Point Reyes Light - September 28, 2000
Money, politics and illness collide in Rancho Nicasio dispute
Although travelers to Mexico routinely come down with "Montezuma's Revenge" to varying degrees, a 58-year-old Point Reyes Station woman claims she should be compensated $10 million because it happened to her in Marin County and not a foreign country.
In a claim filed against county government, Jerelyn Jacobson, who with her husband Herb Goldberg runs Berry Patch Cottage bed-and-breakfast inn, says she suffered severe diarrhea, vomiting, and high fever after dining at Rancho Nicasio Restaurant eight months ago.
She and her husband told The Light her diarrhea and accompanying symptoms caused her to lose three or four days of work as a secretary for Inverness Park writer Michael Scriven.
Wants class-action suit Her claim was filed in anticipation of a class action lawsuit against county government, which regulates the water supply for the popular Nicasio roadhouse, explained attorney Steven Schoonover, who represents Jacobson.
Nineteen people reported nausea and diarrhea after dining at Rancho Nicasio in early February. Among those stricken were owner Bob Brown and his family.
At the time of the incident, tests taken by county Environmental Health Services revealed coliform bacteria in the drinking water, but the exact source of the bacteria was never determined.
In any case, Brown immediately stopped using Rancho Nicasio's well and began trucking in water. He subsequently sunk a new and deeper well. Environmental Health Services has now said the restaurant's water is perfectly safe.
Attack on supervisor Jacobson's claim also alleges that Supervisor Steve Kinsey bears some responsibility for her illness because he urged the Environmental Health agency to let Brown take over the restaurant from seller Ken Marshall without first upgrading its septic system.
How much of this has to do with Jacobson's illness, however, and how much it has to do with her husband's long-standing animosity toward Supervisor Kinsey is a matter of debate.
Members of the anti-Kinsey group Save the Valley and a recently fired member of the environmental health staff, Dave Mesagno, have suggested none of this would have happened had not Kinsey "intimidated" Mesagno into letting the restaurant continue to use Marshall's septic system until dry weather allowed a new one to be built.
In fact, the restaurant's septic system apparently had nothing to do with the contaminated water. A new septic system was installed in the summer of 1999 - months before Jacobson got sick.
Grand jurors back Kinsey For his part, Kinsey says that in urging Mesagno to be reasonable with Brown, he was acting in his proper role as an ombudsman - helping a constituent caught in bureaucratic red tape - the sort of thing assemblymen and congressmen do regularly.
The old septic system was considered "technically failing" only because new health and safety codes require leach lines to be deeper below groundwater. If the previous owner, Marshall, had not sold the restaurant, the law would not have required him to install a new septic system, Kinsey noted.
Grand jurors determined there was no evidence that the Rancho's old septic system had any effect on groundwater quality.
In June, the Marin County Grand Jury agreed that the attempt by Mesagno's agency to shut down Rancho Nicasio for months after it sold served no reasonable purpose. Their conclusion exonerated Kinsey and chastised environmental health staff.
Water not questioned Jacobson's claim against the county also asserts that Environmental Health Services staff failed to make the restaurant protect its water supply from contamination.
In response, Brown said this week that Phil Smith of Environmental Health Services inspected Rancho Nicasio's kitchen before the restaurant changed ownership, and Smith gave the kitchen, including the water supply, a clean bill of health.
If Smith hadn't approved the water supply, Brown noted, the law would have required Marshall to remedy it before the restaurant could change hands. If there had been a problem, he noted, "I sure would've liked to have known about it. The water was never an issue."
Claim 'not worth the paper it's written on' Kinsey this week denied any involvement with Rancho Nicasio's water supply system and insisted Jacobson's claim has no merit. "My sense is it's not worth the paper it's written on," he said.
"Claims are filed against the county every day. The ones that matter are where the county has been found negligent. I'm confident that after this claim has been reviewed that will be found not to be the case."
However, Jacobson became so sick that she thought she was going to die, her husband Goldberg said. When Jacobson asked the Rancho's insurance company to compensate her for lost wages and her suffering, they refused her claim, he added.
As one who also became sick from the contaminated water, Brown said he understands the physical suffering Jacobson endured. However, he described the claim as a political grudge against Kinsey and county officials, which has virtually nothing to do with his business.
Politics v. suffering Cited as evidence that most of the brouhaha is yet another attack on Kinsey is the fact that Goldberg during the past two years virulently attacked on the supervisor for supposedly being pro-developer because of his support for the affordable-housing project in Point Reyes Station, where he and Jacobson have their B&B, and because he took part in the final vote on the French Ranch subdivision.
Goldberg, however, has reacted angrily to suggestions that he primarily motivated by politics, saying his only concern is how badly his wife suffered.
However, other Rancho Nicasio patrons who became ill have not tried to get any money out of their suffering and have expressed sympathy over the restaurant's difficulties and the well being of Brown's family, the restaurateur said.
"It seems pretty obvious that there's something going on here that's bigger than me," he added. "I'm not taking this personally. I don't know if it's hurting business, but it sure is hurting us."