This morning I woke up in a cold sweat with a head-pulsing plus-ca-change, deja-vu hangover. I realized my bad dream was reality, and, just like when I was RSF Post Editor before, the Association is being sued by a Member. Former RSFA Manager Pete Smith has whack-a-moled back up for his recurring cameo in yet another Ranch saga, and money, politics and a whole lot of dirt are being kicked up like it’s a barnburner of a Yellowstone season finale. I’ve been to this rodeo before, and sadly Kevin Costner ain’t riding in to save us with a rewrite. All I know is that, if we don’t change our all-too-human, wild-west ways, we’re going to wind up repeating history.
Last week, the RSFA’s newsletter rather belatedly notified the community that on October 28, 2022, 35-year Ranch resident and former RSFA Director Bill Strong filed a lawsuit in the San Diego County Superior Court against the Association for “breach of contract for failure to perform agreed-to illegal acts investigation under AU317 related to Rancho Santa Fe Association’s illegal grading.” The RSFA denies the allegations and writes that it is defending the Complaint.
In the Dark
To break down the Complaint’s 17 pages of legal speak into real-people parlance. Mr. Strong uses official County documents, Association email exchanges and dated photos to chronicle how specific RSFA “Decision Makers” allegedly intentionally kept a minority of RSFA Board Members, including Mr. Strong, the RSFA Membership, and San Diego County grading officials, in the dark about illegally green lighting in early 2021 the grading of about 15,000 cubic yards (for the “unpermited” work so far) of dirt as part of the RSF golf course master plan remodel. To give us right-brained humans a 3-D mental graphic: If this dirt were chucked in one pile, it would be 100 feet square and 40.5 feet high. Like, that’s no small feat.
Mr. Strong claims that when he discovered the County had issued a Stop Work Order on August 13, 2021, and an Administrative Warning on September 3, 2021, for respectively failing and continuing to fail to obtain the required permits and approval to regrade the course, he was persistently stonewalled by RSFA “Decision Makers” regarding requests for documentation to understand, as a sitting Director who had a legal and fiduciary duty to do so, what in fact was going on.
“War Zone”
Considering the pictures used in Mr. Strong’s Complaint were taken, in part, by community members, it’s no surprise other residents, especially those residing within the project’s 300-foot firing line, started demanding answers too. In fact, emails used as evidence in the Complaint make it clear that even former RSFA Manager Pete Smith, who was hired yet again by the Association (supposedly unbeknownst to Mr. Strong and two other Board Members) as a project consultant in spite of advising the Mabee estate in its lawsuit against the RSFA, sounded just as shell shocked by the devastation as outraged residents: “The course looks like a war zone. Large holes where bunkers used(d) to be, dirt mounded everything [everywhere] , large volumes of dirt mounded in the maintenance storage area etc. It does not show well at all…There is. no way around it, we are in violation of his (SD County Land Use & Environmental Planner Sean Oberbauer’s) understanding and the written agreement limited the scope of the work we were supposed to do.”
Talk about the proverbial fertilizer hitting an industrial grade fan. I mean, who needs Hollywood fiction when you’ve got a script like this? RSF resident complaints to the County and local media coverage are what supposedly tipped off officials about grading, dust and tree-removal issues, leading them to make unannounced visits to the RSF golf course where they found, as noted by Pete Smith in his email, the project to be “in violation” of what Mr. Oberbauer made clear in his April 9, 2021, letter to the RSFA, stating that there will be no permit required for Phase 1 if “the engineer of work provides a certification that the proposed irrigation utility work is only temporary and will not include grading or any permanent changes to land contours . . . ”
Eye on the Prize
You’d think the impending threat of steep fines, heavy penalties and actual arrests would clean this act up, but according to further evidence obtained by the plaintiff, the project’s white-knuckled timeline was at a point of Ozzy Osbourne-level, off-the-rails no return — no matter the rock star rider cost. After conferring with RSFA representatives, Pete Smith again relayed his thoughts in an August 20, 2021 email: “…We need to keep going on the bunkers and the minor fairway improve[ment]s that the Golf Club told the membership [ab]out to get membership approval. The County has filed a Stop Order that is telling us to Stop Work. We have to keep an eye over our shoulder that a County Inspector doesn’t just show up. We need to stop worrying and focus [on] getting the work done. The reality is that we can’t put together any kind of plan that they want in the time frame needed to keep going. We are facing significant community issues when the word of the Stop Order gets out…We simply can’t stop is the reality and we will have to take the penalties.”
In old Westerns, even in the dust up of a gun-slinging shoot out, you have this hunch of a mom’s-home-cooking kind of cozy the ending will tie up loose ends and all will be made right. But the real world isn’t for sissies. Pete skipped off yet again with a tidy sum ($90 G’s or so), Mr. Strong was punted as VP of the Board and his positions on committees were canceled, and all this saber rattling by the town’s grading sheriffs added up to a whole heap of diddly squat. There were no fines, penalties, not even a slapped wrist or two, so what mortal wouldn’t feel a teflon touch of divine vindication and fired up to shovel more monster truck dumpsters of dirt?
Written Complaint Pittance
But if all this can’t be explained, the Oscar for Best Supporting Gaslight goes to Taylor Ryan, Project Manager for the Land Development Planning & Development Services, who sent a Notice of the RSFA’s Proposed Major Grading Permit Application, dated Jan. 3, 2023, (yes you read that date correctly) to all Covenant Members residing within 300 feet of the RSF golf course project’s property line. It makes clear the County will make a decision regarding the application without holding a public hearing on the matter, but will consider written comments from interested parties submitted no later than 4PM on Jan. 19, 2023. Huh? If there was ever a case for the time-and-space-warped spell Covid has cast on our now rabbit-holed heads, this is it. “Proposed”? I don’t want to believe my lying eyes either, but according to several sources, including Mr. Strong’s Complaint, it looks like a chunk of this grading was started almost two years ago. Even if this were refuted, the effected residents — and all RSFA Members — deserve more of a voice than the offered pittance of a written complaint, and at the very least are owed a deadline extension to respond.
Don’t throttle the messenger, but to paraphrase what one “interested party” has indicated, they intend to write to the County that this application is coming late, that the work was done without an advance permit, and was the cause of a number of problems for golf course property owners (dust storms, large window cleaning bills, no water trucks for grading until near the end when complaints were filed, noise/work during unapproved County work hours, etc. They added that it certainly appears to confirm Bill’s claims that permits had not been approved in advance of work.
Dead Trees
Furthermore, the “interested party” claims that during this “renovation” period of grading without permits, about 60 trees were chopped from the course when only six were approved for removal by the Art Jury and Association. The Forest Health Committee (FHC) has been trying to get the Association and Golf Club to follow a Board-approved plan (October 2021) to replant trees on the course, but so far, no dice. At last week’s meeting the Board approved a plan to replant some trees on the trail (not the course), but the FHC says this initiative deviates significantly from the original approved plan. They went on to conclude that while the RSFA Board has hired a consultant, a former employee, to come up with a tree replacement plan, it seems like an unnecessary expenditure of RSFA funds, as the FHC has already done a ton of work and advised on the arboreal revitalization front.
Six Art-Jury-approved tree removals shazam into 60? Who didn’t get the 21st Century memo? Who needs a Santa Ana SDG&E cocktail of wind and live wires when scorched earth policies are axing healthy, established trees like Paul Bunyan on bath salts? I’ve never rocked a beanie, patchouli oil isn’t my signature scent, and I own a razor, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate — like many fellow neighbors do — that the beauty of our community is owed in large part to the canopy of wooded giants encapsulating us. For every tree cut down unapproved, one of equivalent quality should replace it along the trails — and on the actual course. Period.
Two or More Sides to a Story
When transparency and accountability erode in any facet of our lives, individual connections, networks, and whole systems start to fail. When people feel they are not being fully informed and their voices neglected, the fallout on all levels of interaction is inevitable, and ends up turning into the stuttered chorus of a toilet flush.
Like I’ve witnessed as a member of this community before, it is a sad state of affairs when extremely gifted and accomplished neighbors, whom I hope on the whole have good intentions and aren’t psychopaths, sign up to volunteer and end up engaging in ways that lead to a lot of heartache, headaches and extortionate bills for all involved. Pete Smith doesn’t need another Ranch retirement plan and legal counsel can hold off on their next custom, diamond-encrusted grill.
There are always two sides or more to a story. Responding swiftly to my request for comment, RSF Manager Christy Whalen wrote, “The RSF Association vigorously refutes all allegations in this lawsuit. We are working very cooperatively and collegially with the County of San Diego in processing this project, and look forward to receiving our permit, which is expected any day. The County and Association have an excellent, long-standing working relationship, and the latest proof of that is the beautifully renovated course that our members are now enjoying.” I’m also told by inside sources that “the golf club has learned its lesson and is acquiring all permits, (including federal FEMA permits) for the next phase of course renovation, which will tackle the driving range and short game practice area.”
While I’ve heard from those in the Association camp that Board Members met with Bill Strong on multiple occasions and made countless attempts to negotiate before things went all Defcon One, Mr. Strong claims he tried to resolve his issues with the RSFA quietly for 15 months, but was repeatedly ignored: ”Obviously It should not be necessary for a Director volunteer to sue the RSFA to see documents necessary for reasonable inquiry and performing Fiduciary responsibilities . . . Oversight is impossible when RSFA Directors do not receive information. If Director document requests can be ignored, then Members will not be informed. State Law is clear about requiring transparency and Open Meetings.”
No doubt, both parties will defend their positions rigorously, as they should, so all of us are fully informed and can come to our own final conclusions. I guess that’s the overarching moral of the story in all of this. In the meantime, I think I’ve had my daily dose of this Ranch’s reality and am now due back on John Dutton’s, where Kevin Costner can be my personal governor anytime.
Rachel Laffer is a longtime Covenant resident and Editor of the RSF Post.