Santa Clara city officials have basically just shrugged at a local business owner who it cost thousands of dollars in lost business.
Last summer, for about two months, a city contractor, Preston Pipelines, closed Shulman Avenue for road construction. It also shut off the water several times as part of the work. Then, in July, Silicon Valley Power (SVP) shut off the power to work on utility poles.
Ercan Genis, owner of OG Performance and Tuning, said the city failed to notify him of the construction. The work last year cost him roughly $14,000 in business, and SVP’s work cost him another $4,600. Although he submitted a claim seeking restitution for the closure, the city is refusing to do anything about it.
When he pressed the issue, city officials told him his only recourse was to sue the city. But Genis believes city officials are brushing him off because they know he is unable to make waves.
“They know I don’t have the budget to sue them, so they are comfortable,” he said. “I would understand if they were trying to help you, and they can’t help you, but they aren’t even trying to help.”
Three other property owners on Shulman Avenue confirmed that the city failed to notify business owners of the closure and utility shut-off.
Because OG Performance and Tuning relies on water to cool cars on its dynamometer — a device to determine the torque and power of engines — the water shut-off was particularly devastating. Without water to cool them, cars on the dynamometer will blow their engines.
Three-Card Monte
But the city is refusing to acknowledge liability.
Maria Le, assistant to the city manager, wrote that SVP followed “normal outage communication procedures” but offered a “dog-ate-my-homework” excuse for the city failing to notify business owners and flat-out denied last year’s road closure.
“Unfortunately, [city officials] have found the post office returned the letter that was sent to the businesses’ address as undeliverable,” she wrote in an email to Genis. “Shulman Avenue was not closed. Access to the street was limited due to the construction work, but proper signage and traffic control were used, per their permit requirements.”
A third-party assessor determined the city followed proper procedure. That claims adjuster, Donald Chang, told Genis in an email that his only recourse was to sue the city by June 12.
Last year was Genis’ first year in business. If he had known this was how the city handled its screw-ups, he said he never would have opened OG Performance and Tuning in Santa Clara.
“I almost couldn’t pay my credit cards. I almost couldn’t pay my rent, pay for some of my child’s needs,” Genis said.
Genis said he could see that his emails have been read, but the city has been mum since July 10.
The city’s actions and attitude contradict its repeated claims that it wants to foster an atmosphere friendly to small businesses.
Shulman Avenue is in Council Member Raj Chahal’s district. Chahal said that once a situation such as this escalates to a legal matter, a council member needs to “step back.”
Because he cannot afford a lawsuit, Genis iterated that he has only filed a claim with the city for restitution and that the matter has not been escalated to the court.
Do the Right Thing
With a looming deficit, city employees have an incentive to deny Genis’ claim in the interest of protecting the city’s budget. The adjuster concluded that the city is not liable, so refusing to hand over $18,600 makes sense.
But the Santa Clara City Council has provided special dispensation in situations that adversely affect residents in the past. It occasionally sees fit to go against city employees in the interest of doing what it sees is right.
For instance, despite city employees recommending that the city require youth sports to pay for field use, the council saw fit to exempt groups from paying them. The city collects $115,000 a year in field rental.
To his knowledge, Chahal said, the council has never compensated a resident in a similar circumstance, which he called a “gray area.”
While perhaps the field-fee comparison is not apples-to-apples, when asked if the council has the authority to compensate Genis for the misstep, Chahal admitted he didn’t know. He said he would confer with city employees on the matter.
However, follow-up inquiries went unanswered.
A request for comment from the city, through its spokesperson, Janine De la Vega, claimed Genis’ claim is a “pending legal matter” and that the city is “unable to provide further statement.”
Moving Forward
In the email thread to Genis, Le admitted that the outage notification procedure has some “opportunities for improvement.” Those “opportunities” include — in addition to the mailed notification — calling customers two weeks before the outage and adding “or current occupant” to notifications to reduce returned mail.
While Le wrote that the city is “moving forward with the process improvements,” inquiries as to whether those changes have been made or whether the city intends to make Genis whole went unanswered.
Those vague promises to fix the issue in the future are cold comfort to Genis, who still has a gaping financial hole.
“Whoever is responsible, I don’t want them to get away with it,” he said. “How can they just let this go … there is obvious damage and financial responsibility and ignoring the proof.”
View Comments (16)
Perhaps the city is unwilling to assist this business owner because several noise complaints have been filed against OG Performance. He is rude and obnoxious with his neighbors while exceeding noise limits. There is definitely more to this story and I am very unsympathetic.
We were never rude to anyone that came to our business in a friendly matter.
I am not sure how you expect a business to be friendly If you come to our business and tell us that you created a complaint about the noise. We are located in an industrial area and we make sure we don’t break any laws or local regulations.
After several noise complaints, proper agents came several times and did their measurements several times to make sure that we are not exceeding the decibel limits.
I mean if it makes you happy that people won’t be able to feed their family, that explains what kind of person you are and what kind of problems you have. Good luck.
No sympathy here either for og performance tuning! You’d be hard pressed to find bigger jerk than this guy! His clientele terrorizes shulman and memorex drive doing burnouts and donuts, not to mention the nerve racking noise coming from his shop. He doesn’t give a damn about the surrounding businesses.
None our customers have done anything illegal on any of the our business street. Even if they did, that is not something We can control because I am neither a city official nor a police officer.
Matt, we don't even know who you are and never heard your name. Obviously, you also have some problems that you need to solve within you first.
For the noise, we have our test results (Done by city officials) proving that we are WELL within the decibel limits per the city officials. This is an Industrial area. Maybe you have a shop/resident in a wrong location!?
The people who has mental issues usually are the ones who call other people names without even knowing them. I also wish you good luck and I hope you get better ASAP.
If my customers can hear that god damn noise over the phone ITS TOO LOUD!!! The city might have conducted tests, but EPA hasn’t. Our area is light industrial!
Under the Noise Control Act that has been released by EPA, primary responsibility for control of noise rests with State and local governments. I invite you to read and get some knowledge about the noise limits and regulations for industrial areas. That may help since you have a business in one. Again, I hope you get better ASAP.
It seems the business owner would be able to reschedule a majority of his dynamometer appointments. An inconvenience for sure, but $18k worth? A bit exaggerated for sure.
Hello Linda, I really appreciate you understanding the nature of our claim. However, we do not only do measurements on our dynamometer when a customer comes. It usually takes 3-4 hours the least per car to calibrate engine and transmission software. Depending on the car and what upgrades the car has, the cost for a session could be anywhere from $1500 to $8000 per car. In the 2 months period of time last year when they closed our street for the work, we actually lost much more business/customers than what we have claimed for. We could easily prove/show that with our monthly income compared to other months. I hope this helps understanding more about our claim amount.
I also want to mention that most customer cars come to us on a tow truck because they won't start or run right without our special Engine and/or Transmission software calibration. So, in theory, yes. We would be able to re-schedule them but, the chances are the customer will accept it is very low because they want and need their cars up and running ASAP. So they will look into alternatives to get it done and they will get it done if somewhere else quicker. Thanks.
I worked in Rocklin near an automotive shop that had a dyno and they are very very loud. Most legitimate shops use a soundproof booth, but it seems your city has given him carte Blanche to be an arsceloch and he’s taking full advantage. Just because you can be as loud as you wish it doesn’t mean you should. Your reply will be interesting
Dieter, if that was our intention, we would schedule cars for dyno every day without any empty slots or days. We can very easily do that and we can make more money than we are actually making right now. We try to schedule cars as every other day. Only reason we are not scheduling vehicles on dyno every day is to show that we do care. We don’t have to let the $100K+ worth of equipment sit empty but we do. I really think that as a business we should reconsider our decision on this. I hope this answer satisfies you.
Yes, we can be as loud as we want as long as it doesn’t exceed the local regulation’s noise limits. That’s why it is called an “Industrial Area”. I don’t understand why people who has business or any type of property etc in an industrial area would complain about an industrial noise :) I think instead, they should be going over the decisions they made in the past.
You say you make thousands a day, invest in a booth, or half wall, or any sort of sound deflection. At least an effort to show you give a damn about area concerns, or are you going to claim poverty?
It is very obvious that you have 0 knowledge as to how to open and run a business. I really hope you don't have one. You think this business has no debt and everything including dyno was gifted to us when we opened the business? :) I am laughing because I am here trying to educate people like you for how businesses work. I think as a business we are doing MORE than what we should do about the area and noise concern. We started realizing that these efforts are pointless actually and we should start caring more about our business's future instead thinking about the others. It is an INDUSTRIAL area... Educate yourself before telling people what to do or before trying to make yourself look right when you are not.
This is true, I don’t know how to run an automotive shop, but I do know about real estate, commercial and otherwise. It seems you shop is located in an area designated for light industrial usage. Using the city of San Francisco as an example, the ordinance states noise limits are 80 decibels at 50 feet in public zones at any time, unfortunately for you, this is the threshold for business designated for HEAVY industrial. The threshold for light industrial is much, much lower. Perhaps this business is in compliance for your city, and if that is the case, I’ll owe erkle an apology, but I don’t believe so. If the city has indeed conducted sound level measurements, ask for copies of their findings, better yet, hire an independent company to conduct noise level mapping of the area to compare findings, and if he’s not in compliance, present the test reports to the proper department. He may have a friend in the city who’s helping him, if that is the case, getting him to comply will be tough, unless
Dieter, our sound levels do not exceed the noise limit. Threshold for the light industrial area is NOT much much lower but yes it is a bit lower than heavy industrial areas. There are also other factors here such as the elevated ambient noise in the area. We know very well exactly what our limits are and what the local regulations are. Mind you that, normally readings need to be done at the property where the noise complaint is coming from but we did also conduct a test with the city from the closest property which was next door and still did not exceed the level. Also, if we had a friend in the city like you said, do you think we would have these problems where they are causing us crazy financial damages?