news story / By Heidi Walters

Titlow Hill Developments

Court rebuffs county’s effort to extract money from lawbreaking subdivider

(June 24, 2010)  Mid-morning last Friday, on the second floor of the Humboldt County Courthouse, a crowd gathered in the hallway outside Courtroom 4. The hearing on the matter of restitution in the illegal land sales case — People vs. Ken Bareilles — was on a break. Bareilles and his wife, Linda, hung around near the doorway with a couple of their daughters, talking with Bareilles’ brother and sister-in-law, Paul and Elizabeth Bareilles. A clump of Bareilles’ supporters stood nearby — including landowners who’d bought some of the illegally subdivided lots from Bareilles up on the Double B Ranch near Titlow Hill. (See “Titlow Hill Blues,” Feb. 18.)

Bareilles pled guilty last year to the felony unlawful sale of three lots up on the ranch — he sold more, by his own admission, but those sales happened too long ago to be prosecutable. Bareilles got three years probation and 500 hours of community service, with the option to seek a reduction of his crime to a misdemeanor.

Mark Creaghe bought an illegally created lot near Titlow Hill. PHOTO BY HEIDI WALTERS

GALLERY >

Now, the county was seeking restitution from Bareilles — about $2.2 million, which the county said it needed to study the illegal lots and try to make them consistent with the county’s general plan, and to study the overall impacts of all of the land sales. There are 58 illegal lots on the ranch, either created by Bareilles or subsequent buyers. Unpermitted development has occurred on many of them; landowners were unable to get permits because the lots were illegal. Although Bareilles was convicted for just three land sales, the county says that in the process of attempting to make those three lots legal, it would have to examine the cumulative impacts — past, present and future — of the entire subdivision on land, water and other resources. This would mean hiring a consultant to prepare a costly environmental impact report.

“The ultimate goal is to rectify the underlying Subdivision Map Act Violation,” Kirk Girard, the director of county community development services, had said on the witness stand before the morning break. “Under the California Environmental Quality Act, you’re not allowed to look at projects in isolation.”

During the break, Deputy County Counsel Davina Smith walked out of the courtroom, and as she passed through the small crowd she saw one of the landowners, Mark Creaghe, and asked him how he was. He said he was fine. And then she asked him if he’d removed his cabin from his land yet. (Creaghe was recently ordered by county code enforcement, which Smith oversees, to remove a small cabin he built last year on his property without a permit). Suddenly Creaghe’s big voice was booming out for all nearby to hear. “This is just ridiculous!” he said.

“What’s ridiculous?” Smith asked.

“This whole thing is ridiculous,” Creaghe said. He muttered something about taxation without representation, and added, “I paid $10,000 in taxes for 10 years on my property, but the county says I don’t have a right build on it.”

Smith, her voice low and calm, said she advised Creaghe to get an attorney to help him understand what his options were for making his parcel legal, and left.

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