Sunday, May 20, 2012 – 03:30 p.m.
An interesting turn of events is unfolding in the taxpayer lawsuit filed by Upland lawyer Corey Briggs on behalf of two groups known as The Inland Oversight Committee and Citizens for Responsible Equitable Government.
The purpose of the lawsuit is to force the San Bernardino County Flood Control District to recover $102 million it paid Colonies Partners L.P. to settle litigation surrounding a land use dispute over a flood control basin located in Upland.
In a new twist, Briggs may have picked up a new ally in his quest to force the recovery of the funds.
That new friend being the Board of Supervisors.
Online court records reveal that on May 16 the County Counsel’s office has filed a request for stay of all proceedings in the case.
The move comes one day after Colonies Partners L.P. filed a second demurrer to have the case thrown out of court.
A previous demurrer, filed by Colonies, forced Briggs to amend his complaint in an attempt to salvage the suit in its entirety.
A ruling on the stay request and second demurrer is currently set for June 11.
If Cory Briggs and his clients are successful in having the settlement refunded, are they going to step up and help the county pay The Colonies when the amount owed is determined?
As many people would like to forget or ignore, The Colonies successfully imposed liability on the county, and what was settled was the amount of money the county owed The Colonies.
Even with the help of County Counsel, Mr. Briggs may be in over his head here. I will be very surprised if this silly lawsuit survives the demurrer stage.
It is also forgotten that the judges ruling was never given a chance to be brought before an appeals court. I beleive that there was a good chance that they would not have seen eye to eye with Warner’s ruling just like they appealed Norell’s ruling. It should also be remembered that there was a vast difference between what the colonies were saying the bottom of the flooded quarry was worth and what the county claimed. The argument that the flooded quarry was worth $300million and that the colonies was being generous to the county in settling for $102 million is disingenuous. However, since hindsight is 20/20 and time has revealed all of the appraisal fraud that occurred during that era of real estate, it is likely that the undevelopable quarry is closer to the $1million dollar amount the county claimed.
Anonymous:
The settlement occurred four months after the ruling, more than adequate time to appeal.
Instead of appealing, the county agreed to mediation in front of a retired Supreme Court Justice, and a settlement of the amount of the damages was reached.
The value of the land was established by an appraiser that both sides agreed to use.
Nobody ever said that the “flooded quarry” was worth $300 million; that was The Colonies estimated damages, and included far more than the value of the land.
OOF……county council is only able to do what the supervisors instruct them to do and if the supervisors are being blackmailed, bullied and paid off, the chances are very good that they are not going to let the attorneys do their job and instead will kick them out of the room during negotiation as was the case. With the knowlege that at least three of the five supervisors were in colonies pockets, non of their decision making can be trusted and is suspect.
Lawsuits are high stakes and very expensive. It is WAR and if one side finds a kink in the opposing armor, they should exploit it and waste the suckers. That’s what war is. Too cry later and spend $10′s of millions on new legal fees and unwarranted prosecution seems absurd.
If the settlement should have been $50 million but the loser paid $100 million, cry more.
Some people pay $3000 for the same airline seat the guy next to them paid only $400.
What about all the people who made tons of money on Worldcom or Enron as it increased in value by fraudulent practices? You know the people that were lucky enough to sell before the collapse. Should they be held accountable for the retard leaders of the companies?
I think not. I think you might have had a screwed up board there in San Berdo and Colonies drove a Sherman tank through it.
Ha ha ha
Anon#6….you are right. However, what if someone just took a pistol, robbed you and got away with it? Would you expect an investigation at the very least or would you tell the police “don’t worry, the crooks got away and I don’t want to waste the taxpayer’s money with an investigation”. Absolutely Not! and if so, for your sake and for the sake of justice and public safety, I would demand one. This in the end comes down to public safety because if we have local developers paying off judges, supervisors, performing acts of blackmail and things of this nature, along with raiding government coffers then no one is safe and they are no better than stick-up artists.
wipe out shady pasts with “SETTLEMENTS”
Anonymous #7:
Your last sentence in comment #7 suggests that you and “Repairman” should team up for a column in The Sun and Daily Bulletin.
With your combined talents for exageration, hyperbole and citing unproven allegations as though they were facts, you could give Joe Nelson serious competition for the 2012 “Biased Reporter of the Year” award.
Speaking of facts, its interesting that you would twice use the words “public safety” in your comment. In his ruling, Judge Warner found that the county jeopardized public safety by diverting flows from the 20th Street storm drain onto The Colonies property, and walking away.
OOF….and perhaps that was the case, but it certainly doesn’t give colonies the right to undermine the government and leave the county politically incapacitated. You claim that I use unproven allegation, however we are not dealing with one or two incidents of alleged misconduct, we are dealing with a pattern of alleged incidents spanning years…. What do you do if someone is accused of molestation? Many will not even tolerate the individual in their neigborhood, but at the least you are going to watch him like a hawk. Now what happens after two allegations and three and four? do you just say to yourself “oh my neighbors are engaging in hyperbole, they didn’t catch him in the act, be nice to him, these are unproven allegations”. I doubt it, Can you imagine what the community would do if on top of all of this, it was learned that the suspected molester was paying off authorities to find nothing criminal in their investigations of him? Would you tolerate this? Apparently many have while the trust and confidence of the county citizens has been repeatedly molested by both developer and politician alike.