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As this case drags on, one certainty remains: The attorneys continue to be paid their billable hours. I have a keen understanding of what this fight with the city is costing me financially. However, when it comes to what the city pays for lawyers on this case each month, somehow, that information is deemed "privileged," and not to be revealed to the public. Strange as it may seem, these contract attorneys are allowed to legally shield their significant monthly tug on the public purse by merely stating that, somehow, I will gain some "unfair advantage" if word of that actual dollar figure gets out to the public. That's right! It's one of those things to make you go "huh?" But they claim their legal position could be weakened if people were to find out what amounts are thrown away each month on this wrongheaded and losing case. My suggestion is that the mayor and the council get a second opinion. The problem for them is that the law involved is on my side. There are two relevant pieces. Please, look at them both for yourself. They are on the city's website in the Municipal Code section. These paragraphs aren't all that complicated. Take a few minutes and see for yourself why the city's lawyers are going to lose this case. The business license exemption piece is Chapter 5.01.040(c). Likewise, the "grandfathering" piece is all the way down at the bottom, under Riverside County Zoning Ordinance 348, Article 18 (General Provisions) Section 18.8 (Nonconforming Uses and Structures). You might ask your nephew attorney to look these over. Better yet, ask ANY attorney -- any attorney that is, other than our city contract lawyers — these same private lawyers who have soaked the citizens of Menifee for half a million bucks on this issue so far, and with no end in sight! What is the need or benefit of all these years spent dragging on with the city's apparent so-called legal strategy? (Hint! Google: "scorched earth," in the legal term sense)
And what is up with all the secrecy redactions, that are incorrectly, (and possibly illegally,) blotting out significant content in the documents I have requested from the city under the Public Records Act? To my thinking, that watchdog law seems written for this very purpose, as a check on government secrecy being used to cover up government mistakes or wrongdoing! It is an attorney's job to know the law and to properly advise the client. And when the client is the City of Menifee, and the law in question is Menifee's own Municipal Code, wouldn't the proper, lawyerly advice be to tell those involved to merely describe their job functions briefly and then simply tell the truth about what steps they took in the handling of this case? How simple! Why don't they let the simple truth be their strategy so we can please get on with it? These are public employees, guiding public servants, doing public work, with public records and public money! What better way to get to the core of what happened down there at City Hall? But then they would lose the case! And how could one possibly expect to rack up a half-million dollars in attorney fees doing it that way? Remember, I didn't pick this fight. I have been ranching on Holland Road for more than 25 years. The activities at my Wooden Nickel Ranch have been a significant part of this community long before Menifee started calling itself a city. I love my ranch, and there was never a question that I would roll over and let myself be put out of business by this new, sort-of-city. Under color of law, whether by ignorance or by malice, the city acted against me with wrong decisions and intimidating actions.
The city incorrectly refused my business license/ranching exemption and then maliciously singled me out for selective enforcement, citing me for operating my horse ranch without one. I had appropriately asked the city to follow the law then in effect that governed my horse ranch as a "commercial agricultural operation," just as it had been so designated by Riverside County for more than a quarter century. The city inexplicably refused, and so I sued. What else was I supposed to do? Anyone who knows me realizes there was never a thought that I would knuckle under to let them incorrectly diminish my ranch and threaten my livelihood by merely dropping some city boundaries down over my property. I admit that I am now weary from this lengthy effort, but I pray for the stamina and strength to stand determined for all my neighbors of rural Menifee. Our horses are in the way of your housing tracts, I get that! But we were here first. This is our community and we are not going away! We can be the best of neighbors, but the city must treat us fairly. From the beginning of this mess, all the city needed do was follow their own law and be honest about it. It really was that simple, and it wouldn't have cost the city a dime to do the right thing! But then, how could these contract attorneys milk enough billing hours out of that? There you have the huge conflict of interest that is continuing to fuel this expensive case.
As it stands today, my rightful outcome remains postponed, and Menifee taxpayers are stuck with an ever-growing tab. It is simple fact and common sense: No matter the eventual outcome, the bigger the mess, and the longer it goes on, all the better for our city's contract attorneys. With such a long history down this lucrative path for them, is it any wonder they still have me in court? Tom
Outback in Menifee, 2018 |
