Tuolumne County supervisors take into account blame in Mount Knight pot develop fireplace | Information

The Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 Tuesday to continue a public hearing until December about abatement actions on an illegal cannabis grow where faulty equipment allegedly sparked a wildfire on Mount Knight in late July.

The board decided to continue the hearing after they heard from residents of Mount Knight who disputed county Code Compliance’s parcel numbers and identification of owners in the case. The board had to hold the hearing to determine if destruction of 667 cannabis plants on the property where the fire started was justified under county ordinance code. The owner was invoiced $5,594.96 for administrative and investigative costs.

“I live up in Mount Knight,” a man named William Dunlavy Jr. told the board and county staff in a scheduled public hearing Tuesday afternoon. “You’ve got the parties wrong, and you’ve got the parcel wrong. We reported the fire. We have 20 acres, and the fire was on the 20 acres below us. Right below us. The fire started out of a water pump that malfunctioned at 2:45 in the morning.”

Dunlavy said growers were present on a different parcel, not the one named in paperwork by the county. New property owners were being wrongly impugned by the county, he said, and the grow where county Code Compliance cut down 667 cannabis plants was on a different parcel.

“You have the wrong people,” Dunlavy continued. “I can attest to that. I just met the new owners here today. They haven’t even been on the property. I’m telling you, you’ve got the wrong party.”

Dunlavy’s wife said she knows who hired workers to work on the illegal grows in Mount Knight, and she knows they were seen on game cameras leaving the area when the Knight Fire broke out July 29.

Sharrol Dunlavy said she had photos from a game camera and a neighbor’s game camera showing employees of the owner of the property where the cannabis plants were located leaving in “great excitement” when the fire started.

“All of us up here from Mount Knight know it was his crew who started the fire,” Sharrol Dunlavy said. “These other people are innocent.”

A man named Kurt Wagoner told Code Compliance staff, “I live in Mount Knight. You’re wrong . . . . We’ve been complaining about it for years. It’s not the property you guys are saying it is.”

Another man offered a business card with a surveyor’s name. District 4 County Supervisor Kathleen Haff, the board chair, asked him to share the card with the board clerk. Two people offered to share parcel maps with the county.

District 2 County Supervisor Ryan Campbell said he’s been talking to people in Mount Knight for the past year and a half, he’s been up there at least once and the July 29 fire was a wakeup call.

“This has been a problem for our community for a long time and the only way to address it is code compliance,” Campbell said. “Which is too bad, because we’re not talking about this as the criminal actions they are. If it were not for the work of the people living in Mount Knight working to put that fire out, it could have made the national news. We need to make sure we are going after the correct people who are responsible. If we’re hurting someone who is not the perpetrator, that does not help our cause at all.”

Campbell moved to continue the hearing until 1:30 p.m. Dec. 19. It was seconded by District 1 County Supervisor David Goldemberg. 

Brandon joined Haff, Campbell, and Goldemberg in voting 4-0 to continue the hearing. District 3 County Supervisor Anaiah Kirk, who was present earlier for part of the hearing, had to leave before the board voted to continue.

County staff prepared a background report for the hearing, which included the following:

• On July 31, county Code Compliance investigators and the U.S. Forest Service went out to a parcel located in the Mount Knight area of the county. The parcel in question has no legal address. Its parcel number is APN: 023-490-029 in the Twain Harte zip code 95383.

• This parcel was identified to be the location of a wildland fire — the Knight Fire — that occurred on July 29 and was stopped at about 5.4 acres.

• During the July 31 inspection, multiple violations of county code were found on the premises, including unpermitted cultivation of 667 cannabis plants; structures and equipment used for cultivation, processing, or storing of cannabis for personal use that did not comply with building, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and fire code regulations of the county or state; violations of county, state, and federal environmental and water regulations related to water usage, stormwater management, and fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, and rodenticide storage and use; and unlawful disposal of solid waste.

An earlier hearing focused on another case of illegal cultivation of cannabis which was appealed by Irene Jiayi Ouyang, owner of a property at 19279 Second Garrote Ridge Road, Groveland.

The property was among several where authorities seized a combined 2,277 pounds of cannabis worth an estimated $3.7 million, three assault rifles, 11 other firearms, and $6,000 in cash during raids in Groveland, Big Hill, and Columbia on Sept. 19-20.

At the property on Second Garrote Ridge Road in September, state Department of Cannabis Control Law Enforcement Division personnel seized 1,296 plants and a total weight including cannabis flowers of 661 pounds, estimated to be worth $1.01 million.

“One subject booked after evading capture,” a DCC detective wrote in an after-action report. “Located across ridge and picked up by CHP (PC148). Structure red tagged.”

Quincy Yaley, director of the county Community Development Department that handles county Code Compliance, said in September that other cannabis enforcement activities had previously taken place at the property when investigators with county Code Compliance went there in June.

Ouyang appealed the county’s actions in June, and its abatement order that she pay $120,246, but she did not appear at the Tuesday hearing, and neither did her interpreter, Vivien Choy.

“I purchased the property around May of 2019, it has been rented out since,” Ouyang wrote in her request for a hearing. “I live in San Francisco, I am neither involved nor aware of the marijuana cultivation inside the house. I already contacted a licensed contractor, he will help to bring the property into compliance as soon as possible.”

Haff said the property has been on her radar since she took office in January 2021. She said she was surprised the monetary penalty was only $100 per plant.

“That’s at least how long this has been going on,” Haff said. “So I’m glad we finally mustered the forces that we needed to scope the situation out. I have found these violations to be true and accurate. The owner is responsible. The penalties, I don’t think they’re enough but, there they are, I think they are just. I find all of the allegations are true.”

The board voted 5-0 finding violations at the property existed.