Deal or No Deal?

My guess was confirmed by my attorney.

Last Friday's quiet, no-radio morning and the all-day absence by T & L had me guessing they made yet another jaunt to Sacramento, where their insurance company-provided lawyer is stabled. Sure enough, they met to craft an offer in settlement.

Opposing counsel pitched the idea of a settlement conference to my attorney. But if the offer is anything like their pre-suit offer (merely move the icemaker!), there is no chance of a new offer being acceptable based on the same logic as spelled out here for declining the pre-suit offer.

My aims have always been crystal clear and I have spelled them out repeatedly. If opposing counsel has any questions about my aims, I suggest he re-read the two-page Executive Summary found in the research book entitled, Allen & Brassey: TLC on Fishback Street, delivered to the Manteca City Council on February 17, 2009.

To prove I have been consistent, below is one paragraph from a 2008 letter to the City of Manteca (before I even knew TLC Catering was NOT grandfathered!)

April 4, 2008
. . .
My aims are threefold. (1) The immediate need is nighttime noise cessation. (2) The next goal, in the short term, is to have the City of Manteca spell out for me and my neighbors the legal responsibilities (and necessary formal variances!) this business has in a residential neighborhood. (3) My long term goal (and the Planning Department’s goal?) is to have the business assets and operations removed from the property (perhaps to a commercial zone?)
. . .
(full letter here)


It took almost TWO YEARS to accomplish aim #1! It took a full year of my time battling the City clowns and doing the research myself (aim#2) plus another year and a lawsuit and a screwy economy to accomplish aim #1!

Aim #3, as explained in the Executive Summary, page 2:
. . .
"In order to effect a comprehensive rehabilitation of this residential property to its business-free state, an awful lot of shit has to be shoveled. With no grandfather protection and no home occupation permit, every piece of currently used (and previously used but now abandoned) business equipment is on the property illegally, and the TLC Catering and Commissary business operation is an illegal land use.

"The same jeopardy applies - twice over - to the mobile home abandoned by a former property owner. The unpermitted structure should not be there at all and Allen & Brassey are utilizing it as part of their unlawful business use. It must be removed from the property."
. . .

In light of my "shit to be shoveled" commentary, if the offer is, not shovels full, but a mere teaspoon of excrement along the lines of, "We're going out of business anyway, so we promise not to start it up again," well... you can guess my reaction.

As Karen Carpenter sung, "We've only just begun...." I haven't even started on the deal-breaker demands for a COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL EXTINGUISHMENT of Lynda's deceitful assertion of legal nonconforming use status of the property, and on the recovery of my costs to expose what she has fraudulently and illegally built up over twenty-three years.

If she thinks she can "skate" over a quarter-century of lawless livelihood without consequence, she's stupider than I give her credit for.