Paul Bass Photo
A dispute between an alderman and a multiple-car-owning constituent moved from the courthouse to mediation Thursday — with both sides demanding an apology.
Police had arrested the alderman, Darnell Goldson of West Rock, on trespassing charges Feb. 4 after he took pictures of seven vehicles stashed and, he said, abandoned in a front yard at 18 West Hills Rd. Goldson is one of City Hall’s most outspoken critics.
On Thursday morning Goldson’s attorney and a prosecutor agreed to transfer the case to Community Mediation Inc. to see if the agency can settle the dispute instead of having it proceed through the court system.
Meanwhile, after a call from the mayor, the city’s building official has upped pressure on the vehicle-owner, Corey Pollard, to remove the cars from his property.
Goldson (pictured outside the Elm Street courthouse Thursday morning) and Pollard both said they look forward to resolving the case through mediation — once the other one says he’s sorry.
“Absolutely I will” participate in mediation, Pollard said in a phone conversation. “What he did was wrong. I deserve an apology.”
“Nobody told him to come snooping around somebody’s property,” Pollard, said, “taking pictures … like Deputy Dawg” (pictured).
“An apology? Are you kidding? I thought I was getting an apology,” Goldson responded.
He said if Pollard doesn’t apologize, he’ll press his own charges against Pollard for filing a false police report.
Neighborhood Complaints
Darnell Goldson Photo
The trouble started on Thursday, Feb. 4.
Goldson said he had heard complaints from constituents about the cars stored on Pollard’s lawn. Goldson contacted government’s Livable City Initiative (LCI), which investigates such complaints. When he failed to get a response, he said, he went to the house himself to photograph the cars stored there.
Police later received a complaint from Pollard. He said Goldson had trespassed on his property, lifted up tarps on his cars, taking pictures. Police subsequently went to Goldson’s house and charged him with trespassing, a misdemeanor.
Goldson claimed he stayed on the sidewalk — and that a “no trespassing” sign that appeared subsequently in Pollard’s front window hadn’t been there at the time of his visit. He said photos he took (including the one above) proved it.
Goldson also produced a witness who supported his story. Goldson said Pollard wasn’t home at the time and relied on a neighbor’s version; he also said Pollard doesn’t live at the house; he noted that in numerous civil and criminal court cases currently on file, Pollard lists his address as in Hamden.
Pollard said Thursday he had indeed been home at the time of the Feb. 4 incident. He also insisted he does live at the West Hills Road house.
“I am listing that [Hamden] address. That’s my mailing address,” he said.
He said he would never have filed charges against Goldson if the alderman had approached him differently. Prior to Feb. 4 Goldson had once come to see him to ask about the cars but was rude, so Pollard told him to “beat it,” he said. Then Goldson returned on the 4th taking pictures.
“He shouldn’t have done what he did,” Pollard siad. “He’s not the police. He talked about his constituents. I’m his constituent. My vote doesn’t count for you? He treated me unfair.”
Goldson called his arrest unfair, based on a the complaint of a person who was already having trouble with the law, especially since he had evidence disproving the story. At the time, then-Police Chief James Lewis said the courtroom is the proper place to settle the “he said/ she said” nature of the allegations in this incident. “When you have a homeowner calling and saying [trespassing] occurs, and you have an independent witness,” the officer is right to issue a ticket and send the matter to the court, Lewis said. “That’s what the judge has to do — decide who’s telling the truth.”
Define Eyesore
Meanwhile, as Goldson’s case proceeded, City Hall’s LCI got to work on Goldson’s complaint.
An LCI inspector visited Pollard’s house and told him he needed to move the cars. Pollard has since moved two of the seven cars. He and the inspector agreed he’d gradually move two a month.
When Goldson learned about that arrangement, he complained to City Hall.
“It’s going to take three to four months for this guy to remove his cars?” he complained. “I’m a little frustrated.”
Top city building inspector Andy Rizzo said Thursday that he has since told Polalrd has to remove the remaining five vehicles by the end of the month.
“The mayor called and asked what was going,” Rizzo said, but didn’t tell him what to do. He made the decision on his own, he said.
Pollard said he plans to comply — but he feels he’s being unfairly targeted and did nothing wrong.
Those aren’t junk cars on his lawn, he said.
Pollard, who’s 35, said he restores “classic cars” and does “promotion for clubs” for a living.
Besides the seven vehicles he has on his property to restore, he has four refinished classic cars, worth as much as $30,000 now, resting at a storage lot and on a friend’s property, Pollard said.
The seven vehicles on his West Hills Road property had no front plates because a few had been stolen, so he removed the others, he said. He claimed he owns all the cars and had kept the back plates on.
When an LCI inspector first came following Goldson’s visit, he told Pollard he can’t park cars on the lawn, Pollard recalled.
“I said, ‘What? These cars have been parked here for years.’”
So he offered to move them to the driveway and a gravel side yard.
Then he learned that he would still be violating a rule against “dead storage.”
“They showed me all these crazy ordinances and stuff,” Pollard said. “They’re all down my back.”
He said he found it easy to work with the inspector, but now he has to move faster to get rid of the remaining cars. He has decided not to contest the directive, he said; “I can’t pay $250 a day” in fines.
He and Goldson both said it’s time to put the dispute behind them — assuming the other offers the requisite mea culpa.