Saturday, July 31,2010

A complaint over a flooding issue leads to a criminal charge against a Valley Center man. A simple yard sign has the man in hot water. People pay good money to buy lakefront property, but he says this isn't the type of lake anybody would want.

Jarrod West moved to his Valley Center neighborhood about five years ago. He has flooding issues like many others, but what he has done about it is causing quite a stir.

"I've been accused of singling out Joel and blaming the whole problem on him and Joel knows as well as I do that I've told him he can't fix this," West said Saturday.

West is talking about City Administrator Joel Pile. After trying for years to get help in fixing his neighborhood's persistent flooding problem, he decided to make a yard sign. The sign led to a criminal complaint against him from the city. West understands Pile himself may not be able to fix the problem immediately, but says he could easily have the ditch trenched and the grass mowed.

"I'm not a saint. I don't claim to be," West said. "But I was brought up in the United States where we have freedom of speech. I didn't blast the guy on his hair color or his weight. I just said 'Hey, fix this.' I was trying to get a point across."

Now, Valley Center is also threatening to cite West for not mowing the ditch, which is clearly city property. The steep ditch remains extremely wet. A typical yard mower, West says, cannot do the job. He already mows as much of the city property beyond his property line that he can.

"The city has equipment that could mow it," he says. "They have reach over mowers and Bush Hog mowers and that's yet another thing we pay tax dollars for."

The whole thing is petty, West says. He's shocked that the city would spend money trying to fight him rather than fix the problem that aggravates the entire neighborhood and causes thousands of dollars in property damage every year.

"You got teachers being let go and streets not being repaired," he says. "You get told there's no money to fix flooding and they're paying money to a city attorney that drives his Porsche to send me letters threatening me and send me a complaint and take me through the legal system over a sign."

West isn't the only resident who made a yard sign. His neighbor across the street did, too, but there has been no criminal complaint for him because, apparently, he didn't use anyone's name on his sign.

We contacted Valley Center Mayor Mike McNown and were told that he nor City Administrator Joel Pile would comment about this story due to pending litigation.