Junkyard nearly cleaned up

Spokane County is nearing completion of its largest-ever nuisance cleanup with help from the FBI.

That’s Frank and Bill Inc., an Oldtown, Idaho, salvage and towing company.

FBI is the latest of several companies to work on cleaning up an illicit junkyard that stands out in satellite photos like a mule deer’s white rump, a problem that has frustrated neighbors and county officials for nearly a decade.

“The 10 acres was full of cars and, in some areas, there was only a pathway between the cars,” when county officials first attempted to force a cleanup in September 1999, according to code enforcement officer Terry Liberty.

More than 800 junk vehicles had littered 10 acres of rural land at 11114 N. Ritchey Road, in the northwestern corner of the county.

Thanks to a relatively new county ordinance with the teeth of a junkyard dog, only about 50 remained Monday when some 200 crushed hulks were loaded onto three semitrucks.

“It was kind of a hobby of mine, and it just got out of hand,” property owner Stephen Lee Foster said. “I have collected a lot of classics, ‘60s convertibles and stuff. One man’s junk is another man’s gold.”

Foster, 55, said he is a “pretty dang good” mechanic, and has eked out a living by salvaging junk vehicles since an ill-advised competition with a professional arm-wrestler left him disabled.

“My joy in life is making a piece of junk into something,” he said

Problem is, Foster’s junkyard is in a “large-tract agricultural” zone that generally allows only farm- or timber-related uses.

Law enforcement officers say the property has been a haven for criminal activity. They’ve found stolen cars there as well as suspects in a murder case.

The getaway car and two men suspected of helping cover up a June 13, 2005, murder in the Shadle Park Wal-Mart parking lot were found on Foster’s property shortly before Liberty took over the stalled cleanup effort.

Foster acknowledged some mistakes, including hiring some people “that weren’t good.” He said he also has done some “legit trades” in which he wound up without titles to cars police said were stolen.

Still, Foster has little criminal history, and says he is “not a bad person.”

He seemingly has almost as many names as vehicles. Foster is known to county Assessor Ralph Baker as Stephen Anderson and to law enforcement as Stephen Lee Brady, alias Steven Lee Williamson and Frank L. Merritt.

Court documents charging him with misdemeanor zoning code violations and other criminal offenses say Foster’s true name is Stephen Lee Brady.

“His ‘street’ name is Junkyard Steve,” sheriff’s Detective Dan Blashill advised Liberty in a memo.

“I don’t have any aliases,” Foster said. “The county made those up. I tell you, they’re messing with me.”

However, he signed as Stephen Lee Brady in July 1981 when he pleaded guilty to selling marijuana twice to an undercover officer, in a plea bargain in which a charge of possessing stolen property was dismissed.

It was all a misunderstanding, Foster said: All he sold was nonintoxicating “Nebraska No-High Marijuana.”

As to his name, he said he was Stephen Foster at birth and has two birth certificates to prove it. One lists his first name as Steven; the other, as Stephen. Foster said his mother didn’t want him to have the same spelling as his cousin.

He said his mother enrolled him in school as Stephen Brady after she married a man named Brady, but he later reverted to Foster. Somehow the Spokane County Assessor’s Office turned him into Stephen L. Anderson when he bought the Ritchey Road property with his friend Brent Anderson, Foster said.

“Steve. That’s all I know: Steve,” FBI president Frank Rogers said of the man who hired him to finish the junkyard cleanup before the county could take over.

Even though Foster faced jail time and fines large enough to cost him his land, he resisted surrendering his junk cars to the crusher, Rogers said. Finally, he said, Liberty had to step in and supervise the crushing operation.

Facing a court date and potentially ruinous penalties, Foster signed a third voluntary compliance agreement that gives Liberty broad supervisory powers.

“I feel sorry for that Terry lady that has to deal with this, but she feels sorry for us,” Rogers said last week. “There is just trash literally everywhere. There’s still going to be a tire problem when we get done out there.”

Even with Liberty’s intervention, “it’s the worst crush that we’ve ever had, bar none,” Rogers said.

He said Foster persisted in stripping so many parts from the wrecked vehicles that it took eight to nine cars to make a “bundle” that ordinarily should need only three or four. As a result, Rogers said, he had to renegotiate the amount of recycling revenue he would share with Foster.

Rogers said his company will be paid $100 a ton for the crushed vehicles, which will be shredded into 3-by-9-inch chips and melted for use in new cars and appliances.

Liberty said the cleanup was hampered for years by layoffs and frequent turnovers among enforcement officers in the Building and Planning Department as well as limited enforcement power. Officials had little recourse when Foster failed to deliver the cleanups he promised.

Liberty credited the resolve of current county commissioners and a nuisance ordinance that took effect in April 2004 with providing the necessary leverage. In addition to the possibility of being convicted of misdemeanor, punishable by three months in jail and a $1,000 fine, property owners face civil penalties up to $250 a day for each violation.

What’s more, county officials are authorized to cleanup a nuisance and bill the property owner. That authority was unclear until the state Legislature allowed counties to write their own nuisance laws, Deputy Prosecutor Dan Catt said.

“It’s something we don’t like to pull out and use with everybody, but it does give us the hammer we need to go in and take care of situations like this,” Liberty said.

She said she’ll be checking up on Foster weekly to make sure only operable vehicles remain by the time he goes to court Jan. 28 on charges that he violated the county zoning code.

Foster said he’s been trying for years to sell his property and move to the Ontario, Ore., area for the desert climate he believes will improve his health. But he thought county pressure to clean up his land quickly was unfair.

“Everything is going along pretty good now, but I just think they should give me a little more time because of the weather,” he said.