Garden Villas resident Neal Tooze fights for enforcement of KCCA CC&Rs

Neal Tooze is fighting mad over the condition of some alleyways in the Garden Villas area of King City, where some areas are not maintained and kept weed-free as required by the King City Civic Association's covenants, codes and restrictions.

"I've been working on this for three years," he said. "I don't expect anybody to have a green thumb, but people should keep the weeds down and keep them from going into their neighbors' yards. It only takes a few minutes to spray weeds.

"The KCCA is not supposed to do the actual clean-up, but property owners are. The weeds across my part of the alleyway affect me because they spread. I've spent hundreds of dollars over the years spraying over the years."

Tooze does know what he's talking about, having spent a good part of his life around plants.

"I was born into the nursery business," he said. "I worked in nurseries as a kid. My dad was in the business. I joined the Army to quit working so hard. It's a little hard to fool an old Army guy.

"I managed a large wholesale nursery and worked in garden centers."

Tooze maintains that since everyone in the KCCA pays dues, some of that money should go toward enforcement of its CC&Rs.

"There is a landscape/architectural committee," said Tooze, who lived in Summerfield for 10 years before moving to King City four years ago. "If you've got a whole committee, what are they doing? I've been talking about this issue for years. Some houses are vacant, and they get let go. I understand that.

"Most people want to do the right thing, but a few who don't or can't ruin it for everyone else. I don't want to be the bad guy on this - other people have complained too. The only response I get from the KCCA administrator is that they're looking into it or working on it, but nothing happens."

Walking through the alleyway behind his home, Tooze pointed out weeds and fences falling apart.

"My property value has gone down because of this, and so have everyone else's," he said. "This creates a public safety and fire danger. That's what I'm concerned about. I don't care if the pansies aren't deadheaded, but you have to get out and spray your weeds.

"I have a gardener who works very reasonably. I have given his cards out, but they've been ignored."

Tooze's neighbors Lillian and Earl Kenagy agree with him that the alleyways used to be better maintained.

"He's very faithful at keeping his side up," Lillian said. "He pays people to come in because he can't do it, while other people are able and don't.

"My neighbor lady and I went and talked to the KCCA administrator about this.

"I hate to be a complainer, but we just wish he would do a better job. Taking care of the weeds can be hard to do, but we do it even if we're tired. We like to keep our place up."

Earl added, "Our alleyway's atrocious. Only four families do anything about it. You complain, but what else can you do? It's not supposed to be this way."

KCCA Administrator J. Pat Moore said that he has been working with resident Gene Teach and the Landscape, Architectural Review and Compliance Committee on this very issue.

"I've been in contact via mail with Neal," Moore said in an email to the Regal Courier. "In response to his last letter, Gene Teach and I plan on stopping by to talk to him. Gene and his committee dropped by last year with notices regarding the need to get the alleyways cleaned up.

"They have also dropped off some notices this year and will be following up with letters to owners who still haven't cleaned things up, asking them to do so. Although Gene did mention his focus of attention on the Garden Villas area in his newsletter column a couple of months ago, we haven't gotten much response from some of the owners."

According to Moore, a proposed letter to residents will explain some of the "why" behind the request, in order to help them understand the reasons for cleaning up the alleyways.

"We are working to gain compliance," he said. "It's not a flashy 'out there in the public eye' type of process, but (we're) trying to work with individual owners to bring the situation into compliance.

"We try not to 'beat up on old people' but to work with them to achieve compliance."

Moore added, "We will be giving some latitude as far as the time component to the owners who have alleyway problems, but our intent is that the alleyways get cleaned up."

For his part, Tooze has notified Moore that he intends to notify the Washington County district attorney and the Oregon attorney general about the continued violations of the CC&Rs if the administration does not get them cleaned up pronto.