Vista Man Battles On Over Seized Vehicles

Louis Schneider sees himself as David taking the Goliath of county government to court--the Supreme Court if necessary--to rectify a terrible wrong done to him and his 13 vehicles.

He has authorities mad that he’s still putting up a fight after a hearing officer and two judges decided the county was right to seize the vehicles and have them scrapped.

Schneider contends San Diego County code enforcement officers violated his constitutional rights when they declared the vehicles a nuisance and removed them from his Vista property without a warrant.

Adding insult to injury, he says, the county billed him to tow his own cars away.

County officials went to court this week to force Schneider to pay the $4,900 bill, and said they are still tallying their legal costs since Schneider sued them in federal and state courts.

Schneider says he’s nearly broke, but refuses to give up.

“You better believe it’s worth it. . . . I want my day in court,” the Oceanside resident said.

He vowed not to pay the county bill. “They’re not going to collect one . . . cent.”

Schneider’s Superior Court case, filed in February, 1990, was dismissed. In the federal suit, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Huff ruled in the county’s favor. Schneider is now appealing to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

County officials said they gave Schneider plenty of opportunities to remove the vehicles, parked in violation of zoning ordinances, but that he refused. And they said the county has had to spend a lot of time and money defending themselves against Schneider’s multiple lawsuits.

In describing the 3-year-old dispute, Schneider launches into tirades against county officials and judges alike, calling them stupid, “arrogant government bureaucrats” who have conspired against him.

“I don’t think I’m a nut to pursue this,” he said. “I feel the system is totally corrupt. I’m saying the judiciary swept under the rug the wrongdoing of the executive, administrative branch. If they didn’t do anything wrong, let it go to a jury.”

Schneider’s lawyer, Louis Goebel, says the county has pulled out all the stops in fighting Schneider’s lawsuits.

“They knock him down, take away his property and step on him while he’s down,” he said.

But county officials said Schneider is the one keeping the dispute going and that it all could have been avoided if he would have removed the nine buses, two motor homes and two cars from his lot on East Vista Way.

Sue Gray, chief of code enforcement for the Department of Planning and Land Use, said several neighbors complained about the unsightly vehicles. Schneider contends they were worth about $171,000 and provided him with income because he leased them out. He said he has since had to sell the property where they were parked.

Investigators decided that parking the vehicles--most not in working order--in full public view was a zoning violation.

County officials said Schneider’s tax records showed no income from the vehicles.

“The neighbors said those buses never went anywhere,” Gray said. “They were a nuisance to the neighborhood.”

Deputy County Counsel Valerie Tehan, who represents the county, said neighbors reported that migrants slept in the vehicles. All but two of the vehicles were not registered, she said.

But Schneider contended that it was legal for him to park passenger vehicles on the site and said the vehicles were operational.

Schneider was repeatedly ordered, in writing, to remove the vehicles but didn’t, Gray said.

Schneider said he had no other place to put the vehicles and that authorities told him he couldn’t put a building on the site to contain them. He appealed the nuisance abatement order, but a county hearing officer ordered him to remove the vehicles.

When he refused, the county contracted with Quality Auto Recycling, which removed the cars in December, 1989, and dismantled them for parts.

Gray and Tehan said the contractor’s work, plus the county’s administrative costs, comes to about $4,900 and that the county is entitled to reimbursement.

“We charge him for our time from the time we post the property until we say it’s cleaned up and we close the case,” Gray said. Because of the legal wrangling, “we have spent much more than $5,000.”

Tehan said Schneider has a history of fighting with local officials over zoning and licensing regulations. “He is anti-authority,” she said.

Schneider is already looking ahead, and says that if his federal appeal fails, he will take it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He also wants to appear on the television show “60 Minutes” and is writing about the case to independent presidential candidate Ross Perot, although it’s not clear what he wants the Texas billionaire to do about it.

“I’m basically trying to inform him of this,” Schneider said. “He knows the plight of the small businessman.”