Opinion ID: 1457749
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Rubble Removal Contract and the Zoning Investigation

Text: Early in 2003, Beck heard about a business opportunity from city officials: Upland was planning construction work in town, and there would be a significant amount of rubble to remove and recycle. [1] Beck thought his business, Dineen Trucking, was a good fit for the job: It had been operating in town since 1958 and often did rubble removal and recycling work. Beck believed the rubble had significant resale value and would have been willing to remove it for free in exchange for the right to resell it. So Beck was surprised when, on September 8, 2003, the City Council awarded a $350,000 no-bid contract, without public notice or comment, to an out-of-town competitor, Intravaia Rock & Sand. Because the city normally put all projects over $5,000 out to bid, Beck suspected that there were irregularities in the contracting process. Acting on his belief, Beck called the mayor of Upland the next day and told him that he planned to raise his concerns about the contract at the next city council meeting, on September 22, 2003. On the 22nd, Ron Willemsen, president of Intravaia, visited Beck and confronted him about the contract. Soon after Willemsen's visit, the mayor called Beck and asked him not to speak publicly about the contract. That night, instead of speaking at the city council meeting, Beck met with Willemsen, Chief Thouvenell, and the city public works director and was advised to work out a deal with Willemsen to share the contract. As it turned out, the two were not able to agree, and no deal was reached. Instead, Beck took his grievances to the city manager, Michael Milhiser, this time successfully. In early October, the city backed out of the Intravaia contract. At about the same time, Willemsen again came to Beck's office and promised to have every agency down on top of [him] because of his efforts to block Willemsen's contract. On November 24, 2003, a zoning complaint letter arrived at Upland city hall, sent by a law firm that represented Intravaia. The letter suggested that rubble piles on Beck's land, which he maintained as part of his business and which included rubble resulting from an earlier city project, were out of compliance with zoning changes that had occurred in 2000. The rubble piles had been there since at least the early 1990s, but Beck had not previously been informed of any zoning problems. Police officer Michael Ollis was assigned to investigate the complaint. The decision to investigate was unusual. At the city council meeting at which the 2000 zoning changes were adopted, business owners had raised concerns over enforcement against existing nonconforming businesses in Beck's part of the city and were assured that their existing uses of their properties were not threatened. Upland's senior planner had indicated that she was not aware of one single incidence [sic] where the City ha[d] enforced against a nonconforming use existing at the time a new zoning ordinance was passed; such uses had all been allowed to continue, as long as they continue. Also, the city's Director of Community Planning confirmed at that meeting that the city's policy was to enforce zoning ordinances only against new property uses. Ollis and Sergeant Mendenhall, along with the city engineer, arrived at Dineen Trucking to serve Beck with a notice of zoning violations signed by Chief Thouvenell on January 27, 2004. Beck had not previously known of the investigation, and the ensuing discussion was heated. Beck believed the investigation to be retaliatory, and summarily ended the meeting by ordering the three city officials to leave his property.