Desert Hot Springs Sued for $1.8 Million

DESERT HOT SPRINGS, Calif. - April 20, 2015 - PRLog -- Desert Hot Springs, CA – The commercial developer who purchased the Mission Lakes Marketplace after the property sat unfinished for six years has filed a claim against the City of Desert Hot Springs alleging serious misconduct by city officials. Dr. Suresh Shah, the property developer, revived the project after buying it in August 2010.  With the shopping center now finished Dr. Shah said he is suing the city for $1.8 million and cited losses resulting from poor management by city officials.

Despite raising thousands of dollars to benefit the community and sponsoring last year’s successful 2014 fireworks show, tensions between Shah and the city worsened after the council voted to back out of an agreement it had made with him last August of 2014.

Back in 2010 Shah envisioned the Five Star Fitness Center as the anchor tenant of the Mission Lakes Marketplace shopping center previously known as The Village at Mission Lakes.

First there was a lot of work of construction to do. For the previous five years the buildings were unfinished and were coming unglued in the desert weather. The unpaved parking lot made the project stand out like a sore thumb.  Suresh Shah bargained that everything would go smooth to finish up the last 10%. Instead Shah claims he was mistreated and harmed by city officials run amuck.

After spending millions of dollars to build the fitness center and turn around the abandoned property, city manager Martin Magana and city attorney Steve Quintanilla refused to issue occupancy permits to Suresh Shah.  This left Shah unable to do business.

According to Shah’s claim, Desert Hot Springs city officials repeatedly ordered the building’s power to be cut off during construction of the fitness club. The city’s demands for money came at a critical stage of the shopping center’s development as Magana and Quintanilla squeezed Shah for even more money.

Just a month after city officials joined Shah for the property’s combined ribbon cutting and fireworks show in July, 2014, there was a surprising reversal when city manager Martin Magana suddenly required Shah to pay an additional $242,000.00 in impact fees.

Initially those expenses were hidden when Suresh Shah bought the property.

City officials were desperate to record some kind of accomplishment to bolster Daniels who was under suspicion for leading the city astray and abandoning it on the edge of bankruptcy. When Bob Adams took over the job of city manager – and he lasted just one year on the job – Shah was nearing the end of construction.Back then former city manager Rick Daniels told Shah that the city would make good on reimbursing his construction costs of impact work by forgiving him the impact fees. After all, Shah paid over $490,000 in impact related work.

It then fell upon the third city manager Martin Magana to deal with all the previous deals that had been made. Fortunately – or unfortunately – Martin Magana had previously served as Director of Community Development in charge of the planning and building departments. That’s when all these deals began to unravel which ended up with Magana and Quintanilla using city staff as storm trooper to enter private property, turn off electricity and chain the doors shut.

http://www.desertvortex.com/2015/04/20/desert-hot-springs...# Source Report on Desert Vortex News