Fingers Crossed as End Seen in Two Farmers’ Decade-Old Feud

Peace is settling over the bucolic landscape of this North County valley east of Lake Hodges. Not a transitory peace that often occurs during the Christmas season, but a lasting end to hostilities between two farmers whose decade-old feud is legendary.

Dairyman Frank Konyn and vegetable farmer Mike Horwath have--through the mediation of their respective attorneys--agreed to end their costly legal and verbal battles over city leaseholds. The decision, two weeks in the making and as yet unsigned by either man, brings a sigh of relief from the 17 members of the Zendejas and Fonseca families who were caught in the middle.

An equal number of city and county government officials, forced to play the heavies in San Pasqual’s version of the Hatfields and McCoys, also are inwardly jubilant over the prospective end of hostilities--but cautious in their comments for fear that an ill-chosen word could spark the battle again.

A year ago, just before Christmas, city workers were ordered by county health officials to turn off the pump that operated the well supplying water to the two stately but run-down farmhouses where the Zendejas and Fonseca families live on Old San Pasqual Road. County officials found that the well water contained more than twice the acceptable amount of nitrates.

And in April, a San Diego City Council committee voted to begin eviction proceedings against the families and to order the two farmhouses torn down.

The city owns the houses, the land and the well, which are leased to Horwath’s TMY Farms. The breadwinners of the two households are 18-year employees of Frank Konyn’s Challenge Dairy, and Konyn pays the rent for his workers.

The two competing farmers have been at odds for years. The feud came to a head in 1978 when Horwath outbid Konyn for city-owned leases that the dairyman had traditionally held. At one point, the farmers traded lawsuits over allegations that manure from Konyn’s cows was washing down into TMY’s crops, on leased city land.

And when the city inspected the houses on Horwath’s leased land in 1984 and found them not up to code, Konyn sued to force Horwath to fix up the houses. Horwath counter-sued.

The legal standoff left the Zendejas and Fonesca families in the middle, and the families faced the loss of their comfortable quarters as the city moved to force one of the farmer’s hand by initiating proceedings to have the two farmhouses razed. Efforts by the city to force Horwath to bring the houses up to standard and to drill a new well were stalled because of the lawsuits.

Now, Konyn concedes, the battle has gone on long enough. It is time for peace.

He said he has agreed to drop his lawsuits over conditions of the homes against Horwath and the City of San Diego if Horwath will do the same, and said he will take responsibility to improve the two farmsteads where his veteran workers, Raul Zendejas and Jesus Fonseca, and their families live.

In return, Konyn said, acreage containing the two homes, plus seven others not in dispute, would be transferred from TMY Farms’ leasehold to Konyn’s.

“I am satisfied,” Konyn said of the meticulously drawn agreement. “It’s time to end this.”

Horwath also expressed satisfaction with the terms but declined to go into the specifics until the settlement is formalized and city attorneys “have dotted the last ‘i’ and cross the last ‘t.’ ”

For the city’s agricultural lease manager Bill Knowles, the prospect of peace in the valley is “a wonderful thing” to contemplate. He has been on the front line of the conflict over boundaries and well water for more years than he cares to remember. For Jim Spotts, city property department director, cessation of the festering feud will make his day, his week, his years to come.

“We are very optimistic that the leasehold problems out there in the valley are about to end,” he said, adding that the city will take no actions that might endanger the agreement.

But happiest of all at the prospect of a final resolution to the feud are the Zendejas and Fonseca families.

“It’s wonderful, wonderful,” said 18-year-old Raul Zendejas Jr. “It is the best news we could have.”

He promised to spread the news to his family and to the neighboring Fonseca clan, related by marriage to the Zendejas family.

“This is the best Christmas present we could have,” he said.