Judge Allows Golf To Go On At Trinitas

By Dana M. Nichols
Record Staff Writer
February 22, 2012 12:00 AM

SAN ANDREAS – Golf can continue at the Trinitas golf course near Burson while course owners Mike and Michelle Nemee appeal to a U.S. District Court to overturn a loss they suffered in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, a judge has ruled.

Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill of the U.S. Eastern District Court branch in Fresno wrote in a ruling posted late Friday that allowing Calaveras County to enforce its code banning golf on agricultural land would do “irreparable harm” to the Nemees’ golf business. An earlier ruling by a judge in U.S. Bankruptcy Court would have allowed Calaveras County to begin enforcing its zoning code Tuesday.

Yet whether the stay on enforcement can keep Trinitas open is unresolved. Community Bank of San Joaquin is scheduled to sell the property at a foreclosure auction on March 1.

Several legal actions involving the course have been working their way through federal courts since the Nemees filed for bankruptcy in 2009. That filing came after Community Bank of San Joaquin foreclosed on the 280-acre golf course property and after Calaveras County’s Board of Supervisors twice voted against measures that would have granted the course legal status.

The course was built without permits in an agricultural preserve.

After the bankruptcy filing, the Nemees moved several lawsuits to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, arguing that winning legal standing for golf on their site was key to their financial success and thus any bankruptcy reorganization.

A three-day trial in October addressed whether golf is a legal form of agritourism in Calaveras County. The Nemees argued golf is a form of agritourism and thus their course should be permitted to operate.

The Nemees lost that trial, however, and U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ronald Sargis made his ruling final in December.

Since then, the Nemees have filed an appeal with U.S. District Court in Fresno. In asking for an extension of the stay on Calaveras County’s enforcement of its zoning code, attorney Ken Foley argued that a halt to golf – and thus to the regular revenue that supports course irrigation and maintenance – would cause severe damage.

“A 7 million dollar asset gets wasted,” Foley wrote in the stay of enforcement motion he wrote on behalf of the Nemees.

One of the Trinitas cases is scheduled to be back in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Modesto at 10:30 a.m. today. Sargis will consider dismissing a civil rights lawsuit the Nemees filed against Calaveras County officials. The Nemees argue that officials violated their constitutional rights by denying their requests to legalize the golf course.

Sargis has said he will consider dismissing the suit because the Nemees and their attorneys failed to make progress on the suit after it was filed in October.

Contact reporter Dana M. Nichols at (209) 607-1361 or dnichols@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/calaverasblog.

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