A Polk County code enforcement crackdown four years ago in North River Ranch has vexed hunt camp owners who have sued the county and recently gone public with their frustration over the county’s handling of their cases.

The property owners attended three consecutive Polk County Commission meetings – the two meetings in May and a third on June 4 in Bartow.

Their beef with the county started in 2020 with what they say were selective code enforcement cases against them and included trespassing by county staff on their private property along Lightsey Ranch Road in Lake Wales.

Further, they are concerned about the mounting legal fees the county has incurred defending a lawsuit filed by 10 of the landowners.

In an early-June email, County Attorney Randy Mink said the county has spent $215,000 defending a lawsuit filed by Huckleberry Farms of Polk County LLC, a corporation set up by the River Ranch Acres property owners and the plaintiff.

River Ranch Acres was not part of the hundreds of camps destroyed by the 4,600-acre brush fires in early June.

In court filings, the lawsuit alleges that code enforcement employees unlawfully entered their properties to take photographs for code violation investigations in March 2020. Among the plaintiffs’ allegations is a key to the gated easement to their property was used to enter a dirt road leading to their camps.

Their properties were enclosed by fences and are marked with no trespassing signs, the lawsuit said. It says the code inspectors who entered the properties violated the owners’ 4^th Amendment rights by not obtaining warrants for the inspections.

The lawsuit was filed prior to the county holding code-violation hearings against the property owners. A Ledger public records request for the code violations describes 200 properties with potential violations in the North River Ranch area.

Property owners speak publicly

During public comments at the May 7 commissioners meeting, Jessica Post, who uses a camp on the weekends, said code enforcement cannot possibly pursue the estimated 42,000 landowners in north and south River Ranch in a fair and equal manner for building code violations.

Post told commissioners that for more than 40 years, property owners were told by Polk County that unpermitted structures in River Ranch could be placed there.

“Go ahead and put it out there,” she said the county told the landowners. “It’s River Ranch, don’t worry about it.”

A letter to the county from the plaintiff’s attorney also said the same. And in a deposition for the lawsuit, Commissioner Rick Wilson also said he knew there were unpermitted structures in River Ranch.

“He was then asked if he was going to send county code enforcement out there to look at them,” Post said. “He said no.”

While Post spoke at the May 7 commission meeting, others came two weeks later.

“I’m here because many of us are concerned about the ongoing and costly court battle with Polk County,” Marlana Green of River Ranch Acres said at the May 21 meeting.

“Code enforcement unlawfully used the emergency Knox lock to enter our properties to randomly cite hunt camps that have been established since the 1980s,” she said.

The property owners blame a cattle rancher

Camp owners say they have a theory about the county’s sudden interest in their properties.

Post, during her comments on May 7, said the code enforcement crackdown is all for the benefit of a cattle rancher who operates near River Ranch Acres.

“Well, now all of a sudden, a cattle baron, Cary Lightsey, has brought code enforcement in to start writing up people because he wants to free graze his cattle on private property,” Post said.

Lightsey is a political donor, fundraiser and rancher at Lightsey Cattle Company in Lake Wales who frequently hosts parties on Brahma Island. His family and other cattle operations are nearby the camps of River Ranch Acres.

Court records show the plaintiff’s attorney had requested records pertaining to Wilson’s attendance at a meeting with code enforcement employees at Lightsey Ranch on May 6, 2021. The plaintiffs allege that Lightsey gave Wilson and other county officials a tour of River Ranch Acres, showing them potential code violations, and the plaintiffs have filed evidence in court records.

When asked by phone if he had brought in code enforcement to cite landowners in River Ranch Acres, Lightsey said, “That’s not true.”

He said he has grazed cattle for about 40 years on approximately 1,500 acres in the Tiger Creek and Lake Kissimmee Shores area.

“I guess I am the easy one they can blame,” he said. He added the reason the plaintiffs are going public is because they are losing in court. He said most of the people in the area have left since they were cited.

Regarding a locked gate at Sam Keene and Lightsey Ranch roads, he called it “illegal.”

It’s the same gate the plaintiffs allege the county used to access River Ranch Acres.

Settlement letter read aloud

A letter dated May 22 and sent to Mink from the plaintiffs’ attorney, Mattie Hardin Tondreault, was read aloud at the June 4 commission meeting by Calvin Newberry.

Tondreault’s letter started by repeating the history of lax enforcement for the past 40 years in River Ranch.

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“As you know and as it was acknowledged in the BoCC Meeting, Polk County has been aware of River Ranch Acres for over 40 years,” Tondreault wrote. “Since the 1980s, with Polk County’s knowledge, property owners within River Ranch Acres placed and/or built what Polk County alleges or calls ‘accessory structures’ on their respective properties for agricultural, camping, and/or recreational purposes.”

“Polk County took no action against the property owners in River Ranch Acres for alleged unpermitted structures or improvements,” she wrote.

“In early 2020, Polk County’s code enforcement began selectively enforcing its code against property owners in River Ranch Acres,” Tondreault wrote. “While Polk County has maintained that it may have some right to use alleged easements in River Ranch Acres, one can easily observe and recognize that many of the properties that Polk County investigated and trespassed onto can be accessed only by using the alleged easements.

“What I found interesting about the BoCC Meeting was the lack of our county commissioners’ knowledge as to this lawsuit and the misinformation that has been given to them,” she wrote.

Tondreault said her legal office has not received responses to attempts as recently as May 2 to resolve the pending lawsuit. She wanted a resolution “without her clients having to remove their structures.”

She has also asked attorneys for the county to review agricultural uses of the camps as being eligible for exemptions to the building code as part of a proposed resolution. Her clients are willing to dismiss their claims against Polk County in exchange for Polk County’s dismissal of their counterclaims and code enforcement cases.

The airing of the letter’s contents surprised Mink, as he had not had the chance to tell the commissioners about the letter and he wanted to know where Newberry got a copy.

Newberry said he had received the letter following a public information request. Commissioner George Lindsey said Mink might want to consider a bar complaint against the plaintiff’s attorney, but Mink said the situation might not rise to that level.

River Ranch Ordinance?

At the May 31 agenda review, Mink asked the commissioners whether they wanted to create a policy that prohibits code enforcement violations for certain unpermitted structures within unrecorded plats.

• Would such a policy include all or just certain unrecorded plats?

• Should the policy include all structures or just certain types?

• And should grandfathering be based on a certain date or the age of the structure?

Commissioner Neil Combee said that he’d had conversations with property appraisers in other counties, and he was told if there is a building on the property, the owner gets a tax bill unless it’s exempt for agricultural use.

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“They don’t coordinate with the county, they don’t find out if it’s permitted, they just figure out what’s on it and put a value on it and somebody is getting a tax bill,” Combee said. “That is what they do in Lake County, but Polk County is not currently doing that.”

He also said at previous meetings that that a fire service fee should be considered by the board since Polk County Fire Rescue responds to calls in River Ranch.

Wilson said the issue must be resolved and he agreed with Mink that any new structures would be subject to code enforcement. Lindsey concurred.

Lindsey said he wanted a notice sent to all of River Ranch soon and a notice sent to subsequent River Ranch land owners letting them know that structures on the property have not gone through a permitting process and may not meet applicable federal, state or county codes and regulations.

“The other thing is how do we stop the proliferation?” Lindsey asked. He said he went to River Ranch recently on a tour and found that what often happens is a landowner asks for electric power under the guise that they are operating an agricultural enterprise.

“Other than raising sand skinks,” he said he didn’t know what kind of agricultural operations they are running. He wanted River Ranch landowners to prove an agricultural operation before getting electric power to their parcel.

Mink said that issue has been resolved. He said the county will not issue a permit, which is requested by the utility (usually the Peace River Cooperative), but the county does not get involved in easements for utilities.

John Bohde, Polk County land development director, said the utility will not set an electrical meter unless it gets a permit from the county.

The ordinance could come back in one to two months.

A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday on Polk County’s motion for summary judgment on count 1 (declaratory relief) in the lawsuit. A hearing for a motion to dismiss the remaining counts is set for Aug. 26.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk County being sued by River Ranch hunt camp owners