A Bold Move to Protect My Property against City Trespass

For about four months I have been engaged in face to face meetings and constant emails with the Planning Dept. of San Bernardino City, California, dealing with the burdens and devaluation that their actions have brought to my property. I owned the property since 1983, paying property taxes all these past 25 years. In 1998, I sold the front parcel of the two parcels comprising the property. I kept ownership of the vacant parcel to the back. The front parcel had a small rental house on it. Now, many years later, I have been trying to sell the property for the past year or more with no luck at all. Then two months ago I began to try to get a loan on the property. I own it completely clear of debt, so I felt that a loan would be easy to get with 100% equity. Wrong ! The loan was due to close in three days, when the lender asked for an additional title search .. a chain of title search.

This search revealed a negative claim on the property. The city was claiming that the parcel was an "unlawful" division. I went to the planners office to find out what that was about, since it was the first I had ever been told of such a claim. The property had already been divided into two parcels before I became the owner. I had sold the front parcel years ago, as I told you, and the city allowed that sale with not one mention of the "unlawfulness" of the division. After more than two months of emails, with the planning dept. insisting that I would have to obtain a "certificate of compliance" at a cost of around $15,000 or more, or to file a court action for quiet title. I refused to do either, contending that after 25 years without notice of such a requirement, the city had lost its right to such a demand.


I hired a young inexperienced attorney to represent me at a meeting with the Director of Planning, Valerie Ross. He canceled out the morning of the day the meeting was to be held, so I called an attorney friend of mine, Dr. Peter Schaeffer, and he said to come by and pick him up so that he could attend with me in his place. Peter asked the city if there was some way that a resolution could be made that would make both sides go home feeling good. Valerie Ross said no, that I would still have to do the compliance demand. Peter asked about the length of time that has passed prior to this being even mentioned, 25 years, and asked "isn't there some sort of statute of limitations on this?" No response was offered by the city to this question, in my recollection. Valerie showed herself to be an indifferent and arrogant person who felt obviously she did not have to deal fairly with property owners. My attorney-friend Peter left the room to go to the men's room, and while he was gone, a statement was made by one of the city officials to which I responded, correcting them. When I corrected the statement by the city at the meeting that I had brought up the request for the certificate initially, by informing them that in fact it was the negative tag on the property records of such a compliance demand that led me to seek information from the city planning dept., telling them that " in the 25 years of my ownership no one ever sent me any damn notice of anything about such a claim ", Valerie stood up and called an end to the meeting. She ordered me to "never make any further contact with her at all". Can a city official in charge of property development and planning shut off communications by a property owner in that city, when that agency is the only one the property owner can take issues to? I would think not. Nevertheless, they have returned all emails I have sent since that date as undeliverable, and have not picked up the phone when I call or returned voice messages left.

Since they shut the doors of taxpayer / property owner recourse to me, after a couple of days I decided that a bold move had to be made. I took several spray cans of red enamel paint, printed flyers notifying of trespass / risk of prosecution, and a digital camera. I had already seen large Caterpillar state construction / earth moving equipment crossing over my lot on a daily basis during the weeks that had passed trying to get the loan. I did not know what to do about it, because the vehicles had no identification on them at all.. no license plates, no Cal Trans or any other logos on them anywhere. So it was impossible to know which government agency was behind the trespassing. The drivers were mostly Mexican and when asked who they worked for, mumbled something that was not any employers names at all.

So I decided to drive to my lot, take photos of trespassers, hand out flyers to anyone driving or walking across my land, and spray paint on the tree and the ground "No Trespassing / Private Property" in several places. If any one drove over the letters, I would see the tire patterns or if someone walked over , the shoe prints as evidence of the trespass. Sure enough, when I arrived, a Cat with a big bucket on the front was scooping up rocks from the rock pile they had dumped on my land weeks ago. I stopped the driver and gave him the flyer and told him to get off my land. A vehicle owned by the Starving Students Moving Company came driving toward me, as I stood on the side of my lot next to their property and the Alice's Restaurant. I stopped their car as they drove straight through the middle of my property. I gave the driver the flyer informing them of the trespass and risk of prosecution. They were receptive and said they would tell the other drivers of the company to avoid crossing my lot.

Then I called the police. When the police arrived, three of them in two cars, they assumed that I was a difficult crazy lady that had no right to hand out flyers or tell people to stay off my land. They were taking the city's side/ the state's side. After all, they are their hinchmen. After I explained what was being done, about the trespass and the claim devaluing my property that the city was using to steal its value, the police became helpful. They put up yellow "caution" tape all around my property boundaries, to mark it and dissuade future trespassers. They told the Cat driver to call his boss to tell them of the trespass cessation. Soon other vehicles came whipping in to join the police cars and the Cat and my truck, all parked there. A man from a company called GEI, a contracting company, arrived with two vehicles. He refused to identify himself or give me his business card. He told me not to take his picture when I aimed my camera at him. Telling him he was a coward who had been trespassing on my property for quite some time, I took his photo anyway.

Then another car arrived. This one was driven by Donna Puentes a construction inspector for the city of San Bernardino. She gave me her card, and asked me to meet with her next week. She promised to help me avoid a "weed clearance bill" from the city, since all the trespassing vehicles / heavy equipment had made the property nothing more than dirt with heavy tread marks everywhere. The nerve of the city .. to throw me out of a meeting, while they are devaluing my property, trespassing on it, and then billing me for weeds which are not there. I had had enough ! I was damn mad. The woman police officer made a call when I was going over to give the GEI man a flyer and the male officer was telling me not to.. so I said to her.. "Yeah, you better call for back-up. I'm certainly dangerous" facetiously. The entire thing was a serious deprivation of rights. The police insisted that I allow the Cat driver to trespass again to remove the rock pile. After that, Donna Puentes made one of the workers dig a hole and replace the for sale sign they had knocked flat to the ground repeatedly. I left, with the police failing to take a written complaint / report, but arrived home feeling more powerful. At least I had done something. My next move: Call the newspapers on Tuesday, after the Memorial Day holiday.

When I reviewed the photos I discovered that in fact I had mistakenly hit the movie button at times and had video clips as a result. For some time, the movie feature had been turned on while the camera was hanging from my shoulder, against my hip. I did not even know it was on and filming. This was a lucky stroke for me, however, because it captured footage of those present, including that man who refused to identify himself to me. On film, Donna the city employee who works for the same planning dept. that had been dealing so callously with me for the past months, admitted that the city had made "an error" in trespassing on my property. She offered conciliatory actions which I am sure she will reveal more fully when I meet with her in the coming week. I captured also her statement that the lot next to mine was being paid rent by the city in exchange for being able to enter and drive across it. She also mentioned water lines the city was placing through the properties, I assume meaning mine, and said that there were "40 foot utility easements along all the parcels there. Hmmm. not sure if that is altogether true. To begin with, my lot already has a 10 ft. setback for sidewalk, landscaping on all sides, and it is only a 6100 sq. ft. lot that would be no building space at all if 40 ft. were reserved for a utility easement. So this cannot be what she meant. The city finds ways to twist and say things in a way that if not an outright lie, is certainly creates a false understanding by the listener.

The city is, as I said at the meeting with Valerie Ross, nothing but a pack of thieves and liars. They have stolen the use of my land for months now without compensating me.. and they concealed the payment of rent to owners of adjacent lots for the same purpose. They have known of the illegal conveyance by deed of my lot after 1998, but never said a word about it. They knew that Cal Trans had dumped a pile of rocks on my land but said nothing of it. The city and the state have been illegally crossing my property daily for months and I intend to get reparations for it.
End of story.. my apologies if it was boring..