By Neil Farrell ~
Tempers flared recently when a local citizen arrived at City Hall demanding a meeting with the mayor, the city manager, and the public works director.
That might not seem too out of the ordinary, as City Hall’s across the nation likely see this at least occasionally, but they probably don’t bring a police escort with them to “keep the peace.”
Such was the scene recently, when Joseph Goodwin, who has the Chorro Creek Ranch, located on Chorro Creek Road south of town, arrived at City Hall, frustration threatening to boil over into anger.
Goodwin explained to Deputy City Manager, Sam Taylor, that he and the City have a contract — the City agreed to install a new well on the Ranch (officially called Roandoak) in exchange for removing his property from City drinking water service.
The well was drilled and hooked up in 2012 but the City never followed through with pouring a concrete slab and building a well house to protect it from the elements. It’s been years, Goodwin said, and now the tank is leaning and starting to rust.
He said when the new city manager was hired more than a year ago, he tried to set up a meeting “just to get to know him.” But has never been able to get a meeting, despite repeated tries over the past year. “How can someone be busy for a whole year?” he asked.
He’s also concerned about a “spite fence” that the City allowed to be installed straddling his property line by a neighbor who no longer lives there. He wants to know who owns it, who’s responsible for it and can it now be removed?
The issue goes back much farther than Taylor’s short tenure with the City (just a few months), and he took down contact information and promised to pass it on to City Manager David Buckingham.
Goodwin said that’s what he’s been getting over and over again. “I’ve come in 20 times and they always say, ‘We’ll get back to you’ but they never do. The last time,” he said, “they were pretty agitated at me at Public Works.
“They’ve never met with me and I have a contract with them. The well is hooked up but it’s not finished. They’re not leaving me any options. They’re forcing me to go to court.”
The Bay News asked Buckingham why he seems to refuse to meet with Goodwin? In an email exchange, Buckingham said neither he nor his secretary, the city clerk, remembers ever taking a phone call from Goodwin, “nor have I received any emails or phone calls from Mr. Goodwin asking to meet with me. It is simply untrue to say that I have been unwilling to meet with Mr. Goodwin. I meet with many many residents on many many issues and had he reached out to me, would certainly have worked to meet with Mr. Goodwin.”
He also said that Goodwin had hired an attorney and “since Mr. Goodwin wants to talk about a specific legal issue, an issue for which he hired an attorney, the City has been communicating with him through his attorney for some time. As you know, when one obtains legal representation, it is often inappropriate for staff to meet with that person, on the legal subject, without their attorney present. So, while Mr. Goodwin has not asked me for any meetings, we have been communicating with his attorney for some months.”
Goodwin, during a follow-up interview, produced an email thread from last Jan. 14, between his attorney, whom he has since let go, and City Attorney Joe Pannone, in which the City is given written permission to meet with Goodwin without his attorney being present.
He thinks he’s getting the City Hall run-around and he’s tired of it. “It’s a disdain for the citizens,” he said. “They don’t believe the City serves the citizens, the citizens serve them.”
Public Works Director Rob Livick explained that the well project fell off their priority list. He doesn’t think the City has exactly reneged on their contract; they just haven’t finished it yet. He said, and Goodwin confirmed that the City offered $2,500 in cash instead of the pump house, but Goodwin turned it down.
He said that’s because the well was installed less than 25 feet from the front yard property line. Putting in the pump house now, would be non-compliant to the County’s permit requirements, he said.
He also wants a structure that goes with the Ranch’s buildings. It’s in his front yard and he wants it to look nice.
Livick said they would attempt to come up with an acceptable cash settlement. “If he builds it,” he said, “he gets what he wants. If we can’t come to terms on an amount, we will plop a well house out there.”
The well was part of the City’s attempts at the time to get everyone out in Chorro Valley off City water. They wanted to do this because the City’s water line out to its well field, which hasn’t been used much for the past 20 years due to permit restrictions and the arrival of state water, doesn’t allow for the water to be properly disinfected and it’s high in nitrates.
The supply line can only move water in one direction at a time, usually out Chorro Valley from the Kings Avenue blending tanks. But when the wells are being pumped, the homes out there get improperly treated water.
The idea was to drill a well and install a reverse osmosis system to remove nitrates but Livick said they have only removed two customers, including the Ranch, and about 11 are still out there getting City water. He added that all are on water meters and they pay their bills.
They’ve got other priorities now, Livick said, adding that he had thought the Ranch’s well project was completed.
As for the spite fence, Livick said the City doesn’t own it and whomever owns the now-vacant house across the way, can take it down and the City won’t care. County assessor records show the owner is HSBC Bank and it is being listed for sale now.
Anyone who remembers the old Roandoak of God Commune and how badly it deteriorated through the 1980s-90s would probably be astonished at how the place has been cleaned up.
The transformation from somewhere that local police used to take the homeless to crash, is now a model of communal living, where residents pay a monthly fee for room and board and share in the various chores, from cooking meals to cleaning and yard work. Services are still held, but making and recording music is seems to be the main activity these days.