enforcement<\/a> begins with notices of violation and repair orders. If property owners fail to comply, the city can seek court orders requiring corrective action. A receiver is generally appointed only after those efforts have failed, giving an independent third party authority to manage the property, hire engineers and contractors, and take whatever steps are necessary to restore compliance.<\/p>\nHouston commercial trial attorney Jason Williams, who is not involved in the case, but has handled code enforcement cases, described receivership as a drastic step.<\/p>\n
“This is an extraordinary remedy,” he said. \u201cIt gives the receiver a lot of power here.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said receivers are tasked with bringing the properties back into compliance and they \u201ctake over\u201d the entire asset. For commercial properties that means receiverships are entitled to the income generated from business operations.<\/p>\n
And receivers don’t work for free.<\/p>\n
Every inspection, engineering consultation, court filing and meeting with city officials adds to the receiver’s bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unlike ordinary invoices, those costs become liens against the property itself. If the fees go unpaid and the property remains out of compliance, a receiver can ultimately ask the court for permission to sell the property to recover those costs, Jason Williams said.<\/p>\n
Years of litigation, no resolution<\/p>\n
Despite years of litigation, there are still no signed court orders allocating responsibility among the property owners for removing the fill or determining how cleanup costs should be divided.<\/p>\n
Michael Williams believes Goldberg should pay the majority \u2013 if not all \u2013 of the fees associated with bringing the properties into code compliance because Goldberg owns\u00a0four of the properties that house the majority of the dirt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Goldberg\u2019s role in the litigation has also shifted over time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Court records show the city initially sued Goldberg, in 2020, over the code violations. That led to yet another delay.<\/p>\n
During court proceedings, the city requested that the presiding judge\u00a0Staci Williams be recused because she previously sued the city. After an independent review, the city\u2019s request was denied.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This process took almost an entire year, while the underlying case continued.<\/p>\n
The city eventually dropped its lawsuit against Goldberg and instead added him to the lawsuit it had filed against Williams and\u00a0Poole.<\/p>\n
Williams said he spent years presenting evidence to the courts that he believes demonstrated a business arrangement between Goldberg and\u00a0Poole.<\/p>\n
Goldberg disputes Williams’ characterization of the case.<\/p>\n
He told\u00a0The News he has continued working with the city in an effort to bring the properties into compliance. Goldberg also said discussions involving the city, the Trinity River Authority and the city’s floodplain administrator ultimately stopped after they \u201cstonewalled\u201d him but did not dislcose details.<\/p>\n
The city did not respond to The News’ follow-up questions about the case.<\/p>\n
Goldberg challenged the court\u2019s appointment of a receiver and later sought review in the Fifth Court of Appeals. The appeal was dismissed after court records show filing deadlines were not met.<\/p>\n
Nine years later<\/p>\n
For Williams, the legal battle has become about more than a vacant building.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing in and illegally bringing in dirt to raise the floodplain is definitely against\u00a0FEMA, Texas Center for Environmental Equality and the Trinity River Valley Authority,\u201d he said. \u201c I mean there\u2019s just so many entities that it goes against and it\u2019s being done as though none of these rules and regulations exist.”<\/p>\n
He says the lack of progress has delayed his plans to move on with his life. Instead, the building has remained largely unusable and the financial costs have piled up.<\/p>\n
Williams says he doesn\u2019t plan on giving up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been extremely stressful to be involved in a situation like this where I basically dotted all I\u2019s and crossed all\u00a0T\u2019s,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His property on\u00a0Botham Jean Boulevard remains both an eyesore and a visible reminder of a legal quagmire that has gone on far longer than he could ever imagine.<\/p>\n
He hopes the Nov. 10 trial finally resolves the matter \u2014 and not simply begin another chapter in a dispute entering its second decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aerial view of four neighboring properties in south Dallas, that are the subject of a multi-year lawsuit filed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-406145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}