Where are you Ted Hannig?

Back in 2015 Attorney Ted Hannig, sued the City of Redwood City in San Mateo Superior Court Case #CIV536168 for among other things allowing “environmental harm” to occur at Docktown. As the complaint then stated “As alleged herein, the City is knowingly and unlawfully operating Docktown and in the process causing financial and environmental harm.”

Amazingly, the case was quickly settled by the City of Redwood City in a court approved and enforceable settlement. The settlement included $1.5 million for Mr. Hannig and his co-plaintiff, Citizens for the Public Trust, and some interesting reading including clause 3.2 which states:

"3.2. Environmental Site Assessment. By December 31. 2016, the CITY shall complete the environmental site assessment and sampling work described in the December 22, 2015 Technical Proposal prepared by Erler 4 Kalinowski, Inc. ("EKIProposal" ), attached hereto as Exhibit "2." and prepare a report. The CITY shall submit this report to relevant federal, state, and local agencies, including, without limitation, the County of San Mateo, San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, and/or the Department of Toxics Substances Control. The City shall work cooperatively with these agencies regarding remedial action, if any, in connection with the report."

While the environmental site assessment was completed and found that actually there was no environmental damage; in retrospect what wasn’t included was any language as to ensuring the City of Redwood City would not allow any new environmental damage to be done to the area. But the court did note: “THIS COURT RETAINS JURISDICTION TO ENFORCE THE TERMS OF THE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ENTERED INTO.” (All in caps on the online website.) It appears the court just blithely rubber stamped the agreement it had agreed to enforce.

In the ensuing years, the City of Redwood City developed and approved the required Docktown Plan that has since cost it over twenty million dollars to execute on. While a lot of the residents and former home-owners have settled, sold their homes to the City of Redwood City and moved away; a small group of about ten families are still fighting for their right to stay (which the court in a recent case management order has noted will need to go to a jury trial a topic for a future post) or be compensated according to the California Relocation Assistance Act.

However, this means that the City of Redwood City has found itself being the owner of most of the homes on the water and has been in the process of selling them even it if is at auction for pennies on the dollar. A condition of purchase through the auction house seems to be that homes need to be moved out of the Docktown area in a timely manner which seems to vary on a per case basis. Shockingly, some of the new owners of these homes are being allowed to paint and fix them while still here in Redwood Creek waters creating a potentially serious environmental hazard.

Interestingly, Attorney Ted Hannig’s first complaints were related to exactly these type of actions by the original home owners. Effectively, these new home owners are being welcomed with open arms, given the right to drive through the adjacent land based construction site, access their homes from nearby gates, bring in paints and other supplies and do onsite repair and paint jobs that damage the local creek.

Mr. Hannig claimed that one of his reasons for suing the City was that he is an environmentalist trying to protect the waters around the world including locally on Redwood Creek. Where are you Ted Hannig? Did you just take the money and run?