Woodside may settle lawsuit over trail-swap imbroglio Woodside may settle lawsuit over trail-swap imbroglio (January 26, 2005)** Town has reached tentative settlement with Robert and Ann Bass.

By Andrea Gemmet

Almanac Staff Writer

At first, the only controversy was over the relative merits of two horse trails running between Canada Road and Albion Avenue in Woodside.

But a request for the town of Woodside to abandon a dedicated horse trail in favor of a newly constructed alternate route degenerated into a legal battle over the privacy of e-mail sent from Town Council members' homes and businesses.

Woodside has reached tentative settlements with Robert and Ann Bass, and their planning consultant Debbie Dodge, who filed separate lawsuits against the town over public records requests, Town Manager Susan George said.

The Basses filed suit against the town and all seven council members to obtain copies of any e-mails referring to the trail, even those sent from personal accounts.

Ms. George said in August that she had no idea what they hoped to gain from all the correspondence.

"Most of what we gave them was e-mail between us and them," Ms. George said at the time, adding that the time-consuming task was demoralizing, and took town staff away from more productive duties.

Both settlement agreements will have to be approved by the Woodside Town Council, which is set to discuss them in closed session on January 25, Ms. George said.

Once everyone signs off on the Bass settlement agreement, the two parties will issue a joint press release; until then, she cannot reveal any details, she said.
Dodge case

The Dodge case involved similar records requests, only having to do with work on Canada Road property adjacent to the Bass property. Ms. Dodge is represented by attorney Joan Gallo, who also represents Mr. and Mrs. Bass in their lawsuit.

In the settlement, the town has agreed that by January 28, it will create a written procedure and train staff in handling public records act requests; make a list of the public documents that are available; and pay $5,000 of Ms. Dodge's legal fees, said Ms. George.

The settlement does not contain any admission of liability or guilt, she said.

"It seemed prudent. The procedural changes we were going to do anyway, so it's no loss," Ms. George said.

Ms. Dodge declined to comment until after the Town Council decides whether to approve the settlement agreement.
Horse trail

Those two lawsuits have their origins in the contentious wrangling over a horse trail that runs through the Bass property on Canada Road and connects to Albion Avenue.

Mr. and Mrs. Bass asked the town to abandon the trail in exchange for a new one they had already built, and Ms. Dodge served as their planning consultant on the project.

The new trail takes a different route through their property and provides them with more privacy and security than the old one, Mr. and Mrs. Bass have said.

However, the council and the Basses didn't see eye-to-eye when it came to dickering over the details of the trail swap.

Local equestrians differed wildly over the relative merits of the trails, and, in May 2004, the Town Council used the request as an opportunity to try to acquire a new trail easement through an adjacent property owned by Mr. and Mrs. Bass that would link to the incomplete Dry Creek Trail.

The conditions proved unacceptable to Mr. and Mrs. Bass, and under the threat of legal action, the Town Council in November rescinded its request for the new trail easement, but did not eliminate all the conditions Mr. and Mrs. Bass objected to.

The Basses requested reams of correspondence by town officials regarding their trail, as well as correspondence on work done on their neighbors' property, including anything sent to council members' home or business e-mail accounts, according to Ms. George.

Town staff members have maintained that they can't turn over private correspondence because they don't possess it. The vast scope of the records requests have consumed enormous amounts of staff time, Ms. George said.

Ms. Dodge requested records regarding work on property belonging to a neighbor of Mr. and Mrs. Bass, former Planning Commission member K.C. Kelley.

Ms. Kelley was among those who wrote to town officials objecting to the Basses' trail-swap proposal, saying she thought it would be detrimental to Woodside's trail system and that a compromise should be found. She later offered the town the trail easement across her property that would have connected with the new Dry Creek Trail easement on the Bass property that was sought by the Town Council, and that Mr. and Mrs. Bass found so objectionable.

"In our opinion, (Ms. Dodge's) request lacked specificity and clarity, and we said so in a letter to her," Ms. George said. "We offered to provide her with boxes of files for her to go through if she knew what she was looking for."

Ms. Dodge worked for the town of Woodside in the planning department for about 10 years, until 2001, said Ms. George. She heads Debra Dodge and Associates, a consulting firm that handles construction project management and permit processing.

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