of Sacramento City Councilman Sean Loloee’s house is out of compliance with city code and the issue has spilled onto his neighbor’s property. The city has not taken action.
For at least two months, some eight vehicles tied to residents of Loloee’s house have been parked on gravel, when city code stipulates they must be on pavement.
Six of the vehicles have been parked on gravel in the neighbor’s front yard, a Sacramento Bee reporter has observed. There is also at least one vehicle and one excavator on gravel in Loloee’s front yard, which have been there since at least since June 2022.
Loloee, whose grocery stores were raided by federal agents last week, did not immediately provide a comment for this story.
The city has taken a more lax approach to enforcement on Loloee than on two other senior homeowners. In those cases, similar code violations involving vehicles partly prompted the city to sue, leading them to be charged with over $200,000 each.
But in those cases, including one in East Sacramento, neighbors had submitted formal complaints to the city regarding the code violations. That hasn’t happened for the vehicles on unpaved surfaces at Loloee’s house, said Kelli Trapani, a city spokeswoman.
The Bee in June 2022 reported it did not appear Loloee lived in the house, nor anywhere in the North Sacramento district he represents. After the article published, he said he lived in the Hagginwood house with his employees, the Montoya family.
Edwin Montoya, who is registered to vote at Loloee’s house, is undergoing state training for auto repair, according to court records reviewed by The Bee for a criminal charge Montoya is facing. Police records show police were called there twice regarding issues with vehicles being sold there.
In June 2023 someone submitted a separate complaint alleging a used car business was being run from the home — a city code violation. A city zoning employee visited the home that month, according to a June 2 code document obtained by The Bee from California Public Records Act request.
The employee noted the vehicles on unpaved surfaces in the documents as observations, but since the complaint was for an illegal business, not for the vehicles being parked on unpaved surfaces, the city did not take action on the parking issue.
“I made contact with the son of the tenant who stated that the teal mustang, the white sedan with front end damage and the GMC truck parked on the street all belong to him and that he does not do any type of or auto sales or auto repair work other than to his own vehicles,” Angela Haight, the city zoning employee, wrote in the document. “I informed him of the other violations including the inoperable vehicles and junk and debris and advised that I was going to be monitoring the property for a period of time”
On June 15, 2023, the city found no evidence of business activity and no new vehicles, the document stated. On Aug. 14, 2023, it closed the case.
But the vehicles remain. And have now spilled across the property line.
When a reporter visited the property earlier this week, six vehicles were parked in the front yard of the house next door. Several did not have license plates. Three of the vehicles with license plates had either a registered owner or release of liability to someone with the last name Montoya, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles public affairs office. All three of those vehicles had expired registrations.
The man who lives at the house next door to Loloee’s house said Wednesday that he did not want to comment for a story but he confirmed that the vehicles belong to the neighbor, who asked if he could park them there a few months ago.
A third code violation case for Loloee’s Hagginwood house has been active for a year and a half. In June 2022, someone submitted a complaint that the house’s backyard contained two sheds and a covered patio built without permits. Inspectors visited the property the same month and issued a code violation last year. The sheds now comply with the code, Trapani said, but the patio does not. The permitting process is ongoing.
Despite an ongoing U.S. Department of Labor federal lawsuit against him and his grocery store business, Loloee has said he does not plan to resign from his council seat but will not seek re-election. His term ends in December 2024.
