Dream Hinges on State Fee : Merchant Hopes DMV Will Waive Permits

John Pierce looked anxious and a bit disturbed, much like the fellow who dressed in his best threads, only to learn at the last minute that he had no place to go.

“Yeah, that’s about how I feel these days,” said Pierce, a self-employed San Juan Capistrano ceramics merchant, browsing through scattered piles of construction material he wants to take to Mexico.

The material represents Pierce’s dream of building a school and housing to attract folks to a tiny Mexican village near the Pacific Ocean where his wife, Elda, was born.

Uncommon Dream

It is a common man’s uncommon dream to provide education, shelter and, generally, a better way of life for the few people in that remote area of Mexico.

But Pierce has a problem: a financial roadblock posed by the Department of Motor Vehicles threatens his dream.

For the past eight months, Pierce and his wife have been working on plans to transport the material, which he got from the San Juan Capistrano Unified School District for a nominal fee after dismantling several Quonset huts the district had long used as storage facilities. He envisions building a school, a park and housing in San Miguel del Rio, a tiny village in the State of Michoacan.

His plans are set. He is ready to begin a new and simple, albeit rigorous, life in Mexico. His problem is the $2,800 the DMV wants for permits to allow Mexican trucks into California to haul the materials.

The DMV has told Pierce that the seven large trucks coming from Mexico must be registered and licensed by the State of California for their sojourn across the border before making the 1,800-mile return trip. Pierce was told the special permits will cost about $400 per truck.

Although the Mexican federal government and officials in Morelia, Michoacan’s capital, have authorized the shipment to Mexico and waived some of the usual bureaucratic maneuvers needed for such an endeavor, Pierce can’t move because he does not have the money.

Irksome Situation

Pierce said he understands the law, but he still is irked that the state won’t waive the requirement in this one instance.

“I’ve talked to the DMV in San Clemente. They’ve been very helpful and said they wished they could turn their backs on this, but they can’t,” Pierce said.

Jim Mendenhall, a DMV official in Sacramento, said the requirement could be waived if someone higher up, like Gov. George Deukmejian, interceded.

“I’m sure the governor could do that if he wanted, but I can’t speak for him,” Mendenhall said. “We just don’t have the authority to waive any law.”

Aides to Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) have tried to help Pierce out of the legal snarl. But they have stopped short of asking for the governor’s direct involvement, opting instead to give Pierce time to find outside help.

“All other viable alternatives should be looked at first. In this case, it looks like there could be another alternative,” said Janie Arnold, who works in Bergeson’s San Juan Capistrano office.

She said that a trucking firm, for example, could volunteer to ship Pierce’s material to the border, where it could be loaded onto the Mexican rigs. So far, Pierce has no volunteer.

‘Very Worthwhile’

“It would be a shame for the project to stop now, especially since he’s done so much work. It’s really a very worthwhile project,” Arnold said.

What surprises Pierce is that he now faces a hurdle he didn’t expect--after the Mexican government, not known for waiving its requirements so readily, has been a staunch supporter of his project. In addition to waiving the permits needed to haul the materials to Mexico, that government also is providing the seven tractor-trailer rigs.

The Michoacan state government has agreed to pay any taxes imposed by the Mexican federal government to haul the materials into the country, which could total as much as $100,000. All told, the Mexican governments could wind up contributing the equivalent of about $170,000 to get Pierce and his materials to the tiny village, Pierce said.

“It is not right for the State of Michoacan to pay for all of this and have California play around on a $2,800 deal,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pierce is getting more anxious by the day that his dream may not be realized.

The former Marine proudly examined his blueprint of the small town he hopes to create at San Miguel del Rio, which is not really a community. It is an ejido (a community plot) of about six families. His wife’s family makes up most of the population in that community plot in the green mountains along the Coahuayana River.

He said it would be a shame to abandon the project now that he is so close. Even before he began to dismantle the Quonset huts last September, he traveled to Morelia “to work everything out. I did that because I didn’t want to start a project if I couldn’t complete it,” he said. “They gave me 100% support.”

Pierce’s dream began when the school district decided to demolish the Quonset huts, built in 1942 by the Marine Corps. It took him seven months to dismantle them piece by piece. When he finished, he found he had enough material to build 21 units, including the school.

Hand-Drawn Blueprint

His hand-drawn blueprint calls for a small park with several homes around the main square. In effect, he wants to turn the tiny village into a small town that would attract people to settle there and grow peanuts and corn, the staples in that area.

Once he builds the school and the other homes, Pierce plans to farm there himself. He estimates it would take him two to three months to build the school, which he calls “the crowning jewel” of the project. The whole project, which also would include an irrigation system for the farmers, would take about four or five years.

In the past three months, Pierce and his wife have been given about $50,000 worth of additional materials for his project, ranging from 10 personal computers to about 500 old desks and chairs for the classrooms. What he can’t use he will barter for materials he will need later.

But time, he said, is running short. The rainy season in San Miguel del Rio begins in June. He still has time to build two structures to store the rest of the materials while he waits for drier weather to return to the area.

“We should be there . . . last month,” Pierce said. “I just want to get down there and go to work.”