It seems to me that their town should be up in arms about the number of animals on the small acreage [I know things in Cali are different and smaller parcels are allowed but their numbers even make that pale in comparison!] and neighbors would be complaining…
Well this just got juicy.
Theres a number of prospective buyers looking to purchase a certain piece of property in Valley Center who do not have a good opinion of a certain “rescue” currently there.
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Just for the sake of curiosity, does the aforementioned “rescue” rent the property? I had wondered about the actual ownership of that piece of property.
They lease it, with monthly lease payments. The lease had an option to buy with a balloon payment due sometime earlier, might have been last year. That has gone past unexercised. So apparently the lease is now month-to-month until something changes on one side or the other.
The owners of the property are not involved in the rescue at all, but are well aware of it. They are also very well aware of the acute deterioration of the property during HiCaliber’s tenure. Today it is nothing like it was when HiCaliber moved in.
This is what the property looked like the last time it was listed for sale. Well before HiCaliber moved in. There is more than one residence on it, all included in the property.
That is, or was a beautiful property. The house was beautiful.
Wow…gorgeous property. And the price, for California, seemed very reasonable. Not that we could afford it, but…
How sad…
So, correct me if I am wrong, but Michelle complains that HC is in the hole $40-60,000 due to it takes $10,000 per week to keep going. Didn’t the recently filed paperwork show fundraising of about 1 million? $10k a week is $520,000. What happened to the rest, do you suppose?
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San Diego Tribune did an utterly pathetic puff piece about HC. The dude writing for them has been in their corner the entire time and has been making it about “online bullying” and hasn’t done a shred of research into what’s been going on.
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/sd-me-horse-rescue-20180421-story.html
Brad Racino on the other hand definitely is not a fan
https://inewsource.org/2018/04/21/hicaliber-horse-rescue-closing/
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Just looked at her post from yesterday in which she states she is closing, yet behind the title of the post it says she looking for donations. Yup… she’s probably bluffing…
I hope the Shedrow Confessions blog continues to document the closing process. I for one am interested to see how the horses are adopted out. I hope consideration will now be given to legitimate rescues (R2R transfer) that had stepped up to offer help in the past. It’s probably too much to hope for, though.
I thought I remember reading somewhere that the founder is considering adoptions outside of the So Cal area. Probably just one more way she can retain some form of “control”.
I heard this on the radio - apparently the used a stock internet photo of a skinny horse to raise money :eek:
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/jul/13/critics-accuse-hicaliber-questionable-fundraising-/
So much for having “closed” on June 30th. On and on it goes … 
That’s for scamming people, and then in addition to such shenanigans is the lack of adequate living conditions for the animals, and the withholding of vet care. Very little official action is happening around those issues, although San Diego County Animal Control say that they do try to keep up with the situation. Are the animal welfare laws this weak, or this weakly enforced? Some of both, probably.
And now they are being evicted from the farm and sued by the farm’s owner:
https://inewsource.org/2018/12/05/hicaliber-horse-rescue-sued-eviction/
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In a word: No.
Even if the 501©3 org called “HiCaliber” comes to an end (and I’d look for the name to come back in some form), the two individuals that founded it are still running free.
Reading the last few Shedrow posts, we see that …
One has already started another website to collect donations for equine “emergencies”, alluding to the recent wildfire evacuations. Already this new organization - well, website, there is little evidence of an actual organization - is being vigorously outed for faulty bona fides. It is not a legit 501c3 - so are those really “donations” in a legal/tax sense? Also little, if any, evidence of actual operations. Just collection of “donations”.
The other one has been identified back at the auction where HiCaliber worked their chicanery for so long … with goats, this time, and as a private individual. Doing what with them is not clear.
There seems to be very little that will stop either of them from doing what they do. Under whatever name they do it.
The core issue is that few, if any, jurisdictions in this country have any effective enforcement against this general type of exploitation of animals and well-meaning donors.
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I just wish that the agency’s that are investigating would close her for good. There is plenty of evidence and first hand accounts to the real deal there. Very sad. Every animal lost due to her greed and lust for attention is one too many.
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Property owner just did an eviction and is ranting about how everyone dropped the ball on this one. Lengthy video of the property, and some swearing so NSFW but what a trainwreck.
https://www.facebook.com/travisfox.1…jcyODA0OTE3MA/
An $8,000 unpaid electric bill! :eek:
But … but … didn’t they have utilities automatically deducted (or whatever their BS excuse was for scamming out for yet another hay fundraiser a few months back)
And they’re still beggin* for money cuz they took all of her personal horses somewhere.
It’s hoarders like these awful people that have caused me to have a firm plan for euthanasia for my animals if anything ever happens to me. I’ll be damned before I’ll allow someone as repulsive as the woman who ran High Caliber and her pathetic minions to be within 100 feet of any of my animals. I wouldn’t send that horrid demon a rotting carcass let alone a living, breathing creature. I pity her children and any person or animal supremely unlucky enough to have crossed paths with her.
And what is wrong with the state of California that this thing is allowed to keep her children or to be allowed to have access to any animal?
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Of course the villagers are trying to raise money for her. They are also saying it’s just a normal moving mess, they see nothing wrong with how she left the property. I’m hoping she gets in trouble with the DNR for the dead bobcat found in the freezer.
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I can sympathize with the landlord/ property owner, because I own rental properties in California, but at some point it gets a little old that the “government agency’s did nothing”. He is playing the victim card a little too much. I get it, Hell I would be pissed but he has a responsibility in this as well. He is the property owner, those agency’s were asking for his help to remove his awful tenant, and while the current laws do make that process lengthy I feel he should have been more pro active as a property owner to stop this. this post was started in May of 2017, I find it hard to believe its taken till now for an eviction.
Government agency’s can only do so much because the “due process” applies to them as well. They are also limited to staffing, resources and access to location. I’m sure that they were not allowed unscheduled inspections, and there was not enough evidence of violations to get warrants to enforce the laws. Just having a horrible renter does not give you leave to waive your property taxes. Nor does paying those taxes mean that those agency’s are able to stop the problems occurring on the property. They are not going to do the dirty work of evicting your tenant for you. In some cases its not the tenant that has to comply, but the property owner.
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