For more than five years, the city of San Bernardino has been pushing Janet Summerfield to repair the roof of her hillside home near the San Manuel Indian Reservation and reduce nearby weeds and vegetation.
Summerfield, 75, has lived in the 3,200-square-foot home on Hemlock Drive for over 30 years. The area is known as “Holcomb Hill”, named after the late San Bernardino Mayor Robert “Bob” Holcomb, a real estate developer who built his dream home on the hill in the 1960s.
But the house in Summerfield, which is worth almost $800,000 on Zillow, has fallen into disrepair. The exposed wooden roof was covered with a black tarp, and other unsafe conditions in the residence prompted the city to declare it unsafe.
For more than five years, the city of San Bernardino has been trying to persuade 75-year-old Janet Summerfield to restore her 3,200-square-foot hillside home in Little Sand Canyon and cut back on the vegetation. The city and Summerfield are involved in a legal battle over the dispute. The city considers Summerfield’s house a security risk.
For more than five years, the city of San Bernardino has been trying to force 75-year-old Janet Summerfield to repair the roof and reduce the amount of vegetation in her home on Hemlock Drive. The city and Summerfield are involved in a legal battle over the dispute. The city considers Summerfield’s house a security risk. Summerfield claimed that her constitutional rights had been violated. (Google map)
For five years, the city of San Bernardino tried to force 75-year-old resident Janet Summerfield to repair the roof of her home on Hemlock Drive and reduce overgrown vegetation, among other things, and also sued Summerfield in an attempt to reclaim the property. . Complies with municipal and state housing codes. Summerfield countersued the city in federal court, alleging a violation of civil rights.
For five years, the city of San Bernardino tried to force 75-year-old resident Janet Summerfield to repair the roof of her home on Hemlock Drive and reduce overgrown vegetation, among other things, and also sued Summerfield in an attempt to reclaim the property. . Complies with municipal and state housing codes. Summerfield countersued the city in federal court, alleging a violation of civil rights.
For five years, the city of San Bernardino tried to force 75-year-old resident Janet Summerfield to repair the roof of her home on Hemlock Drive and reduce overgrown vegetation, among other things, and also sued Summerfield in an attempt to reclaim the property. . Complies with municipal and state housing codes. Summerfield countersued the city in federal court, alleging a violation of civil rights.
For five years, the city of San Bernardino tried to force 75-year-old resident Janet Summerfield to repair the roof of her home on Hemlock Drive and reduce overgrown vegetation, among other things, and also sued Summerfield in an attempt to reclaim the property. . Complies with municipal and state housing codes. Summerfield countersued the city in federal court, alleging a violation of civil rights.
After more than four years of trying to get Summerfield to bring her home up to date, the city sued her in March 2021 and asked the judge to appoint a trustee to take possession of the property and restore it.
On August 11, Summerfield filed a countersuit in federal court against the city government and the San Bernardino Supreme Court, alleging violations of constitutional rights regarding unauthorized searches and due process, which turned into the Safe legal battle.
Summerfield named the San Bernardino Supreme Court as defendant after the judge at the July 18 hearing ordered Summerfield to meet him at her home before the next hearing, scheduled for September 16. Meeting with the city authorities. According to Summerfield and her lawyer, Peter Gibbons ordered an unreasonable search of her property.
“I still enjoy living in my home, where I have lived for 34 years and have not been harmed in any way. No member of the public can legally enter my home without being harmed,” Summerfield told U.S. District Court in Riverside. in a statement. She did not return numerous calls for interviews.
Gibbons equated the city’s practice with racketeering and extortion, saying the city was trying to get $600,000 in capital from his client’s home.
“It looks, smells and feels like a racket,” Nevada attorney Gibbons said in a phone interview. “It’s a shuffle. I think we’re going to change the complaint to include the effects of racketeering and corruption.”
City officials allege that Summerfield did not respond to repeated requests from law enforcement to return her home in accordance with regulations. City spokesman Jeff Krause said in an email that she repeatedly said improvements were inevitable, only to find excuses when they weren’t made.
A complaint to the city in May 2017 that Summerfield’s home had a “serious fire hazard” prompted her property to enforce the code for the first time, after which the city launched a subsequent five-year effort to force Summerfield to comply with its order.
In July 2017, the city issued a notice to Summerfield with a list of violations, including faulty or decaying roofs, weeds, dry brush and overgrown vegetation, drainage problems, debris and trash buildup, and dangerous and unsanitary conditions in the city.
In the following three years, Summerfield received two more notices of violations, and according to the city’s lawsuit, a law enforcement officer first noticed a “pinched” black tarp on her roof on April 12, 2018.
“Code staff visited the site 16 times. Both the city and the courts were very patient and did not give positive results for any concessions made to the owners,” Krause said.
Also in 2017, “some unknown brown liquid was reported to have leaked from the property into public storm drains,” Krause said in an email.
In March 2021, the City notified Summerfield that it intends to seek a court order to appoint an administrator for the property. Twelve days later, city officials filed a motion with the San Bernardino Supreme Court.
“The facility is a public nuisance, and many of these violations are inherently dangerous and pose a threat to the life, health, and safety of residents,” the city’s lawsuit says.
In her court filing, Summerfield said a series of unfortunate events hampered her efforts to renovate the home. She said she had changed three contractors in the last five years.
She said the first contractor she hired canceled the contract after he was diagnosed with cancer. She fired a second contractor because the job was unacceptable, and when Summerfield hired a third, the coronavirus pandemic hit, some employees were hospitalized and others were forced to self-isolate, causing work delays.
“The architect/construction supervisor died of Covid in December 2020,” Summerfield said in a statement.
Citing 52-year-old state housing law changes, Gibbons argues that sections of the city’s municipal law—those the city claims Summerfield violated—cannot be enforced because they are inconsistent with state health and safety rules, and the law state law takes precedence over municipal law.
“As blatant as it may seem, every section of San Bernardino municipal law that the complaint cites is void and unenforceable,” Gibbons said in a petition filed in federal court.
Both Summerfield and Gibbons deny that Summerfield’s house is a threat to her personal safety, let alone anyone else.
Krause said the city has yet to receive a federal lawsuit, so he cannot comment on Gibbons’ legal arguments.
“At the moment we haven’t seen him, so we can’t talk about the details,” Krause said. “However, in all my years in city government, I have never seen or heard of a law enforcement case being heard or heard in federal court.”
In addition to Summerfield’s failures with contractors, Gibbons said her late husband died in a plane crash and has had a hard time coping ever since.
Allison “Bud” Summerfield pilots a Pilatus PC-12 from Redlands Municipal Airport in Burt Mooney, Butte, Montana, on March 22, 2009. He was taking three families, including seven children under the age of 10, to ski in Bozeman when Summerfield lost control of the aircraft and crashed into Holy Cross Cemetery, killing all 14 people on board. The crash occurred 500 feet from the runway at Bert Mooney Airport.
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that Summerfield was responsible for the accident. He failed to add an anti-icing additive to the fuel before takeoff to prevent fuel clogging when flying in freezing temperatures. Summerfield also failed to take appropriate action by not changing course or landing at the nearest airport after discovering the problem, the NTSB concludes in its report.
An unnamed neighbor in Summerfield who was contacted by phone expressed concerns about Summerfield’s safety, mainly because she climbed onto the roof herself to secure the black tarp.
“Is it anxiety? Yes?” said the neighbor. “Every time before a thunderstorm, she fixed the plastic. We heard her knock. I think the thing that worries me the most is she’s just climbing onto the roof.”
When asked about the danger of the fire, the neighbor said she wasn’t too worried about it, but said that the house that used to occupy her property was destroyed in a fire in 2003. She said that she and her husband bought land and built their house on it.
“I don’t even know how the fire didn’t spread to her,” she said, referring to Summerfield. “It was almost destined. I don’t know how she survived.”
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Post time: Oct-18-2022