My husband and I own our home, and we have lived in Ridgemark for 10 years. On the golf course side of our back yard fence, there are three healthy, green trees that provide homes for song birds year round. One of these trees is an Eucalyptus that looks the same today as it did ten years ago when I started admiring it for it’s unusual beauty. On Monday, October 13, I witnessed Alex Kehriotis in the passenger seat in a golf course vehicle with a white-haired man as his driver. I saw Alex direct this man to healthy trees on Gabilan, and the white-haired man would stop the vehicle, get out with a paint bucket and a paint brush, and he would mark the trees that Alex directed him to mark, with red paint X’s. The Eucalyptus as well as one of the Monterey Pines has been marked with a red paint X for destruction. The TRO from Judge Tobias was in force on Oct. 13 when I witnessed this happen on Gabilan Golf Course. Alex Kehriotis is NOT an arborist.
My husband and I have seen the recording of the deed to JMK Golf LLC, and John Kehriotis is the only name on this deed, which is for Ridgemark Golf Country Club (RGCC). We learned that single owners of LLC’s pay PERSONAL tax gains or are allowed to take PERSONAL tax losses using their social security number as identifier. This year John Kehriotis will be allowed to take all of his losses here in Ridgemark against his gains for his 12% of the Sacramento Kings, and he will be allowed to take his losses here in Ridgemark against the gains he earned this year from over 2,000 apartments he owns or manages in Sacramento and in the Bay Area. John Kehriotis cut the water by 50% when he was advised that he only had to do a voluntary 15% cut this past summer. Now he is ripping trees out of the land where he cut the water this past summer. Could this destruction we have seen here in Ridgemark happen again, elsewhere in San Benito County? We need to have environmental protection in place for all of the trees in our county because what is happening at Ridgemark, can happen elsewhere in the county.
Dick and Carol Dutra, San Benito County
