Santa Clara city officials have basically just shrugged at a local business owner who it cost thousands of dollars in lost business.
Last summer, for about two months, a city contractor, Preston Pipelines, closed Shulman Avenue for road construction. It also shut off the water several times as part of the work. Then, in July, Silicon Valley Power (SVP) shut off the power to work on utility poles.
Ercan Genis, owner of OG Performance and Tuning, said the city failed to notify him of the construction. The work last year cost him roughly $14,000 in business, and SVP’s work cost him another $4,600. Although he submitted a claim seeking restitution for the closure, the city is refusing to do anything about it.
When he pressed the issue, city officials told him his only recourse was to sue the city. But Genis believes city officials are brushing him off because they know he is unable to make waves.
“They know I don’t have the budget to sue them, so they are comfortable,” he said. “I would understand if they were trying to help you, and they can’t help you, but they aren’t even trying to help.”
Three other property owners on Shulman Avenue confirmed that the city failed to notify business owners of the closure and utility shut-off.
Because OG Performance and Tuning relies on water to cool cars on its dynamometer — a device to determine the torque and power of engines — the water shut-off was particularly devastating. Without water to cool them, cars on the dynamometer will blow their engines.
Three-Card Monte
But the city is refusing to acknowledge liability.
Maria Le, assistant to the city manager, wrote that SVP followed “normal outage communication procedures” but offered a “dog-ate-my-homework” excuse for the city failing to notify business owners and flat-out denied last year’s road closure.
“Unfortunately, [city officials] have found the post office returned the letter that was sent to the businesses’ address as undeliverable,” she wrote in an email to Genis. “Shulman Avenue was not closed. Access to the street was limited due to the construction work, but proper signage and traffic control were used, per their permit requirements.”
A third-party assessor determined the city followed proper procedure. That claims adjuster, Donald Chang, told Genis in an email that his only recourse was to sue the city by June 12.
Last year was Genis’ first year in business. If he had known this was how the city handled its screw-ups, he said he never would have opened OG Performance and Tuning in Santa Clara.
“I almost couldn’t pay my credit cards. I almost couldn’t pay my rent, pay for some of my child’s needs,” Genis said.
Genis said he could see that his emails have been read, but the city has been mum since July 10.
The city’s actions and attitude contradict its repeated claims that it wants to foster an atmosphere friendly to small businesses.
Shulman Avenue is in Council Member Raj Chahal’s district. Chahal said that once a situation such as this escalates to a legal matter, a council member needs to “step back.”
Because he cannot afford a lawsuit, Genis iterated that he has only filed a claim with the city for restitution and that the matter has not been escalated to the court.
Do the Right Thing
With a looming deficit, city employees have an incentive to deny Genis’ claim in the interest of protecting the city’s budget. The adjuster concluded that the city is not liable, so refusing to hand over $18,600 makes sense.
But the Santa Clara City Council has provided special dispensation in situations that adversely affect residents in the past. It occasionally sees fit to go against city employees in the interest of doing what it sees is right.
For instance, despite city employees recommending that the city require youth sports to pay for field use, the council saw fit to exempt groups from paying them. The city collects $115,000 a year in field rental.
To his knowledge, Chahal said, the council has never compensated a resident in a similar circumstance, which he called a “gray area.”
While perhaps the field-fee comparison is not apples-to-apples, when asked if the council has the authority to compensate Genis for the misstep, Chahal admitted he didn’t know. He said he would confer with city employees on the matter.
However, follow-up inquiries went unanswered.
A request for comment from the city, through its spokesperson, Janine De la Vega, claimed Genis’ claim is a “pending legal matter” and that the city is “unable to provide further statement.”
Moving Forward
In the email thread to Genis, Le admitted that the outage notification procedure has some “opportunities for improvement.” Those “opportunities” include — in addition to the mailed notification — calling customers two weeks before the outage and adding “or current occupant” to notifications to reduce returned mail.
While Le wrote that the city is “moving forward with the process improvements,” inquiries as to whether those changes have been made or whether the city intends to make Genis whole went unanswered.
Those vague promises to fix the issue in the future are cold comfort to Genis, who still has a gaping financial hole.
“Whoever is responsible, I don’t want them to get away with it,” he said. “How can they just let this go … there is obvious damage and financial responsibility and ignoring the proof.”
