Grand Terrace In the News: Highgrove Happenings

Dear Gramps:

Once again the Highgrove Happenings writer Virginia Harford has attempted to malign the citizens who have attempted to protect their fellow Citizens, Neighbors and Property Owners from the repeated erroneous actions of the City Staff and City Council and Developers of their Selection and Approval. Virginia Harford suggests that it is some nefarious act to have taken the City and the related developers to court when it results in increased project costs to the City of the amount she quoted $200.000.00. (An amount asked for by Council Member Miller, but an amount not publicly released by City Staff).

Virginia Harford is clearly ill informed or simply wrong thinking on the matter. First of all the City and the Developer had ample opportunity to hear the Citizens Concerns and make adjustments. The City and the Developer chose not to make those adjustments. When the Court issued Judgments which would be to file an EIR and do a few modifications, and a traffic study. The City and the Developer have decided to Appeal the Case rather than conform to the Judgments of the Court. IF the amount spent is correct, $170,000.00 has been spent by the City and the Developer because they approached the issues and concerns with the stubbornness of a stiff necked bureaucrat.

The cost of the legal representation of the Plaintiff and the Citizens is in the area of $32.000.00 vs. the apparent $ 170.000.00 the City has paid. Clearly the City isn’t getting the best legal representation at the best price as the City has always said the Cases have no Merit, and they spend 5 times the amount on the lawyers, and they still lose the case. Have you ever heard the phrase “You can’t beat City Hall”? Well apparently that is this City’s attitude and posture, and yet it has not been the result in the cases filed.

The fact that City Hall has been in litigation repeatedly for the same type of problems over and over again should indicate there is something wrong with the management and procedures within City Hall. For the Cases to be given a hearing or taken to the trial stage already indicates there is or was merit to each of the cases filed. Our legal system makes taking City Hall or any Government Agency to Court a difficult thing to do. Yet our City Management and City Council does not apparently learn from the experience and repeats similar errors. Blame the Perpetrators of the bad development management and planning for the delay and court costs not the Plaintiff who bring their concerns to the court.

Virginia Harford attempts to vilify the Various Plaintiff in the cases brought against the city because they just run up the cost of development that will take place anyway is also grossly misrepresented. The projects if and when built will have been modified either through negotiated settlements and agreements between the parties or orders of requirements put upon the project via a Judges Decision. The City and the Developer decide to not negotiate and appeal Judges Orders.

Virginia Harford’s failure to ask a City Staff Member or City Council Member why the City is Appealing the Blue Mt. Senior Villas Case and not just complying with the orders of Judge Wade, would have been worthy of the ink used on the page. Virginia Harford’s continued attack on citizens who are protecting themselves, their neighbors, and the public from the folly of the City Staff and City Council is less than honorable.

In the case of the OAC the citizens and the case being brought to court saved the City over 18,000,000,000.00 in costs for roads and infrastructure costs not included in the plan approved by the City Council, and would have been therefore on the City’s Back not the Developers. Had it not been for the law suit the environmental and economic results of that City Staff and City Council Approved Plan would have been at the least a financial nightmare.

In the case of the ESSCO Building there was a negotiated resolution.

Cases still pending include the Blue Mt. Senior Villas, and the Earth Moving being done on the Town Center/Barton Road area including Miguel’s Restaurant Construction, (and that isn’t all about stucco). The BMSV Case was ruled upon and the City is Appealing it rather than conform to the Court’s Order. Could it be that the Developer and City can’t conform to the Judges Order so they need to get it reversed? Or is it they don’t want to comply with the Judges Order? Or is it the lawyers have convinced the City to Appeal because they can get more legal fees, and they want to discourage citizens from taking actions in the future?

Virginia Harford has every right to write her opinion about these events in our community. Yes she has lived in Grand Terrace for many years. Her opinions and conclusions are based on platitudes from city hall and misleading information. It is sad that a person who was a professional reporter would not ferret out the facts more diligently prior to forming an opinion and writing such articles. The reader should note her articles are the only ones the Editor feels the need to put a disclaimer on. The end result of her writing such articles is ultimately a growing pity for her decline as she advances in years.

Dear Gramps:

It is nice how Virginia Harford has foreshadowed the plans of the City to Redevelop the Current Stater Brothers Location owned by a PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL into the mystical City Center and Library that was in the prior General Plan. I wonder if the Property Owner is informed of the City’s Plan for their property?

Virginia Harford says how much she enjoys the ownership of her home / property in Grand Terrace, yet she seems to not feel that property owners of businesses or homes should have the same right to enjoy their property.

She Writes:.....

The property where Stater Bros. Market is still located is owned by Anita MGaughy. There could be a plan for a really high class downtown with a beautiful new library, community center and walkable areas nearby.

The city has the opportunity to plan this development when Staters moves out. We all need to be conscious of what is going on in our little city and not ignore our own responsibility.

Grand Terrace will grow. There is no stopping that growth. It is up to us whether it will be good responsible growth or devastation.

.................................... How about taking your house and making it a Library it will be closer to the residents and easy to walk to.......................

From the Email INBOX:
Brian Reinarz wrote:
Gramps, (Please Post)

Its not "Plaintive," its "PLAINTIFF!" The initiator of a court action is a "PLAINTIFF!" A group that favors litigation as this one does should try to get the terminology straight. If one can't spend the time to accurately research the terms, how am I to believe that one is accurately researching the issues?

Why is Virginia "declining in her advanced years" simply because she disagrees with 15-20 residents, but agrees with thousands? That's a backhanded comment gramps, and its obvious that you wrote it in your continued deceptive attempt to stay on the sidelines and represent your distorted views as "from the email inbox." Come on gamps--- "plaintive!" If you're going to pass your views off as incoming e-mail, at least you could try not to carry your personal spelling and grammar errors over to "from the email inbox." Plaintive is a word which won't be caught by spell check, so sorry you still occasionaly should re-read your text.

Thanks, Brian

From the Email InBox: (Gramps asked the poster to respond).

Dear Gramps:

Apparently you kindly corrected the only point that Brian can bring to the discussion.

Now, Brian or Virginia could address the reality of the content communicated in the post. The excessive cost the city is paying its attorneys to lose cases... even after they have out spent the Plaintiff Party 5 to 1, even after they repeat that mantra the case is with out merit, even after the Court has ruled against the city, giving it an opportunity to make changes, and fixes the city still refuses to make adjustments and comply with Court Orders. No Brian, your comment is about Plaintive vs Plaintiff... Oh if ONLY Virginia Harfords flawed logic was limited to a malapropism.

Brian, Gramps should be capitalized, and “occasionaly is spelled occasionally” if you want to pick a snit.

Thanks for letting me write prior to posting Brian’s giving you credit for writing all the posts. How full is the Inbox Gramps?

FROM GRAMPS: NOT THE EMAIL INBOX:

Dear Brian, and From the Email Inbox Posters.

Gramps is reporting that there are 600 e-mails in the Current E-mail Inbox. These are from Jan 1, 2007. Other documents are filed and stored and 92% of the 1.0GB Yahoo provides and that does not include the 4 GB of Material many people have contributed that is filed on the hard drive and not on the Mail Box Storage. The blog is read by over 40 people each and every day, and Bulk mail is sent to over 200 readers when time sensitive.