United Stand (Building Code Confrontation, California Style)

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Meanwhile, United Stand's crack team of lawyers threatened to file suit in Federal Court, alleging that the surreptitious task force taggings, the searches without warrants, the ensuing orders to demolish the homes, and the denial of the right to appeal all violated the plaintiff's (United Stand's) constitutional rights to privacy and against unreasonable searches by government agents. Significantly, the potential suit clearly showed that the task force had violated the inspection and abatement procedures of the Uniform Building Code, the district attorney's Guidelines for Inspections, and Uhr's own Operation Guidelines for the Task Force. So much for administrators who "go by the book".

As United Stand prepared to meet with the supervisors, it had become, in two short months, a full-fledged organization touching many bases in Mendocino. It had filed suit against the county in Federal Court. Its operations were being subsidized by public support through donations and benefit activities. The supervisors had to listen.

On April 16, 1974, the presentation to the supervisors took place at the county courthouse. United Stand had prepared, along with the color slide show, a tidy, professional 20-page booklet describing what US was, who it represented, a summary of its position, schematic drawings of alternative sanitation systems, and a proposal. US proposed that the board create a committee, composed of task force personnel and two supervisors, for the purposes of studying the violations and of making recommendations to the board "regarding administrative remedies for gaining the compliance of present violators". The supervisors had been offered a way out of the quagmire of their own creation, and they accepted unanimously. The Building and Land Use Review Committee, with the unfortunate but apropos acronym, BLUR, was formed.

The BLUR committee proved basically ineffectual. No member took the initiative necessary to implement solutions. On the issues of building and sanitation, all parties seemed content to fall back on the claim that it was not the responsibility of the county, since state enacted codes were in question. United Stand attended the meetings diligently and offered intelligent input, but the taggings continued despite the ongoing negotiations.

United Stand's desire to see the problem rectified locally was beginning to seem futile. The board of supervisors and the building department both disclaimed the power to interpretively modify the UBC. The district attorney said that it was his duty to carry on the abatement proceedings. By September, United Stand began to ask itself what to do when all reasonable measures of compliance and negotiation had expired. It had done its homework well in the nine months of its existence. It had learned the language of the various county departments and had offered methods by which alternative lifestyles could be embraced within the concepts and the letter of the codes. United Stand did the county's homework for it, but the people with authority remained impotent.

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