The Shelley Hearing 7/8/2020




The Shelley Hearing was basically four hearings combined into two. The first three were combined at the request of Jonathan Huels, the Shelley family attorney. The last one was handled by itself. GPITA's function is either a fertilizer storage area or a chipping/composting area for Shelleys and is located further down the road on Jones Avenue.
I'm sure that those who weren't able to virtually attend the Code Enforcement for Shelley's Septic Tank are wondering how it went. Long story short, Orange County Code Enforcement prevailed with the Special Magistrate. Shelley's filed a suit against the County on June 24th, 2020. We have to wait to see if they will file an appeal regarding the Special Magistrate's decision. 

You can see the Orange County's PPT for the hearing here. This was obtained from Orange County Code Enforcement as it's public record.

You can see the Shelleys attorney's PPT for the hearing here. This was obtained from Orange County Code Enforcement as it's public record.
The last part of the hearing involved GPITA and there was another party involved in this hearing due to concerns about the GPITA property is affecting their property values. The other party's attorney, Gregory Lee, observed that "The odors are a byproduct of the illegal activity on their site." I wish we could afford him.
I believe that Special Magistrate was fair and decisive. When necessary she asked the right questions. While the smell wasn't part of the code violations discussed today, it was brought up at least six times. 

 After the hearing yesterday, I watched some of the afternoon proceedings which were much less involved than the Shelley case. It seemed ludicrous that mom and pop shops were cited for non-permitted promotional activities at $150 per day while Shelley's is not paying fines for code enforcement as far as I know.  

 Viewing the afternoon hearings also gave me a feel for the special magistrate. In my non-legal mindset view, she appeared to be fair, especially toward hardship cases.

Shelley's attorney intimated that someone is saying bad things about them on social media. As far as we are concerned, none of us has ever said that they want to close them down or made negative comments. In fact, every letter writer (writing for the public record for this hearing) I am aware of specifically said that we don't want to put them out of business.  We HAVE said that the business should have to follow the rules as everyone else does.

 So for now, we watch and wait,

Although the hearing wasn't about the smell, it was mentioned and got its own slide.

This slide was presented by the Shelley family attorney. He requested that the code enforcement proceedings be delayed until the lawsuit was resolved. He stated that it was not a delaying tactic, The requested action was denied.
Sending out a thank you to everyone who wrote letters to be admitted to the public record, sat in on the call, made comments during the hearing, and/or helped out in any way. We appreciate all of you.


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