Unsuitable For Building

The property immediately to the west of mine sits along the side of a rather large gully and has a major and unsightly power line almost directly overhead, making it rather unsuitable for building on. Despite this, shortly after the zoning on both this property and my own land were illegally changed from residential to commercial in 2007 as detailed elsewhere in this blog (see, for example, http://vocct.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-story.html), a medical office building and complex were proposed for this property and were approved by the city.

In the last few weeks, construction has suddenly begun on this property. Due to the slope of the land, this has necessitated the bringing in of enormous quantities of fill material and heavy equipment to move it around, obviously at very great expense.

Why would someone do all this, when there is a great deal of other undeveloped land nearby that is clearly much more suitable for building on? The answer is that the other land is not located right next to my homestead. There is a medical building owned by the local hospital immediately to the east of my house that was built shortly after the zoning change and as part of a number of proposed buildings close by that were approved by the city around the same time as the complex being started along my western fence line. (Make that right up against my western fence line!--the fill material being brought in is being dumped right next to my fence.) Construction must now take place on the opposite side of my house so that my property is surrounded on both sides by commercial property. This is necessary so that the county appraisal district can raise their appraisals on my land to commercial levels, which they know I can't pay.

The obvious solutions to my dilemma are to either sell my property and move elsewhere or develop my property myself. However, these are not viable options for me, and the people and entities involved in the construction and planning going on around me know this. My former father-in-law is a very powerful lawyer, banker, and real estate developer who controls the local hospital board and the entire real estate market in our area and has close business and personal ties to three former U.S. presidents (Johnson, Bush, and Bush), Texas billionaires, and more; he also has high-level state and federal agents at his beck and call (see http://vocct.blogspot.com/2012/10/bringing-dirty-tricks-back-home.html). When he puts out the word that my property is not to be sold, purchased, or developed by me or anyone else, no one dares to defy him. This means that even if I could persuade a real estate agent to list the property for sale, no one would dare to buy it, and even if I could get someone to help me develop my land, the city would never approve another development plan.

My former father-in-law and his associates have made lifelong careers out of obtaining property for development on the cheap by getting people into financial trouble in various ways and then buying their homes and land at property tax auctions on various county courthouse steps in our region or as emergency buy-outs. Classic examples of this are the Boot Ranch development, Tapatio Springs resort near Boerne, and shopping centers at The Rim in San Antonio. In my case, I'm sure locals think the idea of the city and county receiving money for the purchase of my property instead of me (however piddling the sum) is a wonderful way of keeping their own taxes down.  They don't seem to be able to realize (at least not until it's too late!) that for the greedy, there is never enough and that their turn to have their property grabbed, or that of loved ones, will eventually come.  [This may be quite soon for some, given the current push for a bypass around my city.  Land located along any proposed routes will suddenly become very valuable commercial property that is ripe for development and therefore highly desirable!]

In the process of these land grabs, people standing in the way often suddenly turn up dead. My neighborhood is no exception to this; at least four people owning property close to mine have died suddenly and violently. Two were found shot to death, one was brought to the hospital dead of unknown causes, and one was found dead underneath a tractor. One of the gunshot victims was my next-door neighbor who, with her husband, owned the property to the west of mine that is now being developed. All of these deaths took place shortly after my husband suddenly left me in 1999,

At the time of the zoning change to commercial and the approval of the medical complex, the property in the gully that is now being built on was listed as being owned by a local physician and her husband, a civil engineer who works for a major local construction company. (The husband also currently sits on the local school board.) Recently, however, an attorney and former city judge who now heads the local hospital foundation went to great pains to seek me out at my workplace so she could tell me herself that she and her father from Colorado had purchased the property to the west of mine and would be building on it. This former judge and her father are also listed as having purchased a large, multi-story medical office building next to the local hospital and supposedly built by them, which is just to the southeast of my property.

I believe that the local physician, her engineer husband, the former judge, and the judge's father are all fronting for my ex-husband and his father. As a fellow physician who was Chief of Staff at the time, my ex- had to have known about the hospital and medical expansion that was being planned for our neighborhood. His sudden departure in 1999 coincides with the murder outside the U.S. of a person who appears to have found out what was going on here and planned to reveal it very publicly. This victim, like the gunshot victims here, was also shot in the head. And I know for a fact that my ex-husband went to great lengths to try and conceal his whereabouts at the time the foreign victim was killed.

Because of the way law enforcement at all levels in the U.S. (including the Department of Justice) has repeatedly refused to help me over the years (undoubtedly due to my former father-in-law's high-level connections), I have little hope of getting any of the assistance or relief I'm entitled to under the law here or of getting the homicides of my neighbors investigated and prosecuted properly. The victim from outside the U.S. is another matter, however, since other countries tend to become upset when foreigners come over and assassinate their prominent citizens. I have every confidence that the foreign victim's death is currently being investigated thoroughly and that charges, if warranted, will be brought. I'm also very glad there are no statutes of limitations on murder cases.

Meanwhile, the illegal stalking and harassment directed at me and my adult children continues unabated. Much of the construction noise from next door is deliberately amplified at times when we are at home. One day last week, I awoke to find that the top portion of our trash had been removed from the bin and scattered all over our front lawn so I'd have to be outside for longer than usual while a large number of heavy construction vehicles that had been waiting just around the corner could slowly parade by. (Most of these vehicles belonged to the same construction company that the afore-mentioned civil engineer works for.) And my ex-husband was careful to leave his latest calling card (a bright pink Christmas bow; he know it's my favorite color) in the center of all the mess. Just this morning, on the way to work, I was headlight-harassed (see http://vocct.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-to-spot-gangstalking-primer.html) by a young female physician with a short blonde bob driving a gray car. In fact, the community-wide stalking and harassment are currently so severe that I sense a documentary film coming on.

By the way, property immediately across the street from the gully currently being built in was the scene of another bizarre and violent death; see http://vocct.blogspot.com/2012/02/developers-greed.html.

Finally, I am far from the only one currently having problems with our local hospital, which recently was awarded one of only two very prestigious national awards (the other recipient being Duke Medical Center).  Coincidentally (??), the major hospital in a neighboring county that is our hospital's main rival was informed around the same time that they'd just been listed as not being up to Medicare standards in the field that my ex-husband specializes in here.  Both of these smack highly of a combination of my former father-in-law's national connections and the expensive public relations firms he employs.  (The rival hospital and its doctors are furious, of course.)

As my friend Medawar likes to say, there's no crime a property developer won't commit!

[*Be sure to read the comments below.]  

The Fireplug Incident

A few months after my divorce was finalized, city workers began installing a new water line across our front yard next to the street. At the time, my property was just outside the city limits, but there had been talk for several years about the city annexing our area, so I assumed the new pipe installation was related to that. (We have our own well and septic system.)

My children and I were surprised when the work began on our property, since we'd never been notified about it by anyone. We were even more surprised when we saw what looked like a large pipe sticking up out of the ground and covered with black plastic that was put in by the street in our front yard almost directly opposite our front door. We assumed this was for hook-ups to city water and sewer, should we ever want them, and I also assumed it would eventually be made more cosmetically acceptable.

Imagine our shock one day when the city workers finally removed the black plastic covering to reveal a bright red fire hydrant in the center of our front yard! Our house has two stories and sits on a hillside below the level of the street, so every view from the front of our house now looked out onto this hydrant. It was an eyesore we'd never been consulted about, and it seriously devalued our house and property. There was only one possible reason for its installation in that way and in that position: harassment. My kids and I were livid.

I immediately fired off the letter to the city shown here. A few days later, I received a reply from the mayor saying the city had notified my ex-husband about the work and asked him to tell us (even though they were well aware my ex- didn't live here anymore and no longer owned the property).

The mayor apologized to us. He said he'd personally driven by our house and agreed the hydrant's placement was offensive. He assured us the city would relocate the hydrant as soon as possible, and within a few days, it was moved a short distance down the street--still on our property, but out-of-sight from the front of our house. However, small protruding pipes and a rectangular metal cover were left behind in the spot where the hydrant had been, and they are still clearly visible in the middle of our front yard today (marking where the hydrant was originally installed).

I am also posting a copy of a letter I received from my ex-husband in 2003 that discusses this incident. In this letter, my ex- agrees that the original location of the hydrant was harassment. The "outlot" he refers to is his property bordering mine which did not have its agricultural exemption questioned when mine did, even though my property was clearly being used for agricultural purposes and his clearly was not.

While I'm posting my ex-husband's letter here to help document "the fireplug incident", it is also important for readers to go back a few posts and consider it along with the documents posted under "Chronologic Order". This letter is a good example of what I meant in the earlier post when I said my ex- would not give me copies of the documentation of agricultural use of our land I knew he had. Here you can see how he skirts the issue in various ways without ever actually providing me with what I'd asked him for (and what he knew I really needed).

Notice also that my ex- is aware I haven't been able to obtain legal representation and that he tries to sent me to one of his father's law partners. Although I didn't know it at the time, the particular family he talks about this lawyer representing just happens to own a large parcel of land near ours and also happens to own the major construction company employing the owner of the property to the west of us, the sme man who also happens to be a civil engineer, a pilot, the husband of a local doctor, and a school board member (as well as a close associate of my ex-husband's).

Construction Update

Frantic construction continues along my western fence line--down in a large ditch, underneath a large power line, out in the middle of an open field, and on the completely opposite side of my property from anything else medical/developed. It's blatantly obvious to anyone driving by that the intent is to deliberately surround our house with development in order to justify the enormous increases in my tax appraisals.

This is clearly conspiracy involving the persons fronting for my ex-husband by claiming to own the property being built on (remember, my children said long ago that their dad showed them blueprints for these buildings and told them he would be the one building them; I documented this in letters to authorities and law enforcement at the time; this land also directly adjoins land from two of the suspicious death victims), public officials, and others. Law enforcement all the way up to the Department of Justice knows about all of this through my numerous complaints and still does nothing, which means the people doing this are also free to do this to others--and it is well-known around town that a new outer loop around the city is planned, so there WILL be other victims.

Hopefully all of these will survive, but given the past, you can't count on it. The only reason I'm still alive is that I've made such a public appeal for help to both the media and law enforcement. There have actually been a number of attempts on my life in the past, but it's now reached the point where my ex-husband can't afford the scrutiny of his finances and his character that an investigation and major media attention would bring.