hearing to order nine o'clock i'm the special magistrate terry zinn let me read a statement first for the hearing welcome to the january 8 2026 meeting of alachua county code enforcement special magistrate hearing the purpose of this hearing is to hear alleged code violations filed by various departments of alachua county florida the code enforcement special magistrate was established by florida statutes chapter 162 and alachua county ordinances to obtain compliance with various county ordinances and regulations i have no authority to change the ordinances or any of the regulations we will be addressing today that can only be done by the alachua county board of county commissioners the code enforcement magistrate can determine if a violation has occurred set a date for full compliance and levy a fine for non-compliance my decisions can only be appealed to the courts and not to the board of county commissioners the procedure we'll follow today is the secretary will call the case county staff will present its case the respondent shall have the opportunity to present its defense to the case i will make a decision at a future date and the respondent will be notified by mail of that decision all persons testifying today will do so under oath by swearing or affirming that they will tell the truth any evidence in the form of documents or photographs must be submitted to the secretary clerk for inclusion in the record for all those people who are intending to testify please stand so the secretary can swear you in so please raise your right hand if you're tending to testify today do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give in these cases today will be the truth and the whole truth uh we're going to take business a little bit out order to do a conflict uh so case number two will be heard first call the case case number two five dash zero zero eight nine two two ama gainesville investments okay someone here representing ama investments if you want to go over there to the podium and you'll be able to speak from there after the county presents its case right there what's that you know in the far seat over there yeah but yeah yep and you can sit for a while if you understand whichever you would like to do so county please proceed my name is andrew caniglio senior forester and landscape inspector slash code officer in the code enforcement case two five dash zero zero eight nine two two the county received a complaint on august 21st 2025 regarding the property located at parcel id number zero seven zero six zero dash one zero zero zero zero zero in alachua county the owner of the property is ama gainesville investments code administration initiated a enforcement proceeding and found there to be a violation of the the following sections of alachua county code of ordinances 406.12 prohibitions 407.58 protection and maintenance of space areas 406.16.3 penalty for unauthorized removal a notice of violation was sent to the respondent that included corrective action the respondent was provided with a reasonable time to correct the violations the respondent remains a violation of the said alachua county code sections my last inspection was 821 2025 i have good service of notices and statements of violation to respondent sent by certified mail or posting copies have been provided to the magistrate and i request they be entered into evidence i had contact with the respondent regarding the violations the photos presented were taken by myself and accurately reflect the violations and i asked them to be admitted into evidence the county recommends respondent be found in violation of said code sections of the code other order responded to come into compliance within 90 days by complying with the corrective actions listed in nmv which were to provide a planting plan to the county for approval with a schedule for installation of the mitigation trees in order to demonstrate where to plant 216 cumulative inches of native canopy trees or pay fee in lieu of twenty eight thousand eighty dollars or some combination of the two uh if they do if and if not comply then pay a fine in the amount of one hundred dollars for each day the violation continues past the date set for compliance the county has incurred 140 dollars in bringing this action to hearing okay so let me just clarify your last inspection was august 21st yes sir it's your opportunity please identify yourself my name is alex scoble i'm the landowner in this situation and i had a couple things of evidence i wanted to enter you want to you need to have on display because they can put them on the oh yeah oh i have can you put that email it was like an email yeah the email first yeah yes sir um anyway my name is alex scoble i'm the landowner in this situation and um these particular trees were on a common area so they were not on any of our lots and what was happening was is there was like a uh almost like a group of trees there and we believe they were diseased or rotted or had some sort of leech whatever it was they were dying and falling and limbs were falling as well so so what we so what the reason i brought that email was it was evidence from i don't have a perfect evidence record of the trees but i do have some situations that happened like that email is from last year one of the homeowners behind this common area a giant tree fell in to through his fence into his yard it didn't strike his home thank god or hurt anyone but it did cause a giant damage and we believe the disease that was on that tree was the same thing that possibly was affecting these two trees so if you go um on that email you go to the second page that's the email he sent us and it said hey we want you to if you want to put the email back on i don't know that's the email and basically what he wrote i think i i can't see it but oh there it is um he said a dead tree fell into my property it destroyed my yard and fence my pets needed handled asap okay so and then go to the second page if you don't mind thank you that's the picture of the tree that fell through and that felt like during i don't know if it was a storm or just fell over i don't even think it was a storm i don't know it was in march i think of 2024 so no it wasn't a storm it was just like randomly falling over then there's another tree um i think i labeled the pictures go to picture um yeah go to picture a this is another tree that's like the one that fell through his was like right next to the two trees in question this one was one more tree over there was i think four trees in this area this one fell see that that's what's left there and that the fence is our property the other side is his property and that tree fell over maybe four years ago onto our property so it didn't damage anything but that also had the same problem we never went past our fence i think we might own right under i'm not sure it's like right on the property line that tree because the fence is on our property but um so that's another tree that had the same problem if you don't mind go back to that email picture i just want to show make sure it was clear because i don't think i said one thing about that neighbor tree the second picture i remember not that one the other one sorry yeah that's not sorry my first time doing a presentation um oh yeah that one that's taken from his side that picture so that's showing like his yard and the other side is our property all right so that's basically the neighbor's situation um and we believe the trees had the same disease um okay then we've had issues with these trees where they've been dropping limbs where not only have our landscapers had to clean up these limbs one of the limbs actually hit a tree uh a street light that was nearby so i think this one was after a storm but i think there's a picture of the broken street light you don't mind pop that up there unfortunately i didn't know i didn't know this was going to be a giant problem the trees so i would have even had more pictures of the limbs but i do have one picture of a broken limb before he took the tree down but this is the street light that broke during a storm and if you don't mind go to picture c i think it's picked picture c look to your left oh there's the uh yeah so if you look right over here this is an example this was before he took the tree down that was like a broken limb that was falling down so so i just wanted to give you kind of a context for the history here and we had no reason to even want to remove these trees like i think the trees are really nice in the neighborhood it was in common area it wasn't on one of the buildable lots um now i agree that we should have got an arborist and handled it that way but i honestly didn't know because i thought there was new rules in place that um where you didn't need to go to an arborist if the tree was dying and had falling limbs but i was informed by the code enforcement officer that that's not the case it's only for like residential house or something he had i guess i didn't totally understand the rule but at the end of the day we were not trying to do anything wrong here we just were trying to maintain the community this wasn't even an attempt to build it's not in our way of building or anything like that it really was just an attempt to properly maintain the community um also it's just these trees were a mess they're probably going to fall eventually and basically what i'm proposing is i don't i want the trees to be back so what i'm proposing is rather than have like the penalty um we could plant like i think it was two trees we took down that were right next to each other and one had a double trunk and the other one had like a triple trunk so what i'm proposing is we replant five trees you know so each trunk that came up we were planted tree of exactly the same like kind on a separated with the proper distances so they can grow up healthy and have a canopy and you know kind of a nice situation so that's kind of what i'm proposing is the solution to this in lieu of any fine or anything like that and um we've never been before codes enforcement before for any tree violation or anything like that so we just want to we want to make it right we didn't mean to do anything wrong and um we want to move forward with this and i guess okay let me uh what were the species of trees that came down they were live oaks okay and were you able to see any evidence of damage or injury to the trees where they hollow um when i arrived at the scene and saw the trees on the ground i looked them over and i could not determine that there was any particular health issues uh at the time i would like to mention that i did speak with the gentleman at the scene and he did explain to me that uh the trees were diseased and i of course i asked him for documentation uh and then of course i explained the the statute that he was referring to um which didn't apply in this case because this was uh commercial poverty not residential but uh of course the county would have been happy to come out and assess the trees if they thought they were in about no shape and you know we would have made arrangements to handle any potential removal that might have been required uh to mitigate any dangerous situations unfortunately uh since we didn't have the ability and i couldn't see any particular damage those trees i mean those trees looked very healthy to me on the ground um i uh had to assume that they were in pretty good shape i don't you know that i would have done an assessment had i been able to understood and he explained that you know they know he would have exactly been done um i agree that for the future right um so the county has offered you the opportunity from what he said to plant trees instead of a fine and so that that is already there the question is i think you said 260 inches dbh yes the uh unfortunately the penalty for unauthorized removal is to double the um number of inches and according to our survey for the property that we received during the development uh the inches added up to 216 once they were doubled it was you know i think it was 108 inches or something like that when just straight normal mitigation but doubling it was 216 so yes quite a lot well what was that number of inches so he doubled 216 so it must have been 108 yeah um so diameter breast height tree measurement standard forestry measurement um and so that's how they determine size so and same if you went to buy a tree they would measure you buy a four inch shade tree then it would be measured four and a half feet arguably above the ground at that diameter that's how they're priced and sold um so um so it sounds to me like there's potential common ground here that you want to plant trees and if they are of substantial size it may call it may satisfy the county's requirements um i uh i would say that it is a lot of inches to have to plant um i would need to kind of discuss it with the county to determine what kind of um arrangement we could come through because as it is now it's i'm going to stick with what we have put in the violation as far as correct of action you know so okay um what i'm proposing is i will give you a long period of time to come into compliance and then give you time to work with the county on planting something that meets the criteria and also satisfies you know your plan for the common area and stuff yeah that sounds perfectly reasonable i guess the difference between me and the county's position is is that what i would like to do and i've looked into this because i called the nursery the trees come the standard like live oak trees that would that they're growing like a ton of that they're putting in a lot of new developments as street trees around alachua county are coming in like one and a half two inch calipers what they said so they're small but they grow up and we've put in trees in this particular neighborhood between the sidewalk and the street of this type so what i'm proposing rather than the fine where they want over a hundred trees planted and we don't have room for it and it's excessive and extremely expensive i'm proposing hey let's put back what was taken out we'll separate them properly i don't even mind if the county comes back and checks me once a year to make sure they're growing up properly that'll be part of the requirements if you plant something it does that's no i'm totally fine with that i just want it to be five trees of two inch caliper like i looked at the nursery not over 100 trees and kind of a penalty like a like i was a bad guy when i really wasn't trying to be you know so all right anything else from the county at this point nothing okay all right thank you for being here thank you sir i appreciate it all right we're going to go back to case number one now and go back in the order a numerical order of cases okay case number two five dash zero zero eight six seven four alatua county versus lee yanbu is someone here representing the respondent is some is lee i mu here would you want to go over and stand by the county please proceed case two five zero zero eight six seven four county received a complaint on august 19th regarding work without permits property is located at 18 736 northwest 282nd drive high springs in alatua county identified by parcel number zero one four five six zero one zero zero zero one owner of the property property is lee yangbu code administration initiated enforcement proceedings and found there to be a violation of the following sections of alatua county code 400.04a unified land development code regarding to excavation activities on the residential lot was which is indicated to be a pond the respondent was provided a reasonable time to correct the violations notice a violation was sent to the respondent that included corrective actions ongoing inspections conducted to date have determined the respondent remains in violation said alatua county code permits have not been applied for as of january 8th i have good service notices and statements of violation to the respondent sent by certified mail receipt or postings copies have provided to the magistrate and request that they be entered into evidence i have had no contact with the respondent regarding the violations photographs being presented were taken by senior environmental specialist chris bover and myself which actually reflect the violations and ask that they be admitted into evidence county recommendations respond to be found in violation of the said section of the code order to respond to come into compliance within 30 days by complying with the corrective action actions listed in the notice of violation and if not in compliance and pay a fine amount of a hundred dollars for each day the violation continues past the date set for compliance county has incurred 280 dollars in cost and bringing the accident hearing when was your last date of inspection the eighth eighth okay and i just wanted to let you know um i know it's not a normal violation that we bring before you so we do have the growth management director jeff hayes here okay if you have any additional questions okay all right well let's see what the respondent has to say and then we'll see if we need additional testimony please identify yourself yeah uh uh good morning um i do acknowledge that sorry can you identify who you are for the record yeah are you the owner of the property okay thank you that's yes uh good morning uh i do acknowledge the uh excavation occurred before the final development plan approval and after a neighbor falsely complained that i work on wetland uh county staff inspected the site i think it's in august august uh no wetland violation was cited the only issue identified was that a pump permit was required uh i follow the county process i completed a pre i application review and was approved and then i submitted a formal upon permit applications the permit uh was denied uh the major reason was denied is the uh the proposed dam elevation was uh required 42 feet that the location is 38 feet uh rather than attempting to force a non-compliance design or request uh variation i i stopped the work and uh reassess the project uh at this point i i i'm prepared to fully resolve this violations in one of the two ways uh first uh my prefers the option is to uh abandon the upon the project entirely uh to restore the excavated areas to agree under county guidelines uh this is my first choice the second choice is if the county determines that uh restoration is not appropriate i'm willing to uh relocate the pond to uh natural higher areas that meets the 42 elevation requirement and a fully uh compliant new design i will submit it so my goal today is not to challenge the county standard but to comply with them to close this matter responsibly okay let me ask the county do you have a preference of which of those two because what i understand he's offering to fill it back in and restore return it to its original i actually have to have the uh growth management director coming up and answer those okay all right thank you identify yourself for the record thank you jeff hayes growth management director for alachua county um i think either of the two uh could potentially bring it into compliance either the two methods the one thing i would want to check before we arrived on a preference on the part of the county is with public works i believe the area of the excavation is in the floodplain so we would just want to make sure it is exactly at grade um as opposed to producing additional fill in the floodplain that would not be understood not be allowed so um the you know the alternative being that the pond could be in place so he just has to go through our development review process so it sounds like he went through development review was rejected because of elevation issues i think is what he said uh and i think when mr mr lee was speaking to development review he may be speaking to the building permit process i don't think he's been rejected from the development review process per se um so he was speaking i think to his building permit through the pre-application process which is a separate process prior to the excavation but um we can um work with the respondent and and be able to to come to an understanding of either of those two so do you have an objection to extended time period here i think the county's asked for 30 days and if he goes through permits or restoring the land that's going to be hard to do inside 30 days um no do not have uh you know i believe some additional time uh maybe maybe warranted okay additional 30 days beyond that county said said either of those options depending on you know further consultation with them would be acceptable which do you prefer uh i would prefer to abandon the pond you know uh pond you know okay and do you have do you have an idea of how long that would take you because i don't want to give you not enough time so that you can complete it we prefer to have you be able to complete it come into compliance and as this goes away 60 days should be okay okay i was thinking closer to 90 personally in terms of trying to get somebody to construct and do stuff and fill so county's comfortable with 90 days so i'm i'm perfectly willing to give you 90 days okay that's very good very kind one thing i want to mention is i did not move the dirt i did not use the dirt because the dirt contains a lot of compost i just didn't make it in natural so so so fully comply with the building code with the county requirements okay so all the dirt is still on site yeah all the dirt is over there okay all right good that makes it a lot simpler if you may have it all the way all right thank you for coming thank you so much yes i wanted to let you know we do have the complainant here that would like to uh speak with you sure the case thank you you can come up here go ahead and please state your name for the record jim connish your honor uh may this please this tribunal first of all this man speaks perfect english i didn't detect any problem with him his english is better than mine sir and he's told you his name is lee yanbo it's yanbo lee just wanted you to know that well the way we get it on the thing is is is first name first and last name second so okay so um first of all in addition to the so-called pond he has violated the deed restrictions um that he agreed to in a number of ways i believe the pond is let me explain the deed restrictions are not before me today the only thing that's before me today i know i know i'm just but it just you know paints a picture of who we are here and in fact he's being sued by me for not showing me any of his plans for anything as he agreed to in the beginning so he's non-compliant completely so he's not really to be trusted he's calling this um this is in the 10 year floodplain i bought this lot in 1988 it's in the 10 year floodplain this is not a pond the soil is pure sand i have told the county and they haven't found it there's sinkholes in here so this is not a pond it will not hold water what it is is a stormwater basin that captures the runoff from a 6 000 square foot structure built on one high and dry acre above the 100 year floodplain and my question to the county is where is that storm water being dealt with at all the soil is pure sand and will never hold water there are three sinkholes within the ambit of this pond he has an asphalt roof and numerous pieces of heavy equipment uphill from this floodplain so even if he fills in the the pond there's going to be untreated stormwater pouring in to the 10-year floodplain slightly upstream from poe springs if he stocked the pond with anything everything would wash into the river during the 10-year flood cycles it would be the river would be polluted with with whatever non-native species he claims he's going to put into the pond the pond is within the 30-foot setback i sued the county in 1994 because they wanted to put an rv park and a dump station in the park there's archaeological sites very near to mr lee's property that have been already identified and surveyed by the county and provided an impediment to what they wanted to do in the mid-90s so that needs to be looked at also well that's not before this tribunal what's before this tribunal is the construction of a pond without a permit is he going to need permits to fix it that's up to the county well okay well i'm glad he's removing his pond but i would hope the county would do its job and realize that not only is there a pond there's been massive disturbance of a rare natural hardwood forest for which there's been no complaints at all thank you yes sir i was lost getting there oh the next case coming up okay we'll have a seat we're getting i'm going to call the case my wife is lost she's got a bad back she couldn't walk as fast as we get here okay so you want yeah i go look for her for a minute yeah so we what he said that case number three well we'll postpone it until you find your wife okay okay that's fine we'll we'll go on to the next case and when you get back you'll just know do i need to respond go ahead you can respond yeah um i don't know what to say uh well first of all everything that he presented except for the relationship to the pond is not relevant information and i cannot consider it that guy is completely crooked what he said everything every word is a lie he uh he's submitting the court orders to stop me at your development and uh he has probably 50 60 accusations and the judge denied all of accusations um that's a long story but anyway he is he owned those kind of land he obtained those kind of land illegally 30 years ago you know he paid their nothing then i don't know i i bought this land from him he's a single solo um hoa he's a solo uh architect manager he's a solo you know everything solo and he's a lawyer he represented himself and uh when i close the when i bought the uh properties there's no discloser there's no restrictions after i spent half million dollars to build a new house he came to me he bring me the amendment says okay this is the rules you need to follow but i do not have any discloser before i close the uh you know uh before i buy the other properties so everything every word this guy that gentleman said is a lie what uh so for my case i will follow 100 county guidelines so what what what what what our county guidelines uh you know apply to me i will follow okay i appreciate that we understand that thank you thank you sir okay we're going to go on to case number four right case number four two excuse me two five dash zero zero nine seven eight zero alachua county versus simon betty jane okay someone here representing you want to have a seat over there by the podium county please proceed thank you uh michael williams code officer for alachua county in code enforcement case two five dash zero zero nine seven eight zero the county received a complaint on 91625 regarding the property located at 4811 northwest 234th avenue in alachua florida here in alachua county the property is identified by parcel number 05421-010-001 the owner of the property is betty jane simon code administration initiated an enforcement proceeding and found there to be a violation of the following uh sections of alachua county code of ordinances 74.20 a accumulation of junk and 74.36 nuisance overgrowth the respondent was provided a reasonable time to correct the violations a courtesy notice was initially sent to the respondent for corrective actions subsequently a notice of violation was sent to the respondent that also included corrective actions my last inspection of the property was on 1726 which the property was found in compliance with code section 74.36 which is the nuisance overgrowth it was also noted that the property remains in violation of code section 74.20-8 accumulation of junk and storage i have good service of notice and statements of violation to respond that sent by certified mail receipt or posting copies have been provided to the magistrate and i request that they be entered into evidence i have had contact with the respondent mr william floyd who resides at the property regarding the violations the photographs being presented were taken by myself and accurately reflect the violations and i ask that they be admitted into evidence um the county uh recommends that the respondent be given 60 additional days in order to come into compliance if compliance is not achieved in 60 days then a fine of 50 per day uh be imposed uh the county has incurred 280 in cost in bringing this matter um to the hearing thank you thank you please identify yourself for the record please yes i'm william lloyd i'm reside at 4811 northwest 234th avenue are you an owner tenant i am my mother's owner of the property okay all right all right so what can you tell me the current tenant at the property right now as far as i know i complied with everything that he asked me to do to the best of my ability at this point my mother's completely disabled my wife's completely disabled my daughter's in the process of applying for complete disability i'm the only one that is not complete disabled that even has anything to do with the property so everything's on my shoulders i tried very hard i hired people we were out there in the yard working for day and night for three or four days just to try to get it done by the 17th by the compliance date i thought i did a pretty good job but apparently it wasn't up to his standards and we still ended up here so okay so let me ask you so he said you're in compliance with the nuisance overgrowth so you clearly met that criteria yes sir and the other main is the accumulation of junk okay and so what i would ask is have you had the opportunity to have him come out and actually identify those things that are still the rest of the junk that he would like removed no sir i have not okay well that's something i would like you to do if you can because i think that will help shorten it and how much time do you think you need because you heard me say earlier i'd rather give you the right amount of time so that you don't have to come back before i i feel like i'm very close to being in compliance because they're asking for 60 days he's to give you 60 days and if you come in the box then there's the case ends at that point yeah if if you'd give me an extra 30 just to make sure you know maybe 90 days just to be positive i can get everything done because how's the county feel about having him give an extra 30 days um that would be fine um i'd like to um for the record um august of of last year um we did meet at the property actually have met on the property actually myself and um julie uh uh pocklington with uh environmental we did we did meet at the property because there was um initially some um potential violations with regard to uh what was believed that um there might be some um hazardous materials hazardous materials and so we did meet there and we did address not only the hazardous materials issue but we did address all of the excessive outdoor storage um what is happening is um the gentleman i i'm assuming runs a business from his home and so he collects a lot of things that he that he's collecting selling um i don't know um i guess he's taking them to scrap yards or what have you and so uh it does it does present um very badly um and and again we have spoken about it um and mind you this this this particular case started um back in august of last year um and so um we have given uh extensions uh we of of time um and again to his credit he did cut um the high grass because it was it was very high uh kind of through it throughout the entire property it was very high um and so um neighbors had some concerns as well and rightfully so um and so once again he did cut the grass but the excessive storage is uh has been ongoing and there has been um some uh work with regard to moving some of it but he still has a pretty um when he's acknowledged that he has more work to do so yes um so my suggestion still is that you have get together at the property so he can identify exactly but go ahead my question is is uh originally i was told by him the only storage that i had to worry about removing for the violations was the storage that was not behind the privacy fence the privacy fence i i courtesy allowed him to walk behind the privacy fence and look as a courtesy because he asked me to right but he told me that as long as it was behind the privacy fence that i didn't have to worry about it so everything that was junk or trash or everything except for like a tiny little spot like maybe this little big of an area as soon as you walk in my yard to the left there was removed from my yard by the 17th like i worked in to the middle of the night to one two three o'clock in the morning getting everything out of my yard by the 17th so if he went by there on the 17th and took pictures of my yard or checked up on it on the 17th like it was supposed to he would have seen that there was nothing in my yard on the okay so he's satisfied that he expected it yesterday and it was still a problem and can you show the picture from yesterday that's the problem here in the court it's on the screen sir that's from yesterday this is my car this car runs these are what i'm using to block my driveway as a gate right now this stuff just got put there on that car over the weekend so it hasn't been there i just helped my father my friend's father just passed all that stuff just got dragged home to my house and put on my car for me to go through over this past weekend and and it's not been there a long time i mean so sir those those white i guess partitions or whatever though yes that's the privacy fencing that you're speaking of that's what i was using as a gate for a privacy fence until i can get something better at this point in time well it's not um it doesn't meet the code it does it has to be the code now yes sir so i have to meet a code for a gate that's not a gate sir i mean i have to meet a code for to for privacy to try to have privacy on my property there's a code for me to well fencing requires it has to be a code so there are limits to the code and that brings on my second question okay um i work in the city you know there are so many properties in this city that i could go around and take pictures of right now that their yards are full of trash that their fences are messed up and that there's so much that needs to be done in this city but i live 25 miles outside the city limits in the middle of the country i own my property i pay the taxes my mom owns it we pay the taxes every year we're not behind why am i constantly being barbaric by code enforcement it's because my neighbors do not like the fact that i scrap and then there's constantly scrap it never is the same but because i scrap i am constantly bringing stuff home so i can clean it you know and then take it to the junkyard and get paid for it you know and i'm just trying to figure out how to avoid this problem because this isn't the first time this is like the this is the second time i've been in court for this is like the sixth time i've had to deal with it though well it sounds like your neighbors are going to continue to have filed complaints right and that's so what so basically that's why i encourage you to have him come out to the property yes with you and identify exactly what you need to do yes so that it's very clear and you're going to have to come up with some kind of a gate that's not what that is and i planned on that that was just temporarily understood um the other side is it um i haven't got into this but and it's not here before but you if you are running a business you have certain requirements that you have to follow if you're right yes and i usually um it's expired right now but i do have uh i usually do have a permit to run the business from the property so that's not before us right now but just be aware that if you have somebody who's complaining that may crop up at some point yes so again i'm willing to give you some extra time um but it's precluded upon you getting together with the county and getting out there and identify what you need to do to come into compliance yes because i'd rather not have you come back i'd rather not go okay yes and we'd rather not have you have to pay fines too okay rather have you put the money into the property and improve it the whole reason i tried to comply because i'm not a hard guy i just i i can tell that i understand i want to live life and i want to have peace and i just want to be left alone i live in the country also so i exactly understand yes sir where you're coming from okay all right anything else from the county at this point no thank you for coming appreciate it thank you all right do we have case number three here two five dash zero one one nine five two alachua county versus jans robert j life estates oh okay well we can post okay well we still have a few more cases so you know okay okay all right let's go on then to put that on hold case number six i believe yes okay case number five was withdrawn compliance call case number six please case number two five dash and zero one one one one one alachua county versus tamayo versus suarez and tamayo someone here representing the respondent someone here representing tamayo hearing none please proceed proceed county and silence your cell phone how many times have we been through this all right go ahead please proceed uh scott grudzinski uh code administration in alachua county this is one of our solid waste cases that we bring you occasionally uh it was initiated by solid waste in october uh code sent out a notice of violation a seven-day notice and uh on 11-3-20-25 uh the debris was not picked up we had it picked up and we invoiced them and notice of a hearing was mailed certified on 12-8 to pay the um invoice within 30 days which would actually be tomorrow so the county's just asking to certify the lien we will hold it an extra week or so okay so you're asking for authorization to file a lien yep okay all right all right thank you so in case number seven and eight have been withdrawn for compliance we have a a request for a reduction of fine and lien correct yes you want to call that please case number two five dash zero zero three three five three alachua county versus joanna mercer all right so this let me read a statement this is a little different procedure than what we've been going through i will now hear requests for reduction of fines and rescissions of liens the decision to grant or deny your request is solely within my discretion pursuant to state statute and county ordinance in making my decision i may consider recommendations from alashua county code administration please state precisely what you are requesting and why you believe that i should grant your request you may present any information that is relevant to your request the only purpose of this hearing is to consider a reduction of fine or rescission lien this is not an opportunity to discuss the original findings of guilt for the violations please refrain from commenting on the original proceedings i have no authority to revisit the final action okay so the way this begins is you get to go first and present your case and i have your document by the way here and i've read it let me say identify yourself for the record joanna mercer owner okay and are you also going to speak yes i'm russell mercer i'm the husband okay and so go ahead and tell me yes we printed some receipts okay we brought it here for you okay so let's go ahead and talk about uh go ahead and present your case yes sir um your honor uh we have estimated 181 000 in total loss uh with with that being said it has been two years more than two years of loss of rental income at four thousand dollars a month totaling 96 000 more than two years of mortgage maintenance property taxes insurance and utilities at roughly twenty three hundred dollars a month totaling fifty thousand fifty five thousand dollars we were requested to also install a pool fence at roughly three thousand dollars and demolition for all um for upstairs kitchen of the back house which is unit d downstairs apartment the barn apartment including extensive trash removal due to the demolition at least cost us six thousand dollars and i have been able to print out receipts of permits a septic tank was ninety five hundred dollars um etc i have it all here for you with a total of a hundred and eighty one thousand dollars okay and i've read your your yes presentation as well do you want i there's no part for it i don't have to have you read it i have it in the documents in the case file so um and you have anything else to add to it beyond this i think we were able unless you want to add anything it's your it's your case i mean it's your job to convince me fair enough yeah i think you know you have the documentation so there's no need to go through and read it i think the point we're really trying to drive home is that we at least from our side we feel like we have been very communicative um as best we can as you know adults with jobs and kids um you know you can see there was one period of you know two three weeks where there's over about 40 emails between the two you know we're not lawyers so i don't necessarily have a record of every interaction you know there are phone calls that have been made multiple visits that my wife has also made you know scott and others who are here can attest to that i think the the the main point though is uh we feel and hopefully this will be understood and could be considered you know we feel there was a misunderstanding with the um requirement of 30 days to have full compliance by august 25th and this is in the notes that we submitted you have seen this but at the july 3rd hearing you know the request to that my wife asked for was you know three months 90 days to bring it to full compliance but the the county officials you know holly and kelly were requesting 30 days just for the zoning permit approval because at the time we were considering homestead and that would have changed the requirements for unit b now we decided to not do homestead we have kids they have school so it was not the path that we chose to move forward with and they knew that we were in communication with them but again that initial 30 days was not to bring the full property into full compliance at least what was requested here that was the order that we were given and there was a mad scramble to do that we did i think pretty we moved mountains as i would hope you can see with the evidence that we have submitted but the request was 90 days for us to bring it into full compliance knowing that there are things like septic tank and health department that alone took 42 days between us paying for the permit and them saying we could proceed and that was entirely waiting on them they had to come inspect the site there's processing they're busy we can all understand that but i think that shows that it seems like maybe there was a misunderstanding with the 30-day requirement that we were given versus excuse me versus the full scope of work necessary to bring into total compliance to where code could fully sign off and and we could be done um so i really just want to try to drive that point home i think from a a homeowner's perspective i feel like we have done everything we could possibly do when somebody comes here and you need them to get this across the finish line i feel like we it's not ideal for code to bring this here this has been a long-standing engagement but you know i mean you got to give us maybe not a plus but an a we've worked really hard and so i really hope you could you could take that into account as you evaluate an extra eight thousand dollars that we have to look at in addition to you know quite a bit that we've um you know experienced okay and you've done the best job i've had in 20 almost 20 years in terms of documenting what what you spend and what you why you need so you did a great job in terms of that in terms of what i'm you don't normally get so let me ask the county what their position is on this i just wanted to lay out the case a little bit for you because you um this happened previous before they came before the magistrate so the case was opened back in 2023 it's about five acres they have the main house and then three other buildings they did work in the main house without permits and also the three other buildings they made them into residential rental units without permits each building also has a septic and so by doing that it was deemed to be unsafe and the renters had to leave so they had to leave at their own cost so the renters left and then they did all the work they had to tear it down to the studs and they there was a lot of work you know we do um acknowledge that so they did all that work and the only thing that left was building b so even though they were told multiple times that they did need to have building b done as well they chose not to do that first they were going to have a an office in that location which would require taking out anything that would be a residential dwelling unit the kitchen and bathrooms and then they decided they were going to do the homestead which they did not do so now it came back down to taking out the kitchens in the bathroom so that made a delay as well so by saying all that just giving you um an idea of the case they have done quite a bit of work and county does appreciate that so we do have um no recommendation but any reduction that you can grant the county would agree to okay if i could just add one more detail and and i don't think at all i need to dispute what kelly is saying you know we've each been along for this ride for for quite some time uh the one thing i'll point out is you know when we initially receive this you know obviously it's not an excuse but it can always be foreign as a homeowner who doesn't work under these circumstances a lot of different offices you're dealing with um but the approach that we took from the beginning was you know knowing that if somebody was homesteaded in this property then the unit b which is was initially built as a mother-in-law suite would be allowed and so the initial communication and position and approach that we communicated to the county was let us bring everything into compliance except for that piece and then because we're going to sell this property we know we're not going to live there at one point we considered that after it got to this point with the magistrate element but until then the communication was let's work through the building permit we have demo we have roofs we have sept tanks and we will plan on selling this at which point the new owner would apply for that side unit and there would be a transition and we never really got to the details of what exactly that looked like because there was a you know 90 of work before that that needed to get done but that is why the as she said it was a conscious decision to postpone the unit b side house until everything else was done with the assumption that we could sell it the new homeowner could take it over that did change though at the end once it got to this point you know the communication to county was hey because we couldn't close the building permits until code enforcement signed off but code enforcement couldn't so we were in this circular pattern so the statement that i made was hey you know let's go ahead and transition this over to code enforcement a recommendation so the the building permits could be closed out and todd dimpter i don't have an email of that but todd dimpter uh dan gargus they agreed to that and at that point that's where we got teed up for the magistrate hearing so once it got to that point and then we started to see we have 30 days it's getting a lot tighter yes we did consider homestead which could change the approach but again the initial plan was just to sell and the unit b be dealt with at the time of transfer of title so i just want to point that out i'm not disputing anything kelly is kelly is saying but it's a long journey and you know there was a plan that was attempted to be communicated and followed and i think it made sense based on the conditions at the time okay yeah go ahead thank you kelly i appreciate actually i wanted to say i appreciated all the collaboration with code enforcement and uh i was going to i paid already the 280 dollar prosecution you would be here if you didn't do that because oh really okay i didn't know that's that's i don't have any sort of choice over there so so i was uh going to ask if possible to not have to pay the eight thousand dollar plus fine it has been beyond expensive for us we had a child right when this started so um we had to pull a loan and we're paying for the loan we need to put the house on the market and sell it um so i was just going to ask you if you could consider removing this eight thousand dollar fine that's from the county the county has nothing further your honor okay all right thank you both for coming and you'll get my decision here in the next week or two okay okay and it will be at least a reduction i can tell you that much how much i haven't decided it may go to zero it may not just i need to consider the case a little bit yes and he received this right um i don't think what do you recommend we do with these extra few pages of the you can put them into the record if you'd like it's your opportunity to do that if you want to give them to see right here okay excellent is that the correct one just make sure that'll just become part of the record i printed out we'll just add we'll just add them to the existing document that you this is the full one yeah oh okay so that's fine that's my hair okay thank you thank you uh so case number three did we ever okay he's back did he find his wife he got he got that phone he wasn't my friend randy he might he's out there but they get off they want one all right you want to go over there by the podium okay so the county's correct question of the county is are you willing to postpone it until the next month why don't you before let's do go over to the podium so we can get you on the record go speak on the microphone on the record i want my wife so what's your name david k griffiths okay and and you own the property yes i do okay and so what's the county's position on request for extension yeah so what can you describe your wife to the officer and she'll go look for her she's got a dress on that's black with a yellow kind on yellow for designs and she's got blondish hair and she's a five five nine five ten yeah and is she with somebody else she's with my friend randy he's my age a little older and she's 42 so she's a little younger and you see her you'll know trish is her name all right we're gonna go we'll hold this case a little bit until see if she can find him yes your honor we don't object to like a recess for 10 minutes because we do have um a lot of witnesses here so that's where we we really do want it to be heard today okay all right so we'll do a case go into recess at 10 o'clock and come back at 10 10. 10 10 okay that's what i was going to suggest here but has left the courtroom and all right go ahead please proceed case two five zero one one nine five two county received a complaint on november 7th regarding multiple violations property is located at one two five oh two northeast 199th street waldo in alachua county identified by parcel number one eight three nine seven zero zero one zero zero zero owner the property is jane's robert j life estate code administration initiated enforcement proceedings and found there to be a violation of the following section of alachua county code 402.140b improvement of property prior to issuance of a building permit which is the two sheds and a semi semi-trailer located on the property the respondent was provided a reasonable time to correct the violations notice violation was sent to the respondent that included corrective actions ongoing inspections conducted date have determined the respondent remains in violation of the sad alachua county code section my last inspection of the property was on january 6th i have good service of notices and statements of violation to the respondent sent by certified mail receipt or postings copies have provided to the magistrate and a request to be entered into evidence i have had contact with the respondent regarding the violations photographs being presented were taken by senior environmental specialist chris bover and myself which actively reflect the violations and ask they be admitted into evidence they'll be admitted into evidence county recommendation is the respondent be found in violation of the said section of the code or to respond to come into compliance within 30 days by complying with the corrective actions listed in this violation and if not in compliance and pay a fine amount of hundred dollars for each day violation continues past the date set for compliance county has incurred 350 dollars in cost and bringing the action to the hearing okay do you have any other witnesses i don't know if they want to speak but does anyone would like to speak on the case or i can't help you with that we're proceeding with the case i did want to let you know your honor i posted the property on december 18th and then the recent picture in the file yes your honor and the respondent did call me which i have a text message in response to he wanted to schedule an inspection so he was aware of the violation that was posted and the inspection was the sixth okay all right you have other witnesses do you want to bring up how could i be aware if i didn't understand it how could i be aware the law doesn't require you to understand it it doesn't know me it doesn't require me to understand this no sir it doesn't require me to understand what time i get to be somewhere it doesn't require that it's on posted on the notice when you got to be able to read it i told you i didn't understand i don't understand too good i don't see too good and i asked for help and i didn't get it i asked you have other witnesses you want to bring up i don't believe they want to testify at this time your honor but i i didn't want to mention that the inspection that was on the sixth i got there and chris bover with environmental was with me as well i wanted to address the violations and he did not want to hear any explanation that i had as far as the violations he became very irate rude and threatening threatening how so the inspection ceased and we left the property i shook the man's hand before he left he didn't seem like he was threatened i shook his hand i said well nice to meet you have a good day i tell you she she i understood what she said she said i need to move my tractor trailer which is agriculture that's where i keep my feed my pole barn where i keep my tractor and my stuff where i grow hot peppers chicken foot hot peppers and i got some in the truck i was going to bring up here but i can't find my truck or my wife it says right here grandfathered in agriculture that's me florida says one acre can be agriculture it doesn't matter it's bonafide what you're doing is true and what i'm doing is true i'm doing hot grow hot peppers and i got plenty of witnesses to that and i got some trees my main hot peppers so is the property agriculturally its own yes your honor it is um he's under one acre under one acre so he has a semi-trailer that says he states he stores things in there i got a picture he does not have permits for any of the outbuildings so so the two sheds and the um the port the carport that he was mentioning he stores things under he doesn't have permits for those he doesn't have permits for the electrical or any water that's going on to the property he is also as far as the pictures can indicate he is living in the sheds so they both have air conditioning units that are um you know on located on the sheds he said he was going to look into getting um building permits to live in the sheds and i got notification from zoning the difference between a shed and an actual tiny home so there's uh regulations that you need to go through in order to live in a tiny home and not a shed your honor i called her office i had first i had a motor home 84 motor home that i got for my pigs to live in because i got pigs from jesse and ashley newman on the soap factory out there living in a mansion on the lake and somebody stole my first two pigs out there on in the neighborhood stole them i found out who it was so they gave me two more pigs and i it was winter time last winter and i said well i'll put the pigs i'll find a place so they'd be warm because they they're particular about their pigs so i put them in there to keep them warm nobody ever lived in that motor home nobody's ever lived in that shed out there and that's the god's truth i'll take a lie detector god's truth so the tractor trailer is agriculture the pole barn is agriculture i'm grandfathered in the shed that was uh mr james he had a lifetime estate he passed i got the death certificate here he passed but that's his that was there when i got there i worked on the road i was a heavy equipment crane operator for the ivw i worked 23 years so i got erect and i got hurt real bad spent six weeks in icu i died twice the third time i died i met jesus he come out the dark into the light and jesus won't come for a greedy heart and i don't have one anything else from the county well i do want to want to mention about those sheds there's electrical going to the sheds he did speak to zoning about using the sheds for farming which he is not doing he's living in the sheds why i'll prove it where do you live i live in graham 12 008 southwest 92nd street hampton florida 32044 that's my brother's he lives on santa ve river out there i come back and forth i sometimes i stay out i've stayed out 26 years off and on i camp out there go fishing that's what it's for and now i have pepper plants i'm chicken foot hot peppers i got people that help me you know i might not be the sharpest tool but i know some that are anything else from the county not at this time your honor i read this lady here i think she's biased against me i really do because i called and she said i said listen this motorhome would be 84 motorhome i could trade it for a shed oh that's a good idea she said mr griffins i'll permit any any any shed you put on that property any building put on that property i'll permit what she said she or somebody told me that on the phone you get rid of that in the motorhome when i got rid of it my wife had all her clothes stored in like she hasn't stored in that shed right now the reason has an air conditioner she got mad i couldn't get her here clothes out so if i throw them out well she called the sheriff's department they sent three carloads out there because i threw timu out the door where she bought all the timu clothes and she got mad because that's what i've been burdened with because it's this i don't think i deserve it i've done nothing wrong nothing i'm a farmer i've always been a farmer from 24 hours came crane operator i was a farmer i grew watermelons peanuts even grew a little marijuana that's the way it was that's the truth i got no reason to lie anybody here tall enough to make me lie okay that's enough i do have a response your honor i never gave um any kind of recommendation about the sheds or the use of the sheds he spoke to zoning about the use of the sheds for farming and that was about it there was no permits mentioned as far as the sheds with the air conditioning units there's two sheds with air conditioning units with which what um my pictures reflect and they have electrical there's lights outside porch lights and so if he is not living in them and just using them for storage then we would need to verify that and it also needs still needs a permit for the electrical correct correct because electrical in agriculture you still need a permit clay electric they hooked everything up nobody ever said anything to me it's not clay electric it's the county you have to get the permit from but i did when i got power for from clay electric i had to go through the across the road over that yellow building i went in and out of there for a year or so they said do this i did they tell me what else to do and they said to me mr griffin we'll honor anything on your deed we'll honor what is that do we have any record of electrical permits no your honor that's it are y'all going to do me like the government done the indians no sir we'll honor your deed okay you want to see the deed i'll print it to you don't need to see the deed it says grandfathered in told the deed okay we're going to conclude this case now at 10 24. you want to speak okay go ahead and come up you can come up here please fit your name for the record is michael wiesen property owner next door okay these folks came in a couple years ago and they've been living in trailers sheds nothing's been permitted ever they have caused a nightmare in the whole neighborhood every day they got domestic quarrels yelling screaming fighting every four letter known to mankind they're saying each other i have 26 acres there they got like nine tenths of an acre so when he says agriculture yeah he's making that up the whole area is agriculture but there's a lot of lake houses right there it's on santa fe lake he's on a canal okay he has septic systems unpermitted just running in the wetlands wells unpermitted everything he's done has been unpermitted just basically squatting there living in squalor in these sheds and he was uh already been cited for other trailers he had moved out of those might move those into sheds he's got ongoing leans he just keeps causing problems every day he's got signs of them the road you know you're woke pig stealing stuff his pigs run wild all over in the neighborhood okay there are either quarter mile half mile half mile away his dogs are barking all time drug deals going on sketchy cars coming up and down deal it's nothing you're not speaking right now you're not speaking drug deal be quiet right now you're not speaking i'll let you speak in a minute if you don't i'll ask the deputy to support you out of the fields so quiet go ahead all kinds of sketchy cars going up and down there at all times of night okay that only spells one thing and if you see and hear what they're doing i think kelly poorer experienced it recently when she's out of him going to the irates which they do every day you can hear them it ruins you can't sit on your front porch and look at the lake without hearing them screaming it's degraded the whole neighborhood elderly women they can't go for a walk they're afraid they're going to encounter him okay um i don't know they already got i don't know how much leans against them that started back last spring never been paid how long will this go on and if you built a new house and you moved into that house two three weeks before you got the occupancy permit they would escort you out of there real quickly well he doesn't have a permit for anything but they're living in these sheds there's air conditioning units there's internet um satellites up there they live there all the time for some he's a farmer yeah he's about as far as a farmer as you can get okay he has a little garden it's all lowlands so and just a huge huge detriment to the neighborhood so i don't know how the county would let this keep going on and on that's why we have zoning laws and have permits it's a keep this from happening okay anything else no sir thank you for coming okay thank you well he is a woke communist woke he's a dog hater he wanted to put muzzles on my dachy hound i'll buy muzzles for your dog enough i told him enough you give testimony relevant to the case that is relevant he's just missing the dog that is not relevant to the case you can speak the relevant to the case and that's it okay i am a farmer too i'm more of a farmer he'll ever be and that's the real element your case you're on what it is about farming isn't it no is it about farming or not no that's not what's in my friend nobody's living in the sheds that's not what's done in front of me nobody and there's no drug deals going on either that's another something that's not true and people do come a night i'm retired it doesn't matter if i get up at 11 o'clock or don't get up at all i'm 68 i work i earned it i do what i please you don't tell me what to do you or anyone else you think you can though enough that is not relevant to the case we're concluding this case now hearing is over at 10 29.