For greater than 5 years, the town of San Bernardino has been making an attempt to nudge Janet Summerfield to restore the roof of her hillside house close to the San Manuel Indian Reservation and reduce the close by weeds and vegetation.
Summerfield, 75, has lived within the 3,200-square-foot house on Hemlock Drive for greater than 30 years. The neighborhood is named “Holcomb Hill,” named after late San Bernardino Mayor Robert “Bob” Holcomb, a developer who constructed his dream house on the hill within the Nineteen Sixties.
However Summerfield’s house, valued at almost $800,000 on Zillow, has fallen right into a state of disrepair. The wood-exposed roof is roofed with black tarpaulin, and different unsafe circumstances on the residence prompted the town to declare it unsafe.
After greater than 4 years of making an attempt to get Summerfield to carry her home into compliance, the town sued her in March 2021 and requested that a decide appoint a receiver to imagine management of the property and rehabilitate it.
On Aug. 11, Summerfield countersued each the town and San Bernardino Superior Court docket in federal court docket, alleging violation of her constitutional rights in opposition to warrantless searches and due course of in what has turn out to be a authorized battle over non-public property rights vs. private and public security.
Summerfield named San Bernardino Superior Court docket as a defendant as a result of a decide, throughout a July 18 listening to, ordered Summerfield to fulfill with metropolis officers at her house previous to the subsequent listening to scheduled for Sept. 16. And that, in keeping with Summerfield and her lawyer, Peter Gibbons, constitutes an order for a warrantless search of her property.
A Superior Court docket spokeswoman declined to remark, citing the continued litigation.
“I proceed to get pleasure from residing in my house of 34 years and have suffered no hurt from doing so. No member of the general public has lawful entry to my house such that they could possibly be harmed both,” Summerfield stated in a declaration filed in U.S. District Court docket in Riverside. She didn't reply to repeated phone calls requesting an interview.
Gibbons equates the town’s practices to extortion and racketeering, alleging the town is making an attempt to suck the $600,000 in fairness from his consumer’s house.
“It appears to be like and smells and seems like a racket,” stated Gibbons, a Nevada-based lawyer, in a phone interview. “It is a shakedown. I believe we’re going to vary the criticism to incorporate racketeering and corrupt affect.”
Code enforcement crackdown
Metropolis officers keep Summerfield has been nonresponsive to repeated calls for by code enforcement officers to carry her house as much as code. She has repeatedly stated enhancements had been forthcoming, solely to fall again on excuses after they weren't performed, metropolis spokesman Jeff Kraus stated in an e-mail.
A criticism to the town in Could 2017 alleging that Summerfield’s house was a “unhealthy hearth hazard” prompted the primary code enforcement callout to her property, adopted by the town’s subsequent five-year effort to get Summerfield to adjust to its orders.
In July 2017, the town slapped Summerfield with a discover citing a laundry listing of code violations, together with a faulty or deteriorated roof; weeds, dry brush and overgrown vegetation; drainage points; accumulation of garbage and rubbish; and dangerous and unsanitary circumstances, in keeping with the town’s lawsuit.
Within the three years that adopted, Summerfield was issued two extra notices of violation, in keeping with the town’s lawsuit, A code enforcement officer first seen the black tarp “clamped down” on her roof on April 12, 2018.
“The property has been visited by code workers 16 occasions. Each the town and the court docket have been very affected person, with no constructive outcomes to point out for any concession granted the property proprietor,” Kraus stated.
Additionally in 2017, it was reported there was runoff of “some unknown brown liquid coming from the property and draining into the general public storm drain,” Kraus stated in an e-mail.
In March 2021, the town knowledgeable Summerfield it supposed to hunt a court docket order appointing a receiver on the property. Twelve days later, the town filed its movement in San Bernardino Superior Court docket.
“The property is a public nuisance and plenty of of those violations are hazardous in nature, presenting a menace to the life, well being and security of the occupants,” in keeping with the town’s lawsuit.
Countersuit
In her declaration filed in court docket, Summerfield claims a collection of unlucky occasions has thwarted her efforts to make the wanted repairs to her house. She stated she has gone by three contractors prior to now 5 years.
The primary contractor she employed canceled the contract after being identified with most cancers, she stated. She fired the second contractor attributable to unacceptable work, and by the point Summerfield employed a 3rd contractor, the coronavirus pandemic struck, delaying work when a number of the crew had been hospitalized and others compelled to self-quarantine.
“The architect/building supervisor died of Covid in December 2020,” Summerfield stated in her declaration.
Citing 52-year-old modifications in state housing legislation, Gibbons claims the town’s Municipal Code sections — those the town claims Summerfield is violating — are unenforceable as a result of they don't seem to be uniform with state well being and security codes, and that state legislation preempts municipal legislation.
“As surprising as it could appear, every San Bernardino Municipal Code part alleged within the criticism is void and unenforceable,” Gibbons stated in a movement filed in federal court docket.
Each Summerfield and Gibbons deny Summerfield’s house is a menace to her private security, not to mention others.
Kraus stated the town has but to be served with the federal lawsuit, and subsequently he couldn't touch upon Gibbons’ authorized arguments contained in it.
“At the moment, we haven’t seen it, so we aren’t ready to talk to the specifics,” Kraus stated. “That stated, in all my years in municipal authorities, I've by no means seen nor heard of a code enforcement case going to, or being heard in, federal court docket.”
Unlucky occasions
Other than Summerfield’s setbacks involving contractors, Gibbons stated her late husband died in a airplane crash, and he or she’s been having a tough time dealing with that ever since.
Ellison “Bud” Summerfield was piloting a Pilatus PC-12 on March 22, 2009, en route from Redlands Municipal Airport to Bert Mooney Airport in Butte, Montana. He was flying three households, together with seven kids all beneath the age of 10, to Bozeman for a snowboarding journey when Summerfield misplaced management of the airplane and it nosedived into Holy Cross Cemetery, killing all 14 individuals aboard. The crash occurred 500 ft from the Bert Mooney Airport runway.
The Nationwide Transportation Security Board concluded Summerfield was at fault for the crash. He did not put icing inhibitor within the gas earlier than takeoff to forestall it from clogging up when flying in freezing temperatures. Summerfield additionally did not take applicable motion by not diverting course and touchdown on the nearest airport upon discovering the issue, the NTSB concluded in its report.
Neighbor issues
Reached by phone, a neighbor of Summerfield’s who requested to not be recognized expressed security issues for Summerfield, primarily as a result of she climbs atop her roof to safe the black tarpaulin herself.
“Is it a priority? Sure?” the neighbor stated. “Each time, previous to a storm, she’s on the market securing the plastic down. We are able to hear her pounding. I believe most of my issues are for her — simply her getting up on the roof.”
Requested about hearth hazard, the neighbor stated she wasn’t too involved about it, however did say the house that beforehand occupied her property burned to the bottom within the 2003 Previous Hearth. She stated she and her husband subsequently purchased the property and constructed their home on it.
“I don’t even know the way the fireplace didn’t soar over to hers,” she stated, referring to Summerfield. “It was just about hit and miss. I don’t know the way hers survived.”