A San Luis Obispo County judge signed off on an emergency order filed by the city of SLO to appoint a receiver to take control of a property on Prado Road deemed “substantially substandard and unsafe.”
SLO resident William Sievers’ 2.2-acre lot shares a property line with the 40 Prado Homeless Center and is used as an industrial campus to store a mass of recycled items, from cars and appliances to machine parts.
But in recent years, the property devolved into a haven for “squatters, liars, and thieves,” Sievers told New Times, who have started fights, fires, drug deals, and general mayhem. Sievers rents the land to tenants, some of whom are “bad people” who took advantage of him and have been difficult to evict amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
While Sievers tried to convince a judge that he’s in the process of removing trespassers, boosting security, and cleaning up the land, city attorneys argued that he’s yet to do so, despite years of warnings, causing the city to field more than 100 police calls and fight two fires on the site since 2020.
In the Dec. 14 ruling, Judge Tana Coates sided with the city and granted the receivership request. An entity called California Receivership Group Inc. is assigned to the property and can take out loans against it to bring it up to city code.
“The court is sympathetic to [Sievers’] issues,” Coates wrote in her ruling. “It is unclear to the court, however, what more [he] can do, or why additional time is needed for him to remedy the conditions, given that these issues were identified beginning in 2017 and continue to persist at the property to this day.
“Again, the court understands there are individuals at the property who are taking advantage of [him] and who refuse to comply with his requests and lawful demands,” the ruling continued. “Thus, the court finds the city must step in to ensure the health, welfare, and safety of the public.”
According to Sievers and a friend who said she was a resident at the property for 15 years, the city did not adequately step in to address the escalation in criminal activity on the property.
Resident Kathi DiPeri alleged in a handwritten court statement that she was “violently assaulted” on the property and local law enforcement did not appropriately respond.
“I called the [police department] on several occasions on the criminal activity that was taking place on the property,” she wrote. “Because COVID had changed the rules and gave the police an excuse to do nothing about criminal activity … their patent answer was it’s a ‘civil matter.’ My being assaulted, theft, selling and doing drugs, breaking into my vehicle, and moving stuff out and selling it are not civil matters. They are criminal acts and should have been treated as such.
“You have no right to do a receivership on my friend William Sievers’ property,” she continued, “when your lack of doing your jobs has not only contributed but caused the problem at Prado Road.”
SLO Police Capt. Brian Amoroso said that DiPeri has made “multiple contacts with SLOPD related to that property spanning several years” and could not respond to her allegations without more information on the incidents.
“This property has been a public nuisance for years,” Amoroso wrote in an email. “Since January 2020 until present, officers handled cases or responded to this property 136 times.”
In his court statement, Sievers asked for six months to “prove diligence and progress.” In a list of action items, he said would work to keep “intruders” off the property; remove “unauthorized extension cords” and “unauthorized plumbing hookups”; hire a trucking service to haul trash out and recycle metals, woods, e-waste, and other hazardous materials; and repair various buildings on the site, among other cleanup items.
But Coates ruled that the city met its legal burden for receivership—that the code violations on the site “are so extensive and of such a nature that the health and safety of the residents, neighboring properties, and the public are substantially endangered.”
“[Sievers] has been given more than a reasonable amount of time to correct and abate the violations and the dangerous and substandard conditions … but has failed to do so,” she ruled.
The next court hearing in the case is scheduled for Jan. 18. Δ
This article appears in Dec 22, 2022 – Jan 1, 2023.
Gosh, if only there was some sort of shelter nearby, paid for by taxes, operated by well paid employees, that could house these homeless persons…