To understand my situation, we need to talk about horses.

People may not realize there are 700,000 horses in the state of California with an average of 2.9 horses per owning household.

Southern California has more horses per capita than any other area in the country.

The horse industry contributes approximately $7 billion a year to our state economy and employs 130,000 people.

Not only do we make these major dollar contributions, but we're also good neighbors who care about keeping our distinctive community character.

We love our horses and there are a lot of us!

You have all the horse related services, farriers, veterinarians, trainers — all contributing to the local economy. Horses keep many of our friends and neighbors employed while doing work they love.

Now bringing this around to my present difficulties with the City of Menifee, let's do a little "suppose" questioning:

So, where do you suppose these three-quarters of a million horses get their kibble and bed down for the night?

Where do you suppose all these horses are being kept and raised?

As the follow up on this line of inquiry, we filed a large batch of public record requests covering the past 30 years with virtually every major city and town in Riverside County.

The responses came in and it was clear there's not been a single conditional use permit for a "commercial stable" in any other city in the entire county.

This is ridiculous. Hemet, for example, has 32 ranches within the city limits and not one required a CUP.

Norco went even further: They were adamant they would "NEVER" require such an infringement on their horse ranches.

Of course, many, even most horses are outside of city limits. That was my Holland Road ranch for the 16+ years before our city incorporated.

But then, along comes Menifee and suddenly I am hearing that I am no longer a horse ranch because I don't own every animal on my property!

Now wait one damn minute!

No such requirement exists in any regulation cited by the city. (Later, Superior Court Judge Marquez was to make this pointedly clear!)

Now keep this in mind and you can logically prove that similar paid livestock raising is going on all over this county every single day:

You simply have to ask yourself, if all of these horses are not sheltered in some "commercial stable" somewhere, where exactly are they kept?"

Well, you know this, but I'll tell you: The average 2.9 horses per household are being "kept" and "raised" on the property of other local ranchers who are routinely paid by the head to keep livestock sheltered, fed and cared for.

That's just plain how it's done. Look around, ask around, the vast majority of owners simply don't have corrals and paddocks and pastures and hay storage on their own property.

And remember, all this is going on without a CUP and most often with no business license or exemption.

So, why is Menifee alone in raising this stink?

And why is it only Tom Fuhrman singled out to be denied his agricultural exemption as a horse ranch (under then-existing law)?

And why is it only Tom Fuhrman who needs this prohibitively expensive CUP?

By keeping and raising these horses on my property I am doing only what dozens of my neighbors, and hundreds, if not thousands of ranchers across the state are doing every day.

But the Scott Mann dominated City Council refused to be reasonable, they refused to be fair, and they refused to even follow their own law.

I realized I would never get a fair hearing the way things stood with Scott Mann and his control of the council.

My only recourse at that point was to sue the bunch of them in Superior Court. And let me say, I am so grateful to live in a country that gives me the right to demand I be treated equally and fairly.

Our suit is, first, to compel the city to faithfully follow the (then-existing) regulations, and second, for malicious conspiratorial bias and violation of my right to equal protection and due process under our Constitution.

I am confident. The jury for this case will eventually be drawn from a panel of my neighbors in these valleys who have known me and my ranch these past 30 years.

Yes, I am confident.

Tom, from Outback in Menifee