The City of Upland just SUED its residents who are opposed to the Memorial Park Sale of 4.63 acres to become a future parking structure, which includes the only city council member who voted against the sale, being the CENSURED last week, Janice Elliott. This article is really a continuation of why our city council just censured Councilwoman Janice Elliott last week, so if you haven’t read that article, it may be helpful to refer to it first, here.
This article is really a continuation of why our city council just censured Councilwoman Janice Elliott last week, so if you haven’t read that article, it may be helpful to refer to it first, here. And this new plot twist, makes me feel like I have just seen a leprechaun riding a unicorn and now I’ve seen nearly everything, as I just read a complaint / lawsuit and a summons where the City of Upland is suing its residents, who are opposed to the sale of Memorial Park property, which would of course include Councilwoman Janice Elliott as the lone vote against it. This perfectly explains the reason behind the nightmare City Council Meeting just 6 days ago, to silence Janice Elliott and to exclude her completely from all legal updates and discussions regarding ongoing, upcoming and pending city litigation, because now she’s a defendant.
Our city leadership has officially lost their damn minds. Debbie Stone, Gino Filippi, Carol Timm and Sid Robinson, all have a serious screw loose collectively, or they are all so corrupted by power, that they are absolutely corrupted and my money is on the later. No wonder they just made a new Council Litigation Committee, immediately after VOTING TO CENSURE Janice Elliot, which consists of only two council members instead of all five, which LOCKS Janice Elliott out of all discussions and updates on all city litigation because they just SUED HER TOO, SHE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT!
And I have seen this power play before and the show TO CENSURE JANICE ELLIOTT last Tuesday, was all just smoke and mirrors. What this boils down to is that OUR CITY WOULD RATHER SUE THEIR CITIZENS, THAN TO ALLOW THEM TO VOTE! And knowing that the only voice of reason being Janice Elliott, has now been CENSURED and LOCKED OUT OF KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT ALL LEGAL MATTERS AFFECTING OUR CITY, WE’RE ALL COMPLETELY SCREWED. Let me tell you what just happened and why it just happened and why it keeps happening, so you too can start recognizing this for what this is. And what it is, is a tired, old, worn out, cracker jack magic trick, which has been played the hell out in Upland. So let’s learn to see through their smokes and mirrors together. 
Didn’t it seem like Janice Elliott’s CENSURING only last Tuesday, came out of the clear blue? As all of their ridiculous gripes against Janice were several months old, to over a year old! So why now, what gives City of Upland? Lucky for us, we can ALL now know why her bogus censure was just hoaxed and perpetrated upon us all on May 29th and that’s because, our city just filed its lawsuit against its own citizens on May 16th, as well as, just filed their summons to their residents on Friday, May 25th, right before the three day holiday weekend to celebrate Memorial Day and then the very next day, Janice Elliott was PUBLICLY CENSURED!
Tricky, tricky as our city needed to act to censor Janice Elliott, before she found out about this legal action where she is also a Defendant, as she too opposed the 4.63 acre sale by VOTING AGAINST IT. Our city needed Janice Elliott removed from hearing and knowing any legal details in their closed session meetings regarding our city’s legal strategy to push this sale through because she opposed it. So on Tuesday May 29th, our city council held Janice’s BOGUS CENSURE HEARING, as Janice hadn’t seen this lawsuit or summons yet and they needed to SHUT HER UP FIRST & PUNISH HER SECOND (FOR NOTHING). AND THEIR PUNISHMENT, WAS SHUTTING HER OUT OF COUNCIL’S CLOSED SESSION DISCUSSIONS ON ALL MATTERS OF CITY LITIGATION, SINCE THEY ALREADY KNEW THEY WERE SUING ALL PERSONS OPPOSING THE SALE!
And the glaring question is now, how did our 4 city council members and our city attorney pull this off? How did they draft a lawsuit against the residents and file it with the SB County Courthouse on 5/16/17, as well as, draft and file a summons on 5/25/18, only 4 days before Janice’s censuring, without talking about doing this in a closed session or somewhere else? More importantly, how were they able to exclude Janice before her censuring and before their vote to enact a two member council litigation committee to exclude her, on May 29th? Talk about putting the cart before the horse and getting stone cold busted in this process.
And that’s how dirty our city truly is, as every single thing is a hustle, hoax or a planned mass distraction. This is why they ALL listened to over 2 hours of factual testimony that proved all of their petty allegations against Janice Elliott were completely false, yet that didn’t sway them in the slightest bit and they went ahead and did what they had to do, as they knew their legal documents were already filed and they were well past the point of no return! But where is their personal integrity? It’s obviously non-existent and they ended up airing all of our city’s disgusting dirty laundry, in front of the whole town last Tuesday night, in the process.
And Upland resident Dede Ramella who spoke in defense of Janice Elliott last Tuesday and was the first speaker of the night to do so, called a spade a spade, when she recited lyrics from the song Dirty Laundry. Which is now so ironic, as their dirty laundry is spread all over this town, by way of this blog and Upland social media sites where everyone is talking about them. And our elected officials, city staff and city consultants who did this to Janice Elliott, sorely underestimated the people and Janice Elliott and that mistake was their fatal flaw in this pre-hatched plan and shows how much built up bad karma exists in this city, solely because of them.
“Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies,
We got our dirty little fingers in everybody’s pie,
Love to cut you down to size, we love dirty laundry,
We can do the innuendo, we can dance and sing,
When it’s said and done, we haven’t told you a thing.”
Let’s Have Nickelback Expose Upland’s Dirty Laundry One More Time, In This Encore Performance!
Now let’s briefly establish Upland’s pattern of this hoax, smoke and mirrors lunacy, where they implement a mass distraction event and then within days, we’re able to piece together why they did that. Anyone remember getting hosed by the City of Upland on 4/23/18? When city council VOTED to increase our water bills by 57% and Upland residents were locked out of their own City Hall for three hours and couldn’t get inside to protest the 57% WATER RATE INCREASE because our city also held the SB 54 hearing that night, too. And I wasn’t the only person to think that’s why our city held the two most contentious items of the entire year, on the same night where the meeting lasted until 3:00 AM, as the Sentinel wrote an absolutely scathing article saying the exact same thing. 
And do you remember Janice Elliott busting our city that night because she is a CPA and informed everyone that MILLONS OF DOLLARS WAS MISSING FROM OUR CITY’S WATER FUND? Yet our other 4 City Council Members INCREASED OUR WATER RATES BY 57% ANYWAY!
Does anyone remember how just 3 weeks later, at the very next Upland City Council Meeting on May 14th, our city had to respond to Janice Elliott’s discovery that multi-millions of dollars were missing from our City’s Water Fund figures? And our Deputy City Manager / City Clerk Jeanette Vagnozzi had to read what the adjusted water fund figures were to everyone at the meeting. Vagnozzi also had to put the revised figures under the projector for all of Upland to see and when she did, if I had been chewing a piece of gum, it would have fallen on the floor because my mouth dropped open like my chin was a 5 lbs weight!
I urge everyone to sit down before you see this, for your own safety, as super frugal people may faint from shock.
THE WATER FUND BALANCE IS REALLY $12,943,300 & NOT $187,000! AND THEY RAISED OUR WATER BILLS BY 57% ANYWAY!
So in only three weeks time at the very next city council meeting, our city was forced to admit they really have $12,943,000 in their water fund and NOT only $187,000. WHY ISN’T SOMEONE FIRED!!!!!! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE????? And here is Councilwoman Janice Elliott’s Facebook post about this accounting discrepancy that she discovered and what I’ll call an omission in lieu of calling it an accounting error!
There is simply no way in hell, that I believe for a millisecond this was an accounting error! I believe this was an OMISSION OF A FACT BY OUR CITY, to mislead everyone in Upland! And do you think Upland will now halt their 57% WATER RATE INCREASE and give it back? Oh hell no, so don’t anyone get that twisted, cause your first water bill has already increased May 1st, so your next bill will already be 20% MORE than it was a month ago and from there, it will MAX OUT at a 57% INCREASE OVER THE NEXT 4 years! 
This is our city’s standard mode of operation. This is how this current city council has functioned since they got voted into office. And that’s why we need to VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE AND REMEMBER, REMEMBER THE SIXTH OF NOVEMBER! 
Our city has denied the people, four times in the last 18 months, our RIGHT TO VOTE on these major decisions that they’re making, without so much as even a PUBLIC HEARING MANY TIMES!
- No Special Election & NO VOTE When They Gave Our Upland Fire Department Away, Which Enacted A NEW SPECIAL TAX ON ALL PARCELS, AFFECTING OVER 19,000 Parcels.
- No Special Election & NO VOTE On Redistricting The City Of Upland And The Way We Elect Our Upland City Council Members.
- No Special Election & NO VOTE On Raising All Residential Water Bills By 57%
- No Special Election & NO VOTE On Selling 4.63 Acres Of Memorial Park.
Now let’s talk about their specific problems with this latest debacle created solely because they will NOT ALLOW THE RESIDENTS TO VOTE!
The Upland City Council meeting on 3/26/18 was yet another fiasco for The City of Upland! The meeting’s agenda lacked all transparency, stating the property for sale was located at 1299 San Bernardino Rd, yet omitted the words MEMORIAL PARK completely! The sale of 4.63 acres of public park open space for $4.2 MILLION DOLLARS, lacked a PUBLIC HEARING AND A VOTE BY THE RESIDENTS OF UPLAND! And our city’s agenda, stated it was posted for public view in accordance with the law, 72 hours before the city council meeting, in the State of Hawaii. That was so shocking, I emailed our staff city to see why our agenda was posted in Hawaii and our City Clerk / Deputy City Manager told me it was because Sid Robinson was vacationing there.
And Upland’s Miss Transparency Janice Elliott, who they just CENSURED, raised the issues of NO Public Hearing, NO disclosing the property for sale was 11% of Memorial Park on the agenda and NO time allowed for residents to even understand what was about to happen to their park! And she suggested public workshops and even made a motion to table the issue, until the public could get their concerns and questions answered. Yet of course, she received no second from Stone, Filippi or Timm and they VOTED 3 to 1, to sell 4.63 acres of Memorial Park and Sid didn’t vote from Hawaii.
The public deserved under the law, a VOTE to enable OUR CITY COUNCIL, to sell a piece of OUR PARK! The public deserved a TRUE description in the agenda, to clearly state that 4.63 acres of Upland Memorial Park, was being sold to San Antonio Hospital, to become either a multi-level parking structure or a future hospital parking lot. The public deserved better, than having to resort to social media over the weekend, to try to decipher the insane agenda description and become aware that 11% of Memorial Park, was the property being sold!
The public deserved the city staff to be available to answer their questions about their shady agenda item and the sale of public park property, but the agenda is made public on Thursday afternoons, as our city staff is going home for a their 3 day weekends, before our Monday night city council meetings, SO NO ONE CAN EVER TALK TO THEM!
And the reason we are all in this horrible mess now, is because our 4 Members of Upland City Council CHOSE NOT TO HOLD A SPECIAL ELECTION & A MANDATORY VOTE BY THE RESIDENTS OF UPLAND, TO SELL A PORTION OF A PUBLIC PARK!
Because when a city sells public park property, they have to buy replacement property, so that the public doesn’t lose any of their public property. Unless citizens agree that their city can do this in a Special Election and they actually GET TO VOTE YES OR NO, TO ALLOW OR NOT TO ALLOW THE SALE! And since our city hates it when we VOTE, our City Attorney James Markmen, hatched a legal scheme to deny residents their right to vote, which is a provision in the contract, where San Antonio Hospital gives the City of Upland a “Parking Easement,” allowing Upland residents to park their vehicles in their future hospital owned parking structure, when Upland residents visit the remaining 89% of Memorial Park.
There are some SERIOUS PROBLEMS WITH THAT, THAT’S WHY WE’RE GOING TO COURT, one of which is the parking easement is NOT an exclusive right for Upland residents to park their cars there and actually, the Hospital retains the primary right to park in their parking structure and the hospital’s needs and requirements will take priority over those of Memorial Park goers.
Another issue is, we can all jog on the 4.63 acres of open space, yet we can’t jog in a parking structure. We can’t see the sky in a parking structure. Upland children can’t fly kites in a parking structure and we don’t have the full use and enjoyment of the entire 4.63 acres in question, once it becomes a parking structure, as we would if it were still open space. Another major issue is, the only residents in Upland who were served this summons and legal complaint, were the 12 people who figured out in 3 days on social media because of Janice Elliott’s post, that 1299 San Bernadino Rd, was in fact, Memorial Park property.
SO WHAT CAN WE DO, TO THROW A MONKEY WENCH IN THEIR PLAN AND FORCE OUR 4 CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS, TO DO THE RIGHT THING FINALLY & ALLOW US TO VOTE ON THIS?
We can submit a response to the court by July 6th!
DOWNLOAD RESPONSE LETTER HERE, FILL IN BLANKS, SIGN & MAIL TO COURT BY JULY 6th!
DOWNLOAD LAWSUIT HERE
DOWNLOAD SUMMONS HERE
DOWNLOAD LETTER TO INTERESTED PARTIES HERE
And since there is NO RISK to file a response letter with the court, as no one will be punitively punished for objecting or questioning the validity of our city’s contract with the bogus parking easement provision it in, please download letter here and mail by 7/6/18.
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