This was on the Drudge Report on 08/28/07

RHE man gets jail time for property fixes

By Megan Bagdonas
Staff Writer

He built a fence, a retaining wall, a patio and a few concrete
columns to decorate his driveway, and now Francisco Linares is going
to jail for it.

Linares had been given six months to get final permits for the
offending structures or remove them as part of a plea agreement
reached in January, when he pleaded no contest to five misdemeanor
counts of violating the Rolling Hills Estates building code.

If he failed to do one or the other, Linares faced six months in
county jail.

On Monday, Torrance Superior Court Judge Sandra Thompson chastised
Linares, a Farmers Insurance district manager, for not completing
what he agreed to do in January and then handed him the maximum
sentence without possibility of house arrest or probation.

"Imagine my disappointment to find we are no further along in
resolving these issues," Thompson said. "At the rate we're going,
we'll still be talking about this at my retirement party."

Linares is scheduled to report to county jail Sept. 10.

"I'm not scared," Linares said about spending time in jail. "It's
just very unfair. The city said they wanted to teach me a lesson
because they thought I wanted to get away with a lot of stuff."

Richard Hamar, Linares' attorney, said he has never heard of
anything like this.

"We're talking about fixing a fence that was on city property," he
said. "He didn't build a Las Vegas casino. You put a guy in jail for
six months because he repaired the city fence?"

The 51-year-old bought the nearly 1-acre property in the 4600 block
of Palos Verdes Drive North in 1998. After tearing down an adobe
house on the site and building a 3,000-square-foot French-style
home, he began landscaping.

When Linares asked the city to repair the white three-railed fence
behind his house, he was told it was on his property and his
responsibility. So he replaced the termite-infested planks. Then the
city reversed itself and said Linares had illegally built the fence
on city property.

In October 2004, the city charged Linares with three misdemeanors:
for not taking down the fence, having a retaining wall built higher
than a 2-foot restriction and for erecting stone columns without a
neighborhood compatibility analysis. Later inspections found eight
other violations, including a lack of permits for plumbing and
grading.

"He's had a couple of years to correct the problems," said Dean
Pucci, a Fullerton attorney contracted as the city's prosecutor.
"His options were to obtain final permits or remove all of these
structures built without permits."

Linares lives in the house with his wife and three daughters. He
contends that he didn't remove the structures because he believed
the permits would be approved.

However, Pucci said no permits are pending, since Linares failed to
resubmit an application that was deemed incomplete.

At the sentencing, Hamar said his client was a good Christian man
who has never committed a crime and who worked diligently - 142
hours - to try to resolve the issues with the city.

And the only reason he was not able to complete the stipulations of
the plea agreement, he said, was because of the city's confusing
building codes and negligence in rendering a decision on his permit
applications.

"We established that he did everything that was humanly possible to
comply. And the un-rebutted evidence is that (the city) hasn't ruled
on the permits," Hamar said. "To … do something as harsh as put a
good man in jail for six months, you got to look at the impact on
society. What will society gain if you put this man in jail?"

The prosecutor, however, said, "In virtually every city in every
county a violation of the municipal code is a crime."

Hamar said he plans to appeal.

"I'm praying that there will be an appeal and that my dad won't be
sentenced to jail," said daughter Vanessa Linares, 18. "My dad is
the backbone of our family. How would we be able to hold up if he's
not here?"

On Aug 28, 6:19 am, "Bob" wrote:
This was on the Drudge Report on 08/28/07

RHE man gets jail time for property fixes

By Megan Bagdonas
Staff Writer

He built a fence, a retaining wall, a patio and a few concrete
columns to decorate his driveway, and now Francisco Linares is going
to jail for it.

Linares had been given six months to get final permits for the
offending structures or remove them as part of a plea agreement
reached in January, when he pleaded no contest to five misdemeanor
counts of violating the Rolling Hills Estates building code.

If he failed to do one or the other, Linares faced six months in
county jail.

On Monday, Torrance Superior Court Judge Sandra Thompson chastised
Linares, a Farmers Insurance district manager, for not completing
what he agreed to do in January and then handed him the maximum
sentence without possibility of house arrest or probation.

"Imagine my disappointment to find we are no further along in
resolving these issues," Thompson said. "At the rate we're going,
we'll still be talking about this at my retirement party."

Linares is scheduled to report to county jail Sept. 10.

"I'm not scared," Linares said about spending time in jail. "It's
just very unfair. The city said they wanted to teach me a lesson
because they thought I wanted to get away with a lot of stuff."

Richard Hamar, Linares' attorney, said he has never heard of
anything like this.

"We're talking about fixing a fence that was on city property," he
said. "He didn't build a Las Vegas casino. You put a guy in jail for
six months because he repaired the city fence?"

The 51-year-old bought the nearly 1-acre property in the 4600 block
of Palos Verdes Drive North in 1998. After tearing down an adobe
house on the site and building a 3,000-square-foot French-style
home, he began landscaping.

When Linares asked the city to repair the white three-railed fence
behind his house, he was told it was on his property and his
responsibility. So he replaced the termite-infested planks. Then the
city reversed itself and said Linares had illegally built the fence
on city property.

In October 2004, the city charged Linares with three misdemeanors:
for not taking down the fence, having a retaining wall built higher
than a 2-foot restriction and for erecting stone columns without a
neighborhood compatibility analysis. Later inspections found eight
other violations, including a lack of permits for plumbing and
grading.

"He's had a couple of years to correct the problems," said Dean
Pucci, a Fullerton attorney contracted as the city's prosecutor.
"His options were to obtain final permits or remove all of these
structures built without permits."

Linares lives in the house with his wife and three daughters. He
contends that he didn't remove the structures because he believed
the permits would be approved.

However, Pucci said no permits are pending, since Linares failed to
resubmit an application that was deemed incomplete.

At the sentencing, Hamar said his client was a good Christian man
who has never committed a crime and who worked diligently - 142
hours - to try to resolve the issues with the city.

And the only reason he was not able to complete the stipulations of
the plea agreement, he said, was because of the city's confusing
building codes and negligence in rendering a decision on his permit
applications.

"We established that he did everything that was humanly possible to
comply. And the un-rebutted evidence is that (the city) hasn't ruled
on the permits," Hamar said. "To ... do something as harsh as put a
good man in jail for six months, you got to look at the impact on
society. What will society gain if you put this man in jail?"

The prosecutor, however, said, "In virtually every city in every
county a violation of the municipal code is a crime."

Hamar said he plans to appeal.

"I'm praying that there will be an appeal and that my dad won't be
sentenced to jail," said daughter Vanessa Linares, 18. "My dad is
the backbone of our family. How would we be able to hold up if he's
not here?"

Sounds like Chicago, that's why I moved out of the city. If you dont
grease the right palms and make sure your alderman gets your vote (and
knows that he got your vote), and that you voted for the candidates
your precinct captain told you to, eventually city hall gets you on
permits, or your garbage cans mysteriously disappear, car gets towed,
etc. My neighbor had to gut all the electrical in his garage and re-
do it because one shop bench light was wired with Romex, the inspector
said he could not trust the whole job. From then on he couldn't even
put up his storm windows without a permit. Cant fight city hall.

"RickH" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Aug 28, 6:19 am, "Bob" wrote:
This was on the Drudge Report on 08/28/07

RHE man gets jail time for property fixes

By Megan Bagdonas
Staff Writer

He built a fence, a retaining wall, a patio and a few concrete
columns to decorate his driveway, and now Francisco Linares is going
to jail for it.

Linares had been given six months to get final permits for the
offending structures or remove them as part of a plea agreement
reached in January, when he pleaded no contest to five misdemeanor
counts of violating the Rolling Hills Estates building code.

If he failed to do one or the other, Linares faced six months in
county jail.

On Monday, Torrance Superior Court Judge Sandra Thompson chastised
Linares, a Farmers Insurance district manager, for not completing
what he agreed to do in January and then handed him the maximum
sentence without possibility of house arrest or probation.

"Imagine my disappointment to find we are no further along in
resolving these issues," Thompson said. "At the rate we're going,
we'll still be talking about this at my retirement party."

Linares is scheduled to report to county jail Sept. 10.

"I'm not scared," Linares said about spending time in jail. "It's
just very unfair. The city said they wanted to teach me a lesson
because they thought I wanted to get away with a lot of stuff."

Richard Hamar, Linares' attorney, said he has never heard of
anything like this.

"We're talking about fixing a fence that was on city property," he
said. "He didn't build a Las Vegas casino. You put a guy in jail for
six months because he repaired the city fence?"

The 51-year-old bought the nearly 1-acre property in the 4600 block
of Palos Verdes Drive North in 1998. After tearing down an adobe
house on the site and building a 3,000-square-foot French-style
home, he began landscaping.

When Linares asked the city to repair the white three-railed fence
behind his house, he was told it was on his property and his
responsibility. So he replaced the termite-infested planks. Then the
city reversed itself and said Linares had illegally built the fence
on city property.

In October 2004, the city charged Linares with three misdemeanors:
for not taking down the fence, having a retaining wall built higher
than a 2-foot restriction and for erecting stone columns without a
neighborhood compatibility analysis. Later inspections found eight
other violations, including a lack of permits for plumbing and
grading.

"He's had a couple of years to correct the problems," said Dean
Pucci, a Fullerton attorney contracted as the city's prosecutor.
"His options were to obtain final permits or remove all of these
structures built without permits."

Linares lives in the house with his wife and three daughters. He
contends that he didn't remove the structures because he believed
the permits would be approved.

However, Pucci said no permits are pending, since Linares failed to
resubmit an application that was deemed incomplete.

At the sentencing, Hamar said his client was a good Christian man
who has never committed a crime and who worked diligently - 142
hours - to try to resolve the issues with the city.

And the only reason he was not able to complete the stipulations of
the plea agreement, he said, was because of the city's confusing
building codes and negligence in rendering a decision on his permit
applications.

"We established that he did everything that was humanly possible to
comply. And the un-rebutted evidence is that (the city) hasn't ruled
on the permits," Hamar said. "To ... do something as harsh as put a
good man in jail for six months, you got to look at the impact on
society. What will society gain if you put this man in jail?"

The prosecutor, however, said, "In virtually every city in every
county a violation of the municipal code is a crime."

Hamar said he plans to appeal.

"I'm praying that there will be an appeal and that my dad won't be
sentenced to jail," said daughter Vanessa Linares, 18. "My dad is
the backbone of our family. How would we be able to hold up if he's
not here?"

Sounds like Chicago, that's why I moved out of the city. If you dont
grease the right palms and make sure your alderman gets your vote (and
knows that he got your vote), and that you voted for the candidates
your precinct captain told you to, eventually city hall gets you on
permits, or your garbage cans mysteriously disappear, car gets towed,
etc. My neighbor had to gut all the electrical in his garage and re-
do it because one shop bench light was wired with Romex, the inspector
said he could not trust the whole job. From then on he couldn't even
put up his storm windows without a permit. Cant fight city hall.

Yeah, its another situation in which the city bullies its citizens. It
happens a lot in Tarrant County and Fort Worth as well. There was a
situation where a convenience store had trash blowing in from their
customers all over our yard. We called the city, and lo and behold, the
city nailed US for several things. Turns out the owner of the store was
some sort of low level city flunky.
There is no justice or fairness when dealing with the city, or county here
either.
B

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:46:48 -0600, "Brian O"
wrote:

There is no justice or fairness when dealing with the city, or county
here
either.

You have 2 choices, change your address or change the government.
Where I live we have a local government that understands they work for
us. That was not true in my last place of residence so I moved. You do
need to stay involved locally and not let your government get out ofd
control.

I would agree, but with a city the size of ours, it would be very very
difficult to get enough public involvement to get anything changed.
B

In my city, Oklahoma City, I always have trouble getting a permit.
About 17 years ago I wanted to build a wood shop (woodworking is a
hobby). I went to the permit office with a site plan and the city
decided my property was land locked with no access by road. I had
lived on this site for 15 years at that time. They would not issue a
permit. I went to the court house and found documents deeding the
property for the road to the city and returned to the permit office.
I was then told my address was invalid and needed to go to the
Planning office and get a valid address. I got the new address, on a
street 750 ft from my property. I returned to the permit office and
was told they could not issue a permit because I only had 25 ft. of
road frontage and city code requires 50 ft of road frontage. I
eventually hired a lawyer and got the permit. Then the inspectors
could not find the property from the new address.

I recently decided to build an attached garage and went through
basically the same process to get the permit (I didn't need a lawyer
or address change, but did have to go to the court house to find the
road documents again). It took a week to get a plumbing inspection
because the inspector could not find the property. Playing by the
rules is sometimes difficult.

wrote:
In my city, Oklahoma City, I always have trouble getting a permit.
...[snip tale of complying to ordinances]... . Playing by the
rules is sometimes difficult.

But playing outside the rules can have highly negative consequences,
even more onerous than the effort to be in compliance as the subject of
the original post discovered...

--

In article ,
"Brian O" wrote:

You have 2 choices, change your address or change the government.
Where I live we have a local government that understands they work for
us. That was not true in my last place of residence so I moved. You do
need to stay involved locally and not let your government get out of
control.

I would agree, but with a city the size of ours, it would be very very
difficult to get enough public involvement to get anything changed.

If you continue to reside there, your ONLY avenue to POSSIBLE solution is the
ballot box. A fatalist attitude, however, is what the elected wonks are
counting on to keep their nice jobs.
--

JR

RickH wrote:
On Aug 28, 6:19 am, "Bob" wrote:
This was on the Drudge Report on 08/28/07

RHE man gets jail time for property fixes

....
Linares had been given six months to get final permits for the
offending structures or remove them as part of a plea agreement
reached in January, when he pleaded no contest to five misdemeanor
counts of violating the Rolling Hills Estates building code.
....

Sounds like Chicago, that's why I moved out of the city. If you dont
grease the right palms and make sure your alderman gets your vote (and
knows that he got your vote), and that you voted for the candidates
your precinct captain told you to, eventually city hall gets you on
permits, or your garbage cans mysteriously disappear, car gets towed,
etc. My neighbor had to gut all the electrical in his garage and re-
do it because one shop bench light was wired with Romex, the inspector
said he could not trust the whole job. From then on he couldn't even
put up his storm windows without a permit. Cant fight city hall.

Well, in the first instance the defendant made a plea and (apparently)
didn't fulfill the terms of the agreement he made (later in the article
says after over two years)...

In your story, the neighbor didn't follow a well-known code proscription
(even to those living outside of Chicago, so surely it isn't news to
anybody living there). But, there would be no reason if the rest of the
work _was_ up to code to not simply have it open for inspection when the
rework was reinspected -- absolutely no need to redo the work itself
(and the inspector wouldn't know different if it wasn't visible before).
Of course, that then begs the question of why the work was inspected
before closing it up so the question of unsatisfactory work would have
been resolved long before--unless, of course, it was done in Romex in
violation of the code and he was hoping to cover it up and "get by"...

In both cases, the end result seems to me to have been brought on by the
individual themselves...

--

On Aug 28, 3:19 am, "Bob" wrote:
This was on the Drudge Report on 08/28/07

RHE man gets jail time for property fixes

By Megan Bagdonas
Staff Writer

He built a fence, a retaining wall, a patio and a few concrete
columns to decorate his driveway, and now Francisco Linares is going
to jail for it.

Linares had been given six months to get final permits for the
offending structures or remove them as part of a plea agreement
reached in January, when he pleaded no contest to five misdemeanor
counts of violating the Rolling Hills Estates building code.

If he failed to do one or the other, Linares faced six months in
county jail.

On Monday, Torrance Superior Court Judge Sandra Thompson chastised
Linares, a Farmers Insurance district manager, for not completing
what he agreed to do in January and then handed him the maximum
sentence without possibility of house arrest or probation.

"Imagine my disappointment to find we are no further along in
resolving these issues," Thompson said. "At the rate we're going,
we'll still be talking about this at my retirement party."

Linares is scheduled to report to county jail Sept. 10.

"I'm not scared," Linares said about spending time in jail. "It's
just very unfair. The city said they wanted to teach me a lesson
because they thought I wanted to get away with a lot of stuff."

Richard Hamar, Linares' attorney, said he has never heard of
anything like this.

"We're talking about fixing a fence that was on city property," he
said. "He didn't build a Las Vegas casino. You put a guy in jail for
six months because he repaired the city fence?"

The 51-year-old bought the nearly 1-acre property in the 4600 block
of Palos Verdes Drive North in 1998. After tearing down an adobe
house on the site and building a 3,000-square-foot French-style
home, he began landscaping.

When Linares asked the city to repair the white three-railed fence
behind his house, he was told it was on his property and his
responsibility. So he replaced the termite-infested planks. Then the
city reversed itself and said Linares had illegally built the fence
on city property.

In October 2004, the city charged Linares with three misdemeanors:
for not taking down the fence, having a retaining wall built higher
than a 2-foot restriction and for erecting stone columns without a
neighborhood compatibility analysis. Later inspections found eight
other violations, including a lack of permits for plumbing and
grading.

"He's had a couple of years to correct the problems," said Dean
Pucci, a Fullerton attorney contracted as the city's prosecutor.
"His options were to obtain final permits or remove all of these
structures built without permits."

Linares lives in the house with his wife and three daughters. He
contends that he didn't remove the structures because he believed
the permits would be approved.

However, Pucci said no permits are pending, since Linares failed to
resubmit an application that was deemed incomplete.

At the sentencing, Hamar said his client was a good Christian man
who has never committed a crime and who worked diligently - 142
hours - to try to resolve the issues with the city.

And the only reason he was not able to complete the stipulations of
the plea agreement, he said, was because of the city's confusing
building codes and negligence in rendering a decision on his permit
applications.

"We established that he did everything that was humanly possible to
comply. And the un-rebutted evidence is that (the city) hasn't ruled
on the permits," Hamar said. "To ... do something as harsh as put a
good man in jail for six months, you got to look at the impact on
society. What will society gain if you put this man in jail?"

The prosecutor, however, said, "In virtually every city in every
county a violation of the municipal code is a crime."

Hamar said he plans to appeal.

"I'm praying that there will be an appeal and that my dad won't be
sentenced to jail," said daughter Vanessa Linares, 18. "My dad is
the backbone of our family. How would we be able to hold up if he's
not here?"

6 Months? That's it?

On Aug 28, 4:19 am, "Bob" wrote:
This was on the Drudge Report on 08/28/07

RHE man gets jail time for property fixes


The particular of that story do sound quite silly.

However, sometimes there are often very good reasons for cities to
regulate. About three years ago here in Vancouver, there was a big
landslide after a week of rain. It killed one person who was sleeping
in her house, hospitalized her husband and eventually led to the
shutting down of six more houses.

Turned out that the guy about 100 ft upslope from them had constructed
himself a nice big swimming pool in his backyard, 'off the books'.
That swimming pool went waltzing down because it was built on unstable
ground. Granted the city seems to have been somewhat negligent in
allowing the upslope houses in the first place, but there was no way
any competent engineer would have allowed the swimming pool addition.

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 05:19:08 -0600, "Bob"
wrote:

RHE man gets jail time for property fixes

He needed the "eighty two" minute lawyer from Los Angeles. Check in
and check out of jail.
--
Oren

"My doctor says I have a malformed public-duty gland
and a natural deficiency in moral fiber, and that I am therefore
excused from saving Universes."

Bob wrote:
This was on the Drudge Report on 08/28/07

RHE man gets jail time for property fixes



"The Daily Breeze article ... for building on his property without permits
has sparked a fierce backlash and a tidal wave of national and media
attention."

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/9440366.html

Cries of "Summon the Rohiram!" could be heard across the land.

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 05:19:08 -0600, "Bob"
wrote:

This was on the Drudge Report on 08/28/07

RHE man gets jail time for property fixes

By Megan Bagdonas
Staff Writer

He built a fence, a retaining wall, a patio and a few concrete
columns to decorate his driveway, and now Francisco Linares is going
to jail for it.

Linares had been given six months to get final permits for the
offending structures or remove them as part of a plea agreement
reached in January, when he pleaded no contest to five misdemeanor
counts of violating the Rolling Hills Estates building code.

Just further proof that America is NOT a free country. This is a fine
example of the communism type government which is affecting all of
america these days and is worse in some states such as California. We
have all been lied to when they told us that this is a FREE COUNTRY.

Just wait, soon we will all be billed for the air we breathe, and will
have to get a permit to take a ****. Then we will be billed if we
exceed using 3 squares of toilet paper for some sort of environmental
tax, and our sewerage will be monitored to determine the amount of
paper used.

There is more freedom in other countries than there is in the USA.