County Contractor Defends Practice in Land Use Dispute

SOMIS —  Tom Staben climbs over rocks and brush to reach a 5-foot-high chain-link fence dividing Las Posas Arroyo riverbed from his 67-acre ranch.

The Moorpark-based contractor, who has been repeatedly accused of illegally dumping everything from old refrigerators to rusted cars, launches into a vigorous defense of himself and his business practices.

“I’ve been crucified in the newspaper for being a threat to the environment,” Staben says, jabbing a finger at the fence, which is surrounded by tall willow trees.

“That I have been dumping anything into the river has been a total fabrication,” he adds. “This fence has been here for eight years and runs most of the length of my property.”

The county acknowledges Staben hasn’t dumped into the river, but contends storing old and broken-down equipment on a flood plain poses a potential danger to the environment.

In April, when county code enforcement officers inspected his Somis property, they found about 30 old tractors, trucks, some appliances and farming equipment parked and stored along the chain-link fence.

The discovery touched off a debate among supervisors over whether the county Public Works Agency should continue to hire Staben for clean-out, slide-removal and road-repair projects. Over the past five years, the county has awarded Staben nine contracts totaling about $2.4 million.

Conversely, Staben has been cited 22 times over the past nine years for violations on some of the approximately 10 parcels he owns countywide.

But Staben, in his first interview since the public furor over his practices began six months ago, says the citations mostly boil down to nothing more than simple zoning violations. Far from being an environmental scourge, he says, he is a hard-working man with a passion for collecting old machinery.

While he concedes he has allowed permits to expire or in some cases has tried to skirt the lengthy and expensive permit process altogether, he says the public portrayal of him is a false one.

Staben Cites Family Tensions

Such accusations have not only ruined his reputation, he says, but have also created tension in his family life. Some family members no longer speak to him, he says. Now he wants to set the record straight.

“Was the stuff dumped in any riverbed?” Staben asks, standing among about a dozen tractors and farming equipment in a dirt lot on his property--a site crowded with many more vehicles on the day of the county inspection in April.

“Absolutely not,” Staben answers. “Was this area a parking lot? Absolutely. It was a parking lot.”

The vehicles and equipment totaled more than 2,000 square feet, which is the county limit for open storage in an agricultural zone. After that April visit, Staben was issued citations for:

* Having excess open storage.

* Maintaining an agricultural contractor’s service and storage yard without a conditional use permit.

* Having too many garbage bins on his property.

Staben removed some of the property and on Nov. 19 county officials inspected his land again.

During that inspection, Staben’s Ventura attorney, Alex Guiterrez, questioned code enforcement manager Todd Collart about the visit.

“So you’re not looking at any environmental violations?” Guiterrez asked, while a reporter listened. “It’s all basically zoning violations?”

“When you say, ‘environmental,’ that’s a loaded word,” Collart replied. “And that’s not what we’re doing here. We’re looking at too much open storage.”

Although Staben could simply remove more of his collection and clear up the three pending violations, he has chosen to fight the county.

During the most recent inspection, he argued that many of his broken-down tractors should not be considered open storage because he can get them to work. Staben also argued he does not need a conditional use permit because the farming equipment is used on his land.

“I’m not a passive person,” Staben said later, chewing on a toothpick. “I know what I want and I know how to get there.”

*

But Staben’s apparent lack of flexibility and perspective while he seeks his objectives clearly rubs some people the wrong way.

“He’s a pretty independent guy who wants to do things his way,” Supervisor Frank Schillo said. “That’s bound to get him into some trouble.”

Judy Mikels, the only county supervisor who voted against rejection of Staben’s last contract, said other county-hired contractors also have a rap sheet for similar zoning violations.

“If we’re going to scrutinize one contractor, we need to put all other contractors under the same scrutiny,” Mikels said.

Mikels and other supervisors, even some who find fault with Staben, ultimately lay the blame with the Public Works Agency for giving jobs to contractors who do not follow zoning and other county codes.

While Staben has been known to rile county officials and environmentalists, many others say his greatest fault may be his penchant for bucking the system and collecting antique tractors that he refuses to relinquish.

Walking around his property, the 44-year-old farmer-turned-contractor fiercely defended the old tractors that others have called junk. One faded blue Ford, he said, has sentimental value; he bought it with money he saved selling fruit when he was 14.

Other old Caterpillars are also invaluable, he said.

County officials have voiced concern that Staben’s Somis property is a flood plain, which means vehicles and equipment could end up in the river during a severe storm. Officials also say fluid from the vehicles could seep into the soil and eventually flow into the river.

That was not the case during last winter’s El Nino-fueled storm, when Staben’s vehicles and farming equipment became covered in muck but remained intact. Staben also says that when state Regional Water Quality Control Board officials inspected his property in May and June, they found no trace of hazardous material.

“We had Mr. Staben dig eight trenches in locations of our choice,” Blythe Ponek-Bacharowski, a control board geologist based in Monterey Park, said of the inspections. “We examined the soil and found broken-up concrete, but no signs of illegal dumping.”

D.A.’s Office Following One Case

For the most serious violation--a citation issued last winter by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers alleging Staben had excavated the ecologically sensitive Ventura River bottom--there is documentation to support an argument that Staben was following county orders. And if he is held liable, the county may also have violated the Clean Water Act during that project.

The Corps of Engineers’ cease and desist order and notice of violation is the only Staben case the county district attorney’s office is investigating, supervising attorney Greg Browse said.

Staben also said reports concerning the 200-foot-long lake on his Moorpark property were blown out of proportion. He said the lake is actually a silt basin, which property owners commonly build to capture water and silt during storms and protect the surrounding land from erosion. He said he failed to get a grading permit because he didn’t want to pay $10,000 in permit fees to move dirt on his own property.

“There isn’t a farmer in the county who hasn’t done the same thing,” he said.

Staben believes he infuriated some county officials who are now targeting him. He said his troubles began after he refused to allow a code enforcement officer onto his property last spring. The officer had been inspecting property nearby when she noticed old vehicles on Staben’s land. But when she informed Staben by telephone that she wanted to tour his property the next day, Staben flatly refused her visit.

“She told me, ‘You know I can get a search warrant,’ ” Staben said. “I told her to go ahead and get one.”

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Tom Andrew Staben, a fourth generation Ventura County resident born in Oxnard and reared in Camarillo, has been in business nearly all his life. He says when he was 10 he began selling from his garage vegetables he grew as part of his 4-H class.

By 11, Staben says, he opened a fruit stand on Daily Drive in Camarillo. He recalled the day he and his father inquired about whether he needed a city permit to run the stand.

“The mayor at the time, Earl Joseph, ran a shoe store,” Staben said. “We met him at his store and asked him about a permit. He says, ‘Nah, you don’t need one.’ ”

But years later, the lackadaisical tone changed when the city of Camarillo tried to close Staben’s produce stand on Pleasant Valley Road.

He was a young farmer of 20, he said, when officials informed him that he was violating a city code that stated fruits and vegetables must be grown within 300 feet of any stand in which they are sold.

After collecting about 2,000 signatures from local supporters, Staben said he was able to persuade the Camarillo City Council to allow his stand to remain open. City code enforcement officials, however, visited his stand on a regular basis and routinely issued him tickets for small offenses, he said.

Staben wound up closing his stand.

“You may win the skirmish, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to win the war,” he said.

Now he has much more at stake than a fruit stand.

“Everything that I have worked for all my life--the dedication and hard work it has taken to build a reputation for myself, it’s all gone up in smoke.”

His business is not the only thing that worries him.

“I want my family back,” he said. “You can’t put a price on that.”