Yorba Linda mysteries still are intriguing

I love a good mystery, and I find any puzzle with a Yorba Linda angle particularly intriguing.

In 2007, I tried to solve the mystery of a phantom publication, after a Superior Court judge granted a Long Beach businessman's petition asking to have a “Yorba Linda Voice” news-paper “ascertained and established” as “a newspaper of general circulation.”

The petition stated the Voice is “published for the dissemination of local news” in Yorba Linda with “a bona fide subscription list of paying subscribers” and had been “printed and published regularly every Wednesday” in Yorba Linda for more than a year before the petition was filed.

I couldn't find anyone who had ever seen a copy of the newspaper, including city and school officials, longtime residents and reference librarians. More than six years later, I still haven't found a copy, although the paper is listed on the county court website, updated in November.

A more recent baffler was investigated by the city's contract legal team, Rutan & Tucker, involving a vacant parcel of land along Imperial Highway, on the northeast side of the intersection with Lemon Drive, just south of the now-closed bowling alley parking lot.

The tiny, triangular plot enjoys great visibility from passing cars and is used by local businesses for advertising signs and is popular for political signage during elections. It took its present shape after a reconfiguration of Lemon Drive.

Ownership of the dusty patch came into question when the owner of the bowling alley land--the Harold and Elsie Q. Gelber Trust--asked to purchase the plot to fulfill landscaping obligations for the Fresh Market now under construction.

A report by Assistant City Attorney Megan Garibaldi noted the city believed it owned the small plot at the time a conditional use permit was approved for the market.

But a city-requested title report determined the plot was owned by the Olinda Land Company, a firm that no longer exists. Rutan & Tucker requested a chain of title “as far back as the title company could provide, but ultimately could not ascertain who is the current owner....”

The city's legal team surmised the tiny bit of land was owned either by the city due to a conveyance for the construction of Lemon Drive or the Gelber Trust because an easement to create Lemon Drive reverted to the trust when the portion wasn't needed for public use.

The City Council ended the legal tangle by executing a quitclaim deed to the trust, “conveying the city's interest, if any, in the remnant parcel.”

City Attorney Todd Litfin told me: “A quitclaim deed merely says 'we give you any ownership interest we have' but doesn't mean we owned it--just trying to clean up the record and giving Fresh Market peace of mind that they could actually go on property and start maintaining it.”