The eviction of Coyote Aviation from the Redlands Municipal Airport was postponed Sept. 2 after the owner appealed his eviction.
Follow Our Courts has reached out to city of Redlands spokesperson Carl Baker for comment.
Gil Brown of Coyote Aviation and Redlands have been in a dispute over his rental of 36,000 square feet at Redlands Municipal Airport for the past three years. They differ over whether he wrote to renew his lease 45 days before it ended, as required.
He wrote to renew June 23, 2020.
Brown argues the lease ended in September 2020, as agreed to after the lease agreement was signed. The city argues it ended in April 2020, as stated in the contract.
Brown filed a breach of contract case, and Redlands brought an eviction case.
San Bernardino Superior Judge Winston Keh ruled with Redlands Feb. 8, and Coyote Aviation lost their eviction case July 17.
Eviction
Brown said the sheriff was ready to post eviction notices Aug. 30, but was stopped by a last-minute stay by San Bernardino Superior Court that Brown had requested two days earlier.
Brown had asked the eviction to be stayed until his appeals, filed June 23 for his breach of contract case and Aug. 10 for his eviction case, would be resolved. Appeals often take as long as two years to resolve.
The litigants also have to resolve what happens to the hangars Brown built on the property, he said. Brown intends to remove them if he is forced off the lot, but the city wants him to leave them on the property, he said. The lease agreement says that he would remove them.
“Immediately upon the expiration of the Term or earlier termination of the Lease, Tenant shall peaceably and quietly vacate the Property and deliver possession of the same to City, with all of Tenant’s improvements and alterations removed from the Property,” the lease says.
The city told him, he said, that he waited too long to remove the hangars. Brown said Redlands started their eviction to gain control of them. Prior to his eviction, city employees discussed the revenue streams they could get from his hangars in emails filed with Brown’s lawsuit.
Lease calendar
The litigants signed a lease agreement that started April 4, 2000. That agreement said the lease would last 20 years, with an option for Brown to extend the lease another 20 years if he wrote to renew it within 45 days of the end date.
Permitting delays caused the actual move-in date for Brown to change.
Redlands agreed to enter into a new lease, which would begin September 5, 2000. That new lease agreement explicitly said the lease would end April 4, 2020, instead of saying the lease would last 20 years from the start of the date as was stated in the April lease.
Brown says that the April 4, 2020, end date was an error, and that a Redlands representative agreed to a Sept. 5, 2020. end-date when contacted in December 2000. He says that later, in 2020, city employees further agreed to a September end date. On June 18, 2020, then-Redlands Airport Supervisor Bruce Shaffer asked Brown when he could meet to renew his contract. On June 23, 2020, Brown sent a letter asking to renew. The same date, then-Assistant Director of Facilities and Services Tim Sullivan wrote an email that indicated the term would end in September.
“Add an additional 15-year term. Change (inflation calculation) to San Bernardino. Change Term date to September 5, 2020,” Sullivan wrote to Shaffer.
Keh, the judge, ruled that this agreement was informal, and was not legally enforceable. The only valid contracts made by a city are those approved by the city council and signed by the mayor, Keh said.
On Sept. 25, 2020, then-City Attorney Dan McHugh told Brown he had stayed past his lease and failed to renew in time.
“As you note in your letter and as I presently understand matters, for various reasons, a clause permitting the extension of your lease was not exercised by you, some time has passed since the operative date of that clause, and we now find ourselves in the position of Coyote Aviation being a ‘hold over’ tenant under the provisions of the lease,” McHugh wrote.
In October and December 2020, Sullivan and Shaffer began exploring the revenue they could get from renting Coyote Aviation’s hangars in emails also filed in Brown’s complaint. They estimated they could get $456 from each of the 16 hangars every month, or $87,552 in annual revenue from the hangars. Their emails say Coyote Aviation paid $5,800 in annual rent. Brown said he paid $13,000 in annual rent.
“I also need you to send me your estimate of how much revenue that we can realistically generate per year with the Coyote Hangars,” Facilities and Community Services Director Christopher Boatman wrote to Schaffer and Sullivan Jan. 6, 2021.
On March 17, 2021, Boatman directed Brown to vacate the property.
On June 1, 2021, Boatman offered a new 15-year lease that would have $95,040 in base rent.
As part of the proposal, the hangars would become the city’s property, and Coyote Aviation would not be able to sublet without the consent of the city. Brown did not accept the offer or meet to negotiate.
Boatman sent a notice to vacate on Dec. 17, 2021. Brown filed his breach of contract suit against the city Feb. 8, 2022.
Case information
Case No. CIVSB2203398
Appellate Case No. E081591
Marlene Allen-Murray and Thiele Dunaway of Fennemore LLP represent Coyote Aviation on appeal.
Jessica Lomakin, Scott Ditfurth and Dustin Nirschl of Best Best & Krieger represent Redlands on appeal.
Read the complaint, including the lease and other complaint exhibits here.
Read Keh’s ruling here.
NOTE: Follow Our Courts Executive Editor Toni Momberger was on the Redlands City Council in 2020. Because of the conflict, she was not involved in the reporting or factual editing of this story.
