UPDATE: The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to reject Grant’s rezoning request.
http://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/local/2017/09/14/johnson-county-supervisors-versaland-grant-schultz-zoning-application/668317001/
Thank you to all of our friends and neighbors for speaking up, and to our excellent attorney Steve Ballard at Leff Law Firm for his clarity and kindness. Next step: Will Mr. Schultz pay his rent Oct. 15 and pay us in full on or before Dec. 31?
Friends,
We hope these documents that constitute every legal agreement and disagreement we’ve had with Grant Schultz over the last 4 years help clarify any misinformation floating around the internet. By the way, we own the property. So if you believe in property rights, you should allow us to do as we please with our own land, and we don’t want it rezoned as a resort.
And for those who believe assertions that we are out to steal this farm from Grant and somehow get rich from it, rest assured – the annual payment is more than we make on our fixed income. We cannot afford this farm and never wanted to own it. We have given him every opportunity to purchase it from us and continue to do so.
We regret having to engage Mr. Schultz because he has treated us like trash for 2 years, and posting this will only motivate him to do it again. We are sorry for the ill-will and anger he is stirring up against good people, including those elected by the people of Johnson County and those they appoint to enforce county ordinances. We apologize to our neighbors in Morse who have had to suffer livestock visiting their homes, yards, sheds and garages, cars parked along a road making it nearly impassable, guns going off at all hours of the night, the years-long saga to get a proper septic installed on this land that Rapid Creek runs through, the unkempt farmstead, the overgrown fences and more.
But the time has come to stand up to this bully. We do so at great personal risk, including fear for our safety and fear that he will trash the farm we own out of spite and anger. But we have talked with more than a half dozen young farmers who’ve lived and worked at Schultz’s farm, and they all fear he will retaliate against them with his “worldwide network” on social media. Therefore, we must do the talking for them, and for all young farmers who have asked us not to let this man stand for them, because they are ashamed of what he is doing to us.
Please read the documents and see where:
- We bought this farm to sell to him at the same price 5 years later, knowing the value would likely go up. We didn’t care. We wanted to help him get started.
- We give him the Farm Credit Services patronage rebate every year instead of keeping it.
- We paid $24,000 of a $32,000 high-powered livestock well (the other $8K coming from the government he so despises) that he now plans to use for his cabins instead for livestock, according to his testimony at the Planning and Zoning Commission.
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The bee enterprise one volunteer took on fell apart like every other enterprise, not because of the government or onerous ordinances, but because of Grant Schultz. Almost every volunteer who has ever lived at Versaland has moved to another state and won’t speak up for fear of retaliation by Mr. Schultz. We gave him an additional $50,000 to purchase a building and install a septic system so he could live there legally.
- How we moved to terminate the lease when we learned the sheer number of violations he had committed of the document he wrote.
- How we moved to evict when he didn’t pay his rent – something every farmer in Iowa understands is the one thing you do no matter what – sticking us for the $52,000 payment to the lender last year.
What’s not in the documents, so you don’t have to believe us but consider it food for thought:
- his threats to drag our names through the mud if we didn’t agree to what he wanted,
We set aside $50,000 so Grant could live on the farm legally, something we never anticipated because he said he would commute from his apartment in Coralville, but within months was living there illegally. He chose to buy this monstrosity and plant it directly in front of our neighbor’s picture window. - how he has repeatedly misrepresented his rent per acre to make us sound like we were gouging him,
- how he has claimed that HE has poured hundreds of thousands into this property when the government and Paul and I paid for almost everything,
- how he gave his best helper three days’ notice for his 40 head of cattle and all the other livestock the man was tending, because Grant decided to change their arrangement and the man refused.
- how he uses his nursery to be a middleman, purchasing wholesale and selling retail to unsuspecting customers who likely thought he was selling trees he had grown himself. (He tried to convince us at one time to create the nursery business so he could “buy” from us in some kind of shell game we couldn’t understand).
- how he poses in front of paw paw trees and apple trees that aren’t his to make people believe his plants are fruiting when in fact they were still sticks that are barely leafing out and that there hasn’t been any livestock on the farm all summer.
Bad fences make bad neighbors. Our neighbor, River Products, built this fence for us. Grant Schultz then added extensions on RP’s side of the fence, electrified them AND then let the fence get overgrown. - how all of this “shit storm” he promised to rain down on the board of supervisors is smoke and mirrors for the fact that he could buy this land from us today and hasn’t. Why hasn’t he? And why is he trying to rezone it before he owns it?
We hope people who care about the truth can learn a few more facts and decide for yourselves.
Thank you and we hope to see you at the Johnson County Board of Supervisors hearing Thursday, Sept. 14, 5:30 pm in the county administration building.
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