May 13, 2024 Retaliation

On Sunday, May 12, I sent a reminder/prod to the secretary (at that time I still believed he was basically honorable), concerning our wish to withdraw from the district and I pointed out some plusses of letting us go.

On Monday morning we got our answer.

Our perfect, quiet road was rumbling under the effort of a bobcat, run by the district contractor as he was scraping up our road and loading it into a truck… and then took it all away.

Absolutely no notice.

Absolutely no reason.

Coincidence? I think not. (None of us do) Especially on the first day of a week with rain forecast every single day. There was no way anything more was going to be done before expected rain. And this is a group that pays attention to the weather.

When I realized what was going on, I took video and pictures and sent them to my brother and neighbor. I was incredibly upset about this violation. Our road was very well-maintained. We mowed the edges, and our approach is landscaped.

My brother came home and the guy was still working, as it was only midday. And my brother had words with him as it was clear he was just making a mess and it seemed on purpose. Contractor kept saying that if we had a problem, go talk to Crystal. (That would be Crystal Farrokhi, the Saddleback Road District Treasurer).

My brother left him and the contractor immediately made a phone call, we assume it was to Crystal. And then he continued to scrape up the rest of the road, dump it in a truck and take it with him. He left early evening.

Let’s start at the top. I think it was Tuesday night that I was getting home late from work, and it had been raining. The road was a mudslick. I got out and tried to take some pics, but I think it was too dark. The next morning I was out there looking at the damage and took better video and a couple pics. I decided to make a formal complaint. I wanted a record of this. I texted the neighbors of my intentions and they agreed and also agreed this was retaliation.

I called the Custer County Sheriff’s Office, and spoke with a deputy who took some info and asked for me to send him the video ad gave me an email address. I tried to upload the video but the files were too big, so went back out to the road to take pictures.

I was pointing out the difference between the straight part that he destroyed and the cul du sac that was untouched, and still perfectly fine. It was then that it occurred to me that the moron in the bobcat might be back and destroy the rest of it and maybe even our landscaped entrance. I decided I needed to file something to stop all of this until somebody could make a legal decision. I called the sheriffs back and asked what it was I needed to do or file to stop this action.

I spoke with Lt. McGraw who got me in touch with a different deputy. That deputy (Rhodenbaugh) would be out that day. And then I watched the road for any activity until afternoon when the deputy arrived.

So, on page 1, something I need to clear up. I did not tell the deputy that Concho Trail was not being maintained. I said the Road District was not maintaining it, because WE were maintaining it and had been for 8 years, (because the Saddleback Road District was incompetent and hired incompetent people).

We had been maintaining it, and we had purchased the material we put down. All of it. And then we (I use the royal we, when it was really Joel and Shaun) did all the work.

I never said nor implied that the road was not being maintained or needed work.