I am writing this report for a very very good friend of mine who has suffered a great deal due to the Arbitrary and Capricious act of the County Employees here in La Paz County Arizona, the Department of Community Development, this Department is where Planning & Zoning, Health, and Sanitation Departments are located. My friend Jim use to be the largest Small Business Owner in this part of La Paz County. We live in a very small town which is becoming a ghost town slowly but surely due to the fact that little by little this county is trying to push Jim off of his dirt in order to obtain his 800 feet of frontage on Hwy 60.
See back in 1995 a rather wealthy group men purchased 350 acres of land behind my friends property of 7.2 acres, key word being behind. When they did they came and asked my friend if they could buy an access road from the Hwy. Through his property to theirs. Jim told them sure but they did not want to pay him what he asked for. $20,000.00. Right away Mr. Washburn pulled out his checkbook to write Jim a check but Jim didn't want money he wanted it in value, Land. They had purchased the land in an Auction which Jim attended and when he found out who would be biding he left because he knew he could never out bind them, sure he could have stayed and ran the price up but why? He figured at the price they bought it for 40 acres would be good for $20,000.00. But no they put their check book back and left
Now on February 2,1997 one of these men Jerry Palmer became the Planning and Zoning Commissioner and in March of 1997 Jim's troubles started. They doubled his taxes that year, he got an attorney to contact the assessor and got him to drop them back down to where they were supposed to be but then the county sold a tax lien on the property and they sold it for the first errornous amount and so when Jim went to pay it, he had to refinance his property to do so at that time he only owed 22,000.00 now he owes over $100,000.00. Then after he paid of the erroneous tax liens then they tried to for close on him because this is a seasonal farm town and in the Summer months we don't make much money but the winters make up for it most the time unless you happen to get screwed by the County and are already in the hole then catch up can be devastating. He's done well but has become weary over the years and we are out of time.
Ok now to try and make this very very very long story short. They have just harassed and harassed my friend over and over and over he has been arrested like 28 times since this started and all but one was dismissed at the prosecuting attorney's request because they were all bogus charges.
But the straw that has broke the camels back is on October 30 while Jim was out of Town myself and his wife were on the property, I was running the stand, oh ya he has a R.V. Park, Trailer Park and Swap Meet that has been established since 1946, it is zoned R040 Rural 40 acres but is Continued Existing Use - Non Conforming Use. Jim bought the property from his brother who bought it from his dad the family has owned it since 1986, and it had just been made it's own county it use to be Yuma County. Any ways I was running the stand and his wife was in the office using the computer when out of know where 7 or 8 cop and county cars pulled up at the front of the property blocking the drive way and demanded to speak to Jim and I told them he wasn't there but they still demanded to speak to him I again told them he wasn't there so they proceeded to serve me with a search warrant then Jim's wife came out so they served her instead.
They were there like 4 or 5 hours Jim showed up at the very end and when they were all done Jim said well so what's wrong (it was an administrative search warrant to search for code violations supposedly) (The search warrant was obtained with false information that the Code Enforcement Specialist Penny Dalhberg feed to a Detective who under oath purged himself by signing a errornous affidavit in support of the search warrant, which in turn caused the Judge to purge him self and sign a false search warrant.in the Affidavit the Detective states that Jim had no permits and that he had yet to cooperate with county officials, we have in our possession not only the originals but a copy of the file from La Paz County Department of Community Development that shows no less than 30 different permits, electrical, sewer, placement, business ect.) In the search party there were 4 La Paz County Sheriffs Civil Deputy Pete Heere, Deputy Jeff Bolhen who also owns and establishment the houses migrant workers who come here 2 a year to pick melons for the farms that's where the money is, Detective Joe Esquarza, and Merrill Rodgers the dog catcher (we all have dogs so there were about 10 on the property at the time.
Then there was the Code Enforcement Specialist, Penny Dalhberg, Building Inspector Guy Gorman, who did not even bring an electrical tester with him, and Dave Boatwright, and along with them they brought 2 U.S. Department of Labor Investigators who Penny Dalhber conspired along with Dave Boatwright to get them to come at the same time due to the fact that the migrant workers were in town and they were trying to say we ran labor camp, which we do not. The definition in there own regulations reads Labor Camp an establishment build for the purpose of housing migrant workers or by migrant workers themselves and that is not the case here like I said it has been in use since 1946 we rent to every body the same whether the pickers are here or not.) Any how once they were done Jim asked what was wrong and told them if there were a serious problems he would just through every one out that way he would not be in violation of any ordinances but they told he no everything was alright in fact they had one man translate for them and told all the pickers if Jim tried to through them out to call them and they would come and arrest him.
Now this is 45 to 50 migrant workers who work hard all day and then come home and drink until they pass out basically and then get up very early and start all over again. Do you realize how hard it is to keep them orderly with just the 3 of us there and now the cops are telling them if Jim try's to through them out he will be arrested. Needless to say we had our work cut out for us then.
13 days later all of sudden the lights go out so we all come out to see what is going on because we are current on our electric bill so what happen, who do we find but the Civil Deputy Pete Heere, Deputy Jeff Bolhen, Building Inspector Guy Gorman and so unknown man from Arizona Public Service and he is not only cutting the power but he took both the breaker arms of the transformers (we have 2 on the property but only one was in use at the time we had the other turned off years ago) and also takes the meter that Jim's dad bought years ago.
As we come out side Guy Gorman is stapling something to a shed at the front of the drive. Jim comes out and asks what's going on and Pete tells us they are shutting us down. Jim asks why and they give him the run around about violations and Jim is not happy at all not only did we have 45 to 50 tenants but my 5 month old grandson was living with me along with my daughter and we have our own well and no electric no water. They told us the electric was manifestly unsafe. Immediately Jim started calling the department heads and they told us to come to a meeting at the board of supervisor on the 15th at 9:00am.
So Jim and I went, he had gone to Phoenix the night before and bought a digital recorder and I carried it in my purse while at the meeting and we have Guy Gorman on tape stating that the electric as it stood was fine and his boss the Director Brad Weekley keep trying to get Jim off that track Jim wanted them to come back and re-inspect and green tag the electric so APS would turn it back on and Guy said he would but he never showed.
It is now November over a year later and we still have no power or water not renters they served us with a Notice and Order of Abatement and we can no longer run the business off the property. We sell books on the internet and have been forced to rent a room form a friends house to set up the computer to list the book and keep track of sold one to mail out. We have to have some one haul water and put it in a holding tank on the property and because most of the income made was from off of the property now Jim is behind in his payments so we were trying to prepare a complaint to file with the federal courts and then instead we had to file a chapter 13 Bankruptcy case which they dismissed because I am not an attorney and was not able to understand all the documents need and involved to we were dismissed and then we had to file again and each time we faxed the trustee the information but the last time the acted like they did not get them only blank pages and the held the trustee sale any ways and now American Savings Life who violated the Automatic Stay that is established once a Petitioner file a petition with the courts have bought the dirt for a mere 68,000.00 and the property is worth at least 250,000.00 especially since the 350 acres behind Jim's is now a subdivision and there is another 350 acres adjacent to it that is and airpark the snowbirds drive their R.V.'s here and have hangers they keep their planes in and the they just fly where ever they want to go for the holidays or what have you, and they are preparing to make the 350 acres behind Jim's another part of the runway and expand the are park also.
I wish I could scan a map we have of the area for you it looks like a great big funnel but the only place it touches the Hwy it the 800 feet of frontage Jim has, the only place. Now we finally were able to thought together a complaint and after a year of trying to get it right and because we ran out of time we did finally file a complaint with the District Court in Phoenix, but we're not sure we've done it correct and we are hoping they don't throw us right out. We have tried to retain an attorney who told us for a 5,000.00 we would kick their! @#$%&* for us but instead he used up the 5,000.00 and then right before the statue of limitations ran out told us he wanted another 13,500.00 before he would do any more for us and we had barrowed the 5,00.00 to start with.
At this point we would still like to keep the property but most of all we want this county to pay and pay big for all the emotional, mental, pain and suffering we all have had to deal with once the biggest small business in now no business and because Jim no longer advertises this town is dwindling down to nothing and the wealthy ones are buying all the land that comes up for sale that way when this valley explodes they will be holding all the cards but only one thing stands in the way at that is 800 feet of Hwy frontage that my friend Jim has held on to with all of his might but we're afraid his strength has given out we are now waiting for the civil deputy Pete Heere to serve us with a forcible detainer on Monday and once again we will fight this BS but I don't know how much longer we can hold out.
So if any body Out there can help us Please HELP US. This kind of Conspiritory action should not be allowed to go on in this country of ours that's why we have the constitution and the bill of rights but none of that does us any good it we don't have some one educated properly to take it to a judge and show them in the proper court procedure look what these people have done they can't do that now make them stop and make them pay. The Complaint we file November 12 and are asking $60,000, 000.00 for violations of 42 usc 1981,1982, 1983,1985 (3,1986, 28 USC. Something or other I can't think of the section # right at this moment and for violating our 14th amendment rights. We have done alot of research but it's not enough to get us what we need it takes years of schooling to even try to handle a case like this and I have only scratch the top of the barrel in this report.
0 comments