Tuesday, November 30, 2010

"Lying? There's an Art to That?!" Her Querulous Voice Rising

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Great Taco Truck Art

(Scott Beale / LaughingSquid.com)

Wonderful [ab]use of Red, Yellow and Green!


James, Job (and Alinsky) sum it up pretty well

Henry James once wrote, “Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it again forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it.” Henry James’s statement is an affirmation of that of Job:  “The life of man upon earth is a warfare …” [Job 7:1, Douay-Rheims Bible.] (quoted from "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky)


Lyin' Lynda is the personification of an unreliable narrator

The literary device of the "unreliable narrator" was used in several medieval fictional Arabic tales of the One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights.[4] In one tale, "The Seven Viziers", a courtesan accuses a king's son of having assaulted her, when in reality she had failed to seduce him (inspired by the Qur'anic/Biblical story of Yusuf/Joseph). Seven viziers attempt to save his life by narrating seven stories to prove the unreliability of the courtesan, and the courtesan responds by narrating a story to prove the unreliability of the viziers. (Pinault, David (1992), Story-telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, p. 59, ISBN 9004095306 , Wikipedia entry for "Unreliable narrator")


Twenty-three years of practice... and she still can't get it right!

In Mark Twain's words (an excerpt from his essay "On the Decay of the Art of Lying"):

Lying is universal--we all do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling. Then shall we be rid of the rank and pestilent truth that is rotting the land; then shall we be great and good and beautiful, and worthy dwellers in a world where even benign Nature habitually lies, except when she promises execrable weather.


And... from an Alinsky interview, 1972:

This liberal cliche about reconciliation of opposing forces is a load of crap. Reconciliation means just one thing: When one side gets enough power, then the other side gets reconciled to it. That's where you need organization –– first to compel concessions and then to make sure the other side delivers. If you're too delicate to exert the necessary pressures ... you might as well get out of the ball park. ... No issue can be negotiated unless you first have the clout to compel negotiation.

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Monday, November 29, 2010

Draft Mediation Letter

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{Pssst! Someone buy "A is for Asshole" on Amazon and read it to Lynda.}


My attorney asked me for a *short* draft mediation letter outlining the case and my expected outcomes from next week's mediation session. The letter, he said, will be forwarded to the mediator and to the defendants in advance of the session.

For the loyal supporters following the lawsuit, you will find nothing new here. For the rest of you, the points are focused versions of the three aims I spelled out two and one-half years ago, on April 4, 2008, in a letter to the City of Manteca:

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?)



You will see below only slight wording changes in those aims, even though in April 2008 everyone was still suckered by Lyin' Lynda's big lie... you know, the one about how she was running a "legally grandfathered business." {Pish!} A fourth aim of mine, since the necessity of a lawsuit was forced on me, is to lay the costs of exterminating these roaches this sordid affair on the guilty parties.

BEHLING v. ALLEN, et al.
Case # 39-2009-00212085-CU-OR-STK
Mediation letter
November 29, 2010


Plaintiff charges the defendants with noise nuisance caused by reason of their illegal land use of operating the business known as TLC Catering and commissary from their residential property zoned R-1. Prior to the lawsuit, all municipal administrative remedies were denied to plaintiff. Upon filing this suit, the defendants immediately engaged in retaliatory noise increases, which were made part of the first amended pleadings. Soon after the first amendment, unwarranted and harassing closed circuit digital (CCD) camera surveillance of plaintiff on his property commenced.


Plaintiff’s aim is to live in peaceful and quiet enjoyment of his adjoining residential property by:


A) stopping the incessant noise nuisances and retaliatory intrusions emanating from 810 Fishback Street, including business uses and noises, all-day/every-day harassment playing of the yard radio since June 4, 2009, and intrusive, overreaching use of CCD infrared surveillance cameras since October 11, 2010;


B) obtaining a complete recision and extinguishment of the deceitfully gained June 1993 “legal, nonconforming” use designation for 810 Fishback Street either by defendants’ sworn statement of confession, or by City of Manteca’s written determination, or by Superior Court order;


C) effecting the cleanup and rehabilitation of 810 Fishback Street to residential only use by complete removal or demolition from the property of all assets - buildings, structures, vehicles, equipment, appliances, fixtures, inventories, etc. - used in conducting the business from 1987 to 2010 (preliminary asset list is attached); and


D) recovering plaintiff’s costs, damages, and legal fees incurred to obtain obstinate defendants’ compliance with state laws, municipal ordinances, and common courtesies.


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Preliminary asset list of TLC Catering and commissary


(This is plaintiff’s list because attempts to verify these assets, first by interrogatory, then by demand for production of acquisition documents, again by request for admissions, and finally by request for on-site inspection, have in all cases produced only non-response or evasions by the defendants.)


Mobile home, license # FQ1259


Covered dirt floor structure behind mobile home (eastward) and all equipment in it


Trailmobile refrigerated shipping container behind the mobile home (eastward)


Grease barrel storage corral and grease barrels


Two (2) Mobile Food Preparation Units (MFPUs, or catering trucks)


One Vending truck


One trash truck


Covered concrete floor structure on the north property line


Equipment and appliances on the north property line:
  • Scotsman icemaker and condenser
  • Follett ice storage/dispensing bin
  • Admiral freezer/refrigerator combo
  • Kenmore upright freezer
  • Bally walk-in freezer
Chest freezer on covered porch attached to east side of main dwelling


Outdoor radio mounted on outbuilding


Surveillance cameras


All other unverified buildings, structures, vehicles, equipment, appliances, fixtures, parts stocks, inventories, and detritus currently or formerly used in the nonconforming uses

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Friday, November 19, 2010

The BDG's: All Evil Eyes, Ill Wills (and Big Mouths)

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The following letter has gone on record prior to the proposed Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) session [voluntary mediation] on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 2010. Because I can think of no instance wherein Lyin' Lynda or Ravaged Red have demonstrated one iota of good faith since November 13, 1987, my hopes for resolution short of Summary Judgment range from slim to none.

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My memo to my attorney requesting the letter above:
October 22, 2010

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Please send a letter to the counsel for defendants, Lynda Allen and Theresa Brassey, demanding that their CCD surveillance cameras be removed. This action is similar to the earlier letter of demand that the nuisance outdoor yard radio be removed.

Beginning October 11, 2010, comes the defendants’ latest intrusion - CCD surveillance cameras, which represents Lynda Allen's middle finger in the air. The cameras were placed to observe both sides of the property line fence, not the defendants’ side alone. The only purpose discernible from the cameras’ placements is to continue the annoyance of the plaintiff and to daily project the defendants’ ill will onto my yard, my home, and my life. The cameras must be removed forthwith; else the presumption of good faith in mediation will be nullified.

Recitation of prior actions: The all-day/all-night noise from their illegal TLC Catering business was an insufferable intrusion onto plaintiff’s property. After serving the nuisance lawsuit on the defendants, within weeks they installed an outdoor radio speaker, closely on their side of the property line fence, in a retaliatory addition to, and continuation of, the business noise intrusion. After the cessation of the catering business a few months later (February 2010 and still not admitted by the defendants) relieved part of the problem, the outdoor radio nuisance continues fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. The defendants’ malicious use of the radio has resulted in many police calls and a “disturbing the peace” infraction. The still unresolved radio nuisance was added to the original lawsuit through an amended pleading.

The continued actions and non-responses of defendants, Lynda Allen and Theresa Brassey, nearly approach those of Catherine Cass in the attached unpublished California Court of Appeals opinion from 2008, having the aspects of a permanent nuisance.

Sincerely yours,
...

Attachment: Wallace v. Cass, G036490, Court of Appeals of California, Fourth Appellate District, Division Three, March 10, 2008.

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Extreme Tardiness in Admitting Discontinuance of TLC

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Lynda Allen and her Farmer's Insurance lawyers (2009-2011)
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Damn good likeness of Lynda, above, don't you think? She is remarkably well preserved even though this portrait of her was painted over 500 years ago by Jan Provoost (1462/5 - Jan 1529). On a minor note, she has picked up a few facial lines since that sitting... (and her hair?... ooooh... what she has now must be a wig!) After all, the slop slinging catering business is sooo cutthroat and competitive.

But I digress...


Request For Admissions

The three pages following comprise a set of requested admissions from the defendants. The purpose was to allow them to bolster their [nonexistent] defense by declaring their discontinuance of the illegal land use. Please note the date on the third page, the Proof of Service - July 19, 2010.






The inexcusably tardy admissions

Shortly after August 13th I received papers almost identical to the first two pages following, but never received the Verifications (third page.) Repeated attempts subsequently to obtain the Verifications resulted in... nothing.

Ninety days after the request (thirty days allowed under court rules), comes now the following three pages, which comprise the scuffing, foot dragging belated response of only one defendant. The other [it is alleged] is all stove up with breast cancer and [it is surmised] cannot read, comprehend, communicate, or govern her small motor skills sufficiently to sign a Verification.

(Hello?! Earth, calling Lynda! You can appoint each other as medical marijuana caregivers, but you cannot delegate power of attorney or get a notary public to witness each other's "X" mark? I've seen the property transfer shell games you and Ravaged Red have played over the years to avoid bill collectors. Your pattern of lame excuses and shady actions continues...)

The reader will please note the dates. Lyin' Lynda signed her Verification on October 18th (but why in Tracy, CA? Is that where Red is hiding convalescing these days?), while the legal person signed the Admissions on October 19th. (Catering race observer quoted, Yoda, "Smarter the lawyers are getting.")







At this rate of discovery, perhaps we might... just maybe... bring about a resolution before Death comes to claim the Miser and her lovers.

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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Manteca: City Government Runs Illegal Business!

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Manteca City Council Meeting, November 16, 2010
Agenda Item D.5.

LMAO! Last night it became crystal clear why Walk-On-Water Willie and his Four Apostles voted to let his three Penthouse Pets Barefoot Dirty Girls continue to illegally operate their catering truck business from their residential property. Talk about setting certain people above the law!

The reason is that for the last decade the mayor, the council, and city staff were themselves running illegal daycare businesses on school district properties under the supposed auspices of the Parks and Recreation Department of the City of Manteca. The fact that no city staff even pretended to follow state child care laws, when combined with the city's half-assed, taxpayer subsidized, cost recovery accounting methods, produced a huge anti-competitive market force that drove many private daycare providers out of business.

Council members claim to have been hoodwinked by blind, incompetent, mentally absent senior staff; all led astray by stone deaf, pied-piping bufoons in Parks and Rec, who vacillated between recreational social liberalism and greedy capitalist-style profiteering; and undercut and hung out to dry by grossly (perhaps criminally) negligent and terminally stupid municipal legal counsel.

Read all about it here in the Manteca Bulletin (although Dennis really shaded and softened it): http://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/article/18589/

After the ten or eleven years over which Parks and Rec was warned of the illegalities of the program, what were the best evasive responses that councilmen could come up with to rebut charges of municipal wrongdoing leveled by the group of private providers with privately funded legal research and counsel?
  • "But... but... it's for the children..."
  • "We made a mistake."
  • "We didn't know we weren't legal."
  • "We thought we were exempt from state regulation."
  • "A lot of staff turned over in the last few years and things got lost in the shuffle."
I thoroughly enjoyed observing the spanking Mr. Fonseca administered to the publicly embarrassed dumbasses-in-charge. (My own attempt to obtain an administrative, quasi-judicial remedy from these same dumbasses on March 9, 2009 did not go as well.)

Underlying all the emotional pleas of the "helicopter parents" was the proposition that "Our most precious assets - our children - must be protected (and entertained, and educated, and socialized; and the city government, with subsidy from the school government, should unquestionably continue do the job for us poor, entitled, [single - we didn't know sex resulted in kids!], underemployed parents from 6:00 in the morning to 6:00 at night.)"

Entitled? Oh, yeah... The crowd had to be constantly gaveled and reminded that cheers and applause for program proponents - and jeers for opponents - was not appropriate for this meeting of the public. Though they were instructed in advance to quickly voice their support or opposition and to refrain from repeating... repeating... repeating... repeating... the same sentiments previous speakers had already voiced, every speaker viewed their three minutes at the microphone as their inalienable right to tax everyone's time. The interminable claims of entitlement (along the lines of, "Johnny and Suzy are so happy and love their social worker. The program HAS to continue, or our family cannot.") went on and on... and on... and on... The scariest statement made during the unnecessarily long and tediously repetitious meeting was that those selfsame, state-raised children would at some future day occupy the city councilmen's seats.

"Several council members alluded to the possibility the fees might actually drop once all expenses are taken into account."
Bullshit. In what financial wonder-world do these guys live? The vote to retain the program was made on the assumption that the costs, once fully identified, will still be lower than those of the private sector. (Obviously, they have been smoking Lynda Allen's new crop of marijuana, privately referred to in code as "getting a Sierra high.") Private providers may have lower educational requirements, but they have a profit motive in order to pay their mortgages, food bills and other living expenses. Yet-to-be-hired daycare site directors [government workers in teacher unions] have higher educational requirements and will demand higher wages in order to pay their mortgages, food bills and other living expenses. The city finance department's slippery sleight of hand will come in the allocation (payment) of costs to the school district for facility rents, supplies, utilities, etc., associated with the daycare program. Just like Lynda Allen's hobby nuisance business, TLC Catering, surviving only by evading business rents for two decades, so also Kidzone accounting has been evading massive costs for a decade.

This sorry farce is going to come back to the city council in a couple months. The recommendation will be that Kidzone be discontinued or "privatized." Some staffers at city hall are going to shit their shorts when reality finally dawns and they suddenly discover that full costing will take them to - or over - the price point that private providers have been dealing with for all this time.

Perhaps most infuriating of all is the deal cut with the State of California in which penalties and fines will be forgiven while compliance efforts are undertaken (with the government-WAG it can be completed.) What of the previous ten years? Completely ignored and silently swept under the rug is the taxpayer rape and economic trampling of small business for over a decade. No acknowledgements, no apologies, no Too F'n Bad, no repercussions, no nothing. Law was there; compliance was not. Ten years of screw-up written off. Law means nothing. Teflon politicians in Teflon suits to whom nothing sticks.

Which brings us to the last point. WhyTF is the City of Manteca even involved in this tax transfer [welfare service program] at all? Childcare is not an essential government service. (Libraries are not an essential government service. Dog parks, parks and recreation, - the list goes on - are not essential government services.) The City of Manteca claims not to be able to keep its financial head above water, yet it is mucking around in welfare services? The city is not, should not, and should never be, in business - or pretend to be.
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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Illuminating Letters and Numbers

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These are the results of the Manteca City Council election published by the San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters.*

THANK YOU! to the 4,062 voters who marked their ballots correctly.


It seems that elected officials at various levels of government, who have "Been there, done that," watch to see who else is coming along the path. For example, I received this letter from San Joaquin County Supervisor Leroy Ornellas during the week prior to the election:



Then, after the election, comes this letter from State Senator Lois Wolk:



Even a comment by Manteca Unified School Board Trustee Nancy Teicheira, who won re-election, was formally communicated by the Superintendent:



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* One of the 45 write-ins was my vote for a certain neighbor as Manteca's Cannabis C--- {wink wink}. (How many four letter words can you think of that start with "c"?)