Remember Susan Smith and her problems with Cong. Peter DeFazio and Faye Hills Stewart II concerning the $1.7 BILLION mystery fund floating around in the Oregon Foundation System. The latest development is:
Susan was removed from the Federal HUD Section 8 Housing program in a court proceeding that denied her due process. As defined by HUD "Due Process" requires that in a HUD eviction the tenant must be allowed to cross examine the evidence against them, under oath. Well Susan's landlord hired David S. Tilton of Coos Bay Oregon to evict Susan from a Federal HUD Section 8 Housing program house in Bandon, Oregon. The lease Susan signed stated that no one was benefiting from her utilities except her. Which is natural, no one expects to be paying for someone else to use their electricity or water without being told about it in writing in their lease. That is Oregon Law. For 4 years Susan had been paying to supply water to three of her landlord’s tenants. She was paying the electricity to pump her water off her property to someone else. When she became aware of this she went over her electric bills. The first 2 weeks after she had signed her lease she shut off all her electrical breakers until she moved in. Her bill for those 2 weeks was for 500 KWH.. Her one bed room cottage should have had a monthly electric bill of about 900 KWH, one month her bill was for 1900 KWH. Later she found out that a surveyor hired by the landlord had cut a 3 inch black plastic water pipe connected to her well. The landlord charged the surveyor $500 for damages. Susan just got a very high electric bill. Susan sent the property management/landlord a intent to withhold rent until the porch was made safe and the water/electric issue was straightened out. The porch was rotten, written up by HUD inspectors but not repaired for 6 months. It caused 4 injury accidents. The landlord hired David S. Tilton, who also worked for the not for profit "Coos Curry Housing Authority" as a commissioner. Conflict of interest? He was aware of the "due process ' requirement, he is also very high up in the Oregon Democratic party. At a "Pre-Trial Conference" David brought fort a motion for Summary Judgment, supported by an avadavat sworn under oath by David S. Tilton. In this sworn Affidavit he stated that it contained a "true and correct copy" of a letter sent to Susan. Susan had requested that all correspondence be by email in PDF format. The letter was sent by email in PDF format. A PDF document is a self-contained inviolate document. That means you cannot change even one letter or space with out it being tagged and registered as a change to the original. Susan had a Bandon librarian sign an Affidavit stating that she witnessed the opening of the email letter and printing of the PDF document and that the 10 pages were not identical to the less than 10 pages that David S. Tilton submitted in his sworn Affidavit. The Coos County Circuit Judge refused to let David S. Tilton be cross examined on the discrepancy in the 2 documents. What David had left out was the actual lease that had the "no one benefiting from utilities" wording. Instead the Judge ruled that Susan's withholding of rent for repairs and water issues was in fact her giving written notice that she was going to move. The Judge refused to let a jury, trial scheduled three days following, to consider that question of fact. Susan's lease agreement had a specific document labeled "Tenants 30 day notice to vacate" with her name and address typed in by the property management company, provided by the same rental legal group that David works for. Susan had a signed dated letter from the property management company stating that that is what they intended the tenant to use to file a 30 day written notice to vacate. Judges rule on matters of law, juries decide questions of fact, as when 2 conflicting documents are presented. They are required to uphold an un ambiguous document over ambiguous one. Clearly the Judge should have let the matter be properly decided by a jury. She refused, several times. Susan has a CD copy of the court proceeding. Judge ruled that Susan was to be evicted in 3 to 5 days. Susan filled an appeal. She filed motions. The Coos County Sheriff returned possession of the property to the landlord. Susan filed a small claims case for one month of misappropriation of electrical services, The property management did not answer, Susan won a judgment of $1,500. They have refused to pay. More later.
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