PEACE KEEPERS : Free or Low-Cost Dispute Resolution Services Offer Solutions to Neighbors With Conflicts

Are your neighbors bugging you?

Did they build an ugly tool shed that blocks your view? Maybe their loud arguments wake you up in the middle of the night. Do their trees drop leaves into your yard and sap onto your cars, leaving you a big mess to clean up?

Have you tried talking with them with no success? Or are you afraid to approach them? Perhaps you can relate to the experiences of Harry and Joanne.

Harry and Joanne (not their real names) lived on what had always been a quiet residential street in Santa Ana. But the peaceful nights ended when their neighbors got a cocker spaniel. The new dog turned out to be a yapper, spending each night running up and down its run on the side of the house, barking at anything that moved on the street.

The dog run was located conveniently for Harry’s neighbors. Unfortunately for Harry and Joanne, however, the enclosure was directly under their bedroom windows. They soon found it impossible to sleep through the night without being awakened, many nights several times.

Harry’s polite requests to his neighbors to keep the dog inside were rebuffed. In frustration, Harry took to calling to complain in the middle of the night when he was awakened.

“She actually had the nerve to accuse me of being rude for waking her,” Harry said. “That convinced me that talking to them was useless. They were very selfish. Their attitude seemed to be, it’s your problem, not ours.”

Harry devised a speaker system aimed out the window, which emitted a squealing sound that startled the dog into silence. Harry still had to wake up to turn on the speaker, but he was able to get back to sleep more quickly. Then one night Harry left the speaker on when he fell asleep. The neighbors were furious and called the police.

The police declined to get involved in what was by their standards a very minor dispute. They suggested that Harry and his neighbors take their disagreement to court.

Instead, Harry and Joanne moved. Although the irritating neighbors were not the only reason for the move, the hostility and resentment were certainly a factor.

In Southern California, as in other densely populated areas, where increased mobility means that people don’t know their neighbors, and where crowding and noise make for short tempers, this kind of neighbor-to-neighbor warfare is becoming common.

And in most parts of the Southland, an alternative to confrontation or the courts is available. Free or low-cost programs offer people an opportunity to resolve disputes with the help of community volunteers trained in mediation.

Most of these dispute resolution services follow a similar format:

When someone with a problem to be resolved calls the service, a volunteer counselor listens to the problem in detail, and gets as much information as possible to determine what action is appropriate. Then the counselor may try to set up a meeting between the complainant and the other parties involved, or act as a “conciliator” or go-between. Initial contact may be by telephone or letter; sometimes several attempts must be made before the second party agrees to a meeting.

Mediation sessions can usually be arranged at hours convenient to all parties, including evenings and weekends. Some services prefer to hold the sessions on neutral ground in the participants’ neighborhoods; others prefer to hold the sessions in their own offices.

The basic tenet of mediation is that the disputants come to agreement on their own, with the mediator acting as a facilitator. Participants are asked to commit to following through with the process until consensus is reached.

A typical session begins with the mediator laying down ground rules, which include no interrupting, no name calling, no foul language. The mediator explains his or her role as an impartial facilitator, and asks the complainant to begin with a detailed statement of the problem. The respondent then gets a turn to present the other side of the dispute. Through the course of the session, the mediator keeps track of areas of agreement and decisions. Agreements may be complex, involving several actions to be taken by each side. The final agreement is written up; both parties sign it and receive a copy.

The Dispute Resolution Program of the Office of the City Attorney of Los Angeles began in 1989. This free service provides both mediation, wherein a facilitator works to create agreement among disputants, and arbitration, in which the third party makes a decision on the case. Los Angeles city police regularly refer non-criminal complaints to this agency.

Program administrator Avis Ridley-Thomas, who is married to Los Angeles councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, believes that intervention and help for those involved in neighborhood disputes helps prevent violence and crime. “We enable people to solve their problems at the earliest point possible,” she said.

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The wide range of services here includes neighbor to neighbor, landlord/tenant, consumer and environmental complaints, employment problems, and alleged cases of discrimination.

California Lawyers for the Arts, which refers artists to lawyers specializing in their field, also runs a mediation service targeted to, but not exclusive to, artists and arts organizations. CALA frequently handles disagreements about commissions of artwork and payment, as well as landlord/tenant disputes, but Nancy Loncke, CALA’s associate director, stresses that her agency’s services are open to anyone with any type of case.

“Whenever possible, we try to get people to use mediation instead of hiring an attorney to fight it out,” Loncke said. “The mediation process is quicker and less divisive --and, of course, much less expensive.”

The Martin Luther King Community Dispute Resolution Service, located in South-Central Los Angeles, handles all kinds of domestic and household disputes, landlord/tenant affairs, neighborhood problems and, increasingly, cross-cultural disputes.

“MLK functions within the volatile arena of urban America,” said executive director Dennis Westbrook. “The changing demographic landscape brings a different intensity to the kinds of disputes typical in other areas. While the beginnings of these disputes may be minor, they tend to play out along racial lines.”

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Typical of the positive results mediation services can produce was the experience of George, an African-American beauty salon owner.

When George’s four foster children took their allowances to the neighborhood store to buy treats, the Asian-American shopkeeper insulted one of them, a 10-year-old girl, with a racial epithet. When the little girl came home crying, George, whose name has been changed in this article, decided to go and talk to the shopkeeper.

“I simply wanted to ask him about it,” George said, “but he wouldn’t discuss it, and had a nasty attitude. That made me really mad. I was determined I wasn’t going to let him go on calling children names like that.” The argument escalated, and ended with each man telling the other to return to their country of racial origin.

George considered organizing a protest and picketing the store. But then he thought about the increasing interracial violence in Los Angeles. In fact, a nearby shopkeeper had recently shot a customer in a dispute. “I thought that I should try to make things better instead of fanning the flames of anger. I decided I didn’t want to instigate any more,” he said.

George went to the Community Dispute Resolution Service. They arranged a meeting with the store owner, who brought along his own 10-year-old daughter. “She was the key,” George said. “She understood my daughter’s feelings, and told her father she would have felt the same way.”

After an hour-and-a-half meeting, the two men felt that their dispute had been resolved, and their understanding and empathy had been improved. A year later, the rapprochement has been maintained, George believes. In fact, two weeks after last year’s riots, George was invited to address the Korean American Alliance, of which his local shopkeeper is a member. He was pleased to see his former adversary sitting in the audience, nodding in agreement with his remarks.

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The King center frequently cooperates with other dispute resolution services, most often lately with the Asian Pacific American Dispute Resolution Center. These groups share areas of special expertise, language capabilities and hold joint training and community forums.

The Asian Pacific American center serves speakers of Asian languages who may have difficulty accessing community services without an English interpreter. Volunteers speak Korean, Japanese, Tagalog, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Spanish and English, and the center can provide interpreters in other languages through their network. Since the center works mostly with people of low income, they charge a flat fee of $10, which may be waived for anyone unable to pay. More prosperous users of the center’s services sometimes make an additional donation.

“We give people an alternative forum,” said the center’s director, Marcia Choo. “It may be a drop in the bucket, but we’re creating opportunities for people to dialogue. Most of the people we’ve worked with, and the volunteers who go through training, walk away with a new understanding of other people’s perspectives and what diversity really means in L.A.”

Judi Skalnik, project director for the Dispute Resolution Center (DRC) of Orange County, runs her program as a project of the Central Orange County YWCA, which has expanded its vision to include a wide range of community issues. DRC of Orange County handles neighbor to neighbor disputes, tenant/landlord issues, domestic conflicts and custody problems.

Skalnik sees dispute resolution as the best option for resolving disagreements. “In mediation, participants come up with their own resolution. It becomes a piece of them,” she said. “I think that’s why the success rate is so high.”

Skalnik is sold on the mediation process as a way of making positive changes in individuals and society. “We teach people how to express themselves and be heard,” she said. “This is a new model of communicating with others, one that fosters cooperation and trust. It’s an empowering process that can be an immense force for change.”

Resource

“Neighbor Law: Fences, Trees, Boundaries and Noise” by Cora Jordan (Nolo Press, 1991. $14.95. Available at bookstores or by calling (800) 992-6656.)

Dispute Resolution Services

Most cities have low-cost mediation services available. Below is a partial listing. For more information about the service nearest you, call your city hall or county administration offices. Los Angeles County Bar Assn. Community Mediation Programs:

Santa Monica/West Los Angeles: 213/450-5252

West Hollywood/Fairfax: 213/854-0122

Compton/Inglewood: 213/639-0885

South Bay: 213/372-1608

Pasadena/San Gabriel Valley: 818/896-2560

Long Beach: 213/437-8811

Los Angeles City Attorney Dispute Hotline (24-hour service): 213/237-2744

Los Angeles County Bar Assn. Dispute Resolution Services: 213/896-6533

Asian Pacific American Dispute Resolution Center: 213/747-9943

Martin Luther King Community Dispute Resolution Center: 213/295-8582

SANTA MONICA

California Lawyers for the Arts: 310/395-8893

ORANGE COUNTY

Dispute Resolution Center of Orange County: 714/633-4956

Christian Coalition Services: 714/630-2622

SAN DIEGO

Dispute Resolution Office of the City Attorney: 619/533-3856

San Diego Mediation Center: 619/295-0203

Tips for Neighborly Communication

Community Boards of San Francisco offers these 10 suggestions for managing conflict with neighbors, strangers and friends:

1-Talk directly. Direct conversation is much more effective than sending a letter, banging on the wall, throwing a rock or complaining to everyone else.

2-Choose a good time. Try to talk in a quiet place where you can both be comfortable and undisturbed for as long as the discussion takes. Don’t approach the other person as he or she is leaving for work, or after you’ve had a terrible day.

3--Plan ahead. Think out what you want to say ahead of time. State clearly what the problem is and how it affects you.

4--Don’t blame or name call. Antagonizing the other person only makes it harder for him or her to hear you.

5--Give information. Don’t judge or interpret the other person’s behavior. Instead, give information about your own situation and feelings and how the person’s behavior affects them.

6--Listen. Give the other person a chance to tell his or her side of the conflict completely. Relax and listen; try to learn how the other person feels.

7--Show that you are listening. Although you may not agree with what is being said, tell the other person that you hear him or her and are glad that you are discussing the problem together.

8--Talk it all through. Get all the issues and feelings out into the open. Don’t leave out the part that seems too difficult to discuss.

9--Work on a joint solution. Two or more people cooperating are much more effective than one person telling another to change. Be specific. I will turn my music off at midnight is better than I won’t play loud music any more.

10--Follow through. Agree to check with each other at specific times to make sure that the agreement is still working.