The Village Code Enforcement

Laughing Bear, you are obviously unaware of that true activities of code enforcement in San Bernardino County. The majority of people who have had code enforcement activities at their property either have lost their property to the County or are facing criminal charges. I would strongly suggest that you talk to people who have experienced code enforcement in the communities such are Lucerne Valley, Apple Valley, Victorville and Phelan. Many of them are now homeless.

The County of San Bernardino has passed ordinances allowing them to add the cost (they charge $50.00 per hour) of the code enforcement activities to the person's property tax bill. When the person is unable to pay their tax bill which includes the cost of the code enforcement, the county defaults them and takes their property away at tax sales. This is occurring all over San Bernardino County and they are targeting people who are economically challenged, even elderly and disabled citizens. This violates the 5th Amendment of the United States Constitution where a person cannot be deprived of property without due process.

Trudy Sherburn's home was bulldozed and she was charged $20,000.00 for the bulldozing.

In Yucca Valley, I met a citizen who is being charged with 365 misdemeanors for each day that the code enforcement violations continued to exist.

The Bureau of Land Management has expressed in numerous documents that they want to acquire the property in the Village. There is a substantial amount of water (the new gold) underground in that area. The County has found that Code Enforcement is a very cheap way to acquire land that they want and/or remove what they see as "undesirables".

I firmly believe that if I had not assisted Gary Grams in standing up for the rights of the Village, the Village would have had continued code enforcement actions after that raid. The county has demonstrated their pattern and practice with code enforcement and I believe the village properties would have been assessed and some individuals would have been facing criminal charges.

Are all the properties in the village currently up to code? Do the residents of the Village have large sums of money to defend themselves against the County Code Enforcement Actions? I believe that they will be back. They have not forgotten about the Village.

The poor man's best defense is public awareness. There are two reasons why this information was placed on the website; 1. was to further protect the Village from further code enforcement actions and 2. to inform the people who go to the hotsprings as to the inappropriate activities of local law enforcement. What they did at the village completely violates the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution, the right to be secure in their property against unreasonable search and seizure.

The people at the Village deserve some assistance from the county to improve their properties (which is called for in the State Law about code enforcement when people are of low income) and to be left in peace. If the Bureau of Land Management wants the property in the Village, the people should receive fair market value through a legal condemnation process.