March 3, 2005

Villas residents put city and county on notice

By Kymberli W. Brady
Staff Writer

Determined to eliminate menacing coyote altercations once and for all, the Villas of Almaden residents have officially taken their case down the legal path. 

The claim was filed last week by attorney Michael E. Di Geronimo, who represents approximately 300 residents within the 180-home Villas’ homeowners association. In it, the Villas demands that the city either immediately begin with trapping or otherwise remove the coyote threats that continue to plague its residents.

A map illustrating current coyote activity in the vicinity of the Villas of Almaden shows that the problem is more widespread covering much of District 10 and beyond.

While not a formal lawsuit, the 11-page document also seeks unspecified damages and reimbursement of legal fees. 

“We’re putting the city on notice,” said Villas Homeowners Association President Bud Spadafore. “Things have settled down a bit and they’re back in their dens for the winter, but we don’t want to wait until spring to start this all over again. The city put Vector Control in charge of things like this, and we’re asking that they now allow them to do their job.” 

The gated community, well-known for its ongoing territorial feuds against “urbanized” coyotes, has received national media attention for its battle with the city and hair-raising tales of cat mutilations, coyotes stalking children, human/coyote front yard showdowns and dogs being attacked while still tethered to their owners. 

While animal rights activists claim that a peaceful coexistence can be reached through non-evasive abatement programs and behavior modification, residents say they’ve done everything that has been recommended, including removing bird feeders, keeping pets indoors and replacing surrounding deer-friendly vegetation with less desirable varieties.  

Two attempts by Vector Control to get the city council to adopt temporary urgency ordinances failed to gain the required eight votes needed to pass. That option would have allowed the use of padded leg hold traps on a reported five coyotes in the Villas and four more in surrounding areas. The second decision came as a blow to Villas residents, after Councilmember Chuck Reed, one of three who dissented, announced that he would be the eighth vote needed to pass if they returned with a letter from the State Department of Fish and Game stating that the conditions were an “imminent threat to human safety.”  

Instead, the city council opted for a wait-and-see approach, while recommending further education and behavior modification. 

City Attorney Rick Doyle doesn’t believe they have a case, as the city should not be held liable for wild animal attacks, much like the state cannot be held liable for wild bear attacks in state parks.  

“We’re always concerned with natural conditions occurring in nature,” he says “But the case law is pretty clear that there is no liability, as we’ve done nothing to create the condition. Where you’ve done something with respect to a natural condition that exacerbates the problem, that’s a liability. It’s the same with respect to mountain lions.

People are living in these areas—the city hasn’t created that situation.” 

He says the city will respond to the claim within the 30-day time frame, but insists that identifying this as a legal issue only elevates it to a level that isn’t necessarily the best way to facilitate finding a solution. 

Having lost a cat to a coyote attack, Doyle says he can truly sympathize with resident’s concerns but insists that they need to find a solution that will enable everyone to work together. 

“We just need to get Vector Control and all those folks together to see what we can do,” he says. “But they’re trying to put the onus on the city to do it for them,” he says. “If Vector Control has the means, they need to employ those means. They haven’t been terribly creative here. I don’t know that they’re doing everything they can.” 

Getting Ugly 
For association president Bud Spadafore, the typically easy, part-time position that requires only a few hours each week has become a 24/7 nightmare. His phone rings from midnight until 4 a.m. each morning with angry animal rights protesters shouting threats on the other line. His pager continuously fields requests from callers to phone “666,” and he continues to receive threatening e-mails, including one he received Feb. 24 from Stephanie McEntee, “a concerned resident.” 

“Not only are you selfish with regard to SHARING with your neighbors [the animals],” McEntee writes, “you are wasting good tax payer dollars by even bringing this to court.” 

The e-mail goes on to say that her anger compels her to “launch a strike” against each of the homes in the Villas.” She says she is prepared to “spend a significant amount of time and money” picketing and posting signs in the neighborhood—unless the claim is dropped within the next month.  

“I look forward to having every news station parked at the entrance to your “gated” community, the one that you stole from the animals,” McEntee adds. “The President of your homeowners’ association should be shackled to an ankle trap and left to rot and die a slow and painful death.” 

McEntee, who lives in Los Gatos, stated in a follow-up interview with the Almaden Times that she intends to give them a few weeks to work this out with the city. 

“Should they not, I certainly intend to help animals who cannot do it themselves,” she admits. “I’ll picket and do everything I can to make their property values go down to protect the coyotes. If they cannot treat the animals with friendship, then how can they expect the community to give support to them?” 

However, in looking at the bigger picture, she casts much of the blame on a higher source. 

“The bigger problem goes back to the city—it all goes back to planning,” she says. “If there’s overpopulation, it’s because we’ve taken over and encroached on their areas. Vector Control certainly wouldn’t come and take our children from us because we’ve had too many, why should they take theirs? Maybe we need to go to the city and say enough is enough. Stop the building.” 

Shocked and surprised 
Admittedly, Councilmember Nancy Pyle was surprised to hear of the claim, especially in light of what they have been able to get accomplished in just over a month. 

“We have been moving with alacrity and have been very sensitive to their needs,” she says. “I’m not only surprised, but I’m also upset. I have been working in good faith.”

Pyle contends that the most effective way to safely co-exist with coyotes is to take steps to prevent conflicts before they occur. 

“Coyotes are opportunistic eaters and are attracted to places where they can find ‘easy pickings’ of fruit, trash or small animals,” she says. “As long as the environmental habitat remains intact, coyotes will continue to move into it. Therefore, removing coyotes by trapping will not eliminate the environmental reasons they inhabit an area. Residents can mitigate these in several ways. 

“To that end, I initiated a meeting in February with the leadership of the Villas of Almaden. At the meeting, we discussed two areas through which coyotes had been and may continue to enter the property in the future.

First, we have agreed to establish the association’s fence as a good neighbor fence and share the cost of repairs 50/50. The fence had holes through which coyotes had entered the property. Hopefully the repairs will discourage them from coming onto the property. My office worked with the city of San Jose to pay to mend the fence. 

“Second, the property had an open culvert, and we worked to get the city to close up the culvert. At the meeting, we also provided the association with the new language permitting the baiting of legal traps,” Pyle said. 

“Lastly, in cooperation with the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley, the city has provided the residents the educational component to further mitigate the environment that encourages coyote habitation because they did use the snare trap for the alpha female. This new trapper used an injection so the death is quick and painless. One of the problems with the snare trap is when they are trapped they tend to struggle, causing ‘jelly head.’ If they can be injected almost immediately, it prohibits that from happening.” 

This method, she maintains, is considered to be far more humane than leg-hold traps, which have been condemned by the National Animal Control Association, the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Animal Hospital Association. 

“We’ve picked up the tab and they have nothing to complain about. I just don’t understand. Still, I think it does require everyone sitting down and hammering it out and moving forward. The sooner we reach a conclusion, the better. The coyotes are not going to go away,”  Pyle said.

Nancy Pyle asks those interested in attending a town hall meeting to call her office at (408) 277-5251 or email her at nancy.pyle@sanjoseca.gov.