A wild theory. Teddi Mellencamp thinks that her former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills costar Lisa Vanderpump could have orchestrated the Scandoval drama.

The Indiana native, 41, discussed the ongoing Vanderpump Rules scandal of Raquel Leviss and Tom Sandoval’s affair with Tamra Judge and Melissa Gorga during a March 9 episode of the Real Housewives of New Jersey star’s “On Display” podcast.

“[Lisa] probably paid Raquel [Leviss] to do this,” Mellencamp suggested as the trio speculated what the restaurateur, 62, was going to say during her March 8 appearance on Watch What Happens Live. The podcast episode was recorded before Vanderpump’s episode aired.

Mellencamp, for her part, speculated that Andy Cohen invited the U.K. native to his Bravo talk show after a long hiatus because “nobody’s cared until now.” The Celebrity Big Brother alum went on to guess that Vanderpump would stick up for Sandoval, 41, amid his breakup with ex Ariana Madix. Us Weekly confirmed the pair called it quits after nine years when the Florida native, 37, learned her boyfriend had an affair with Leviss, 28.

“She’s gonna say the same points that I’ve been saying, like, ‘Listen, [Sandoval and Madix] weren’t in a good place for a long time,’” Mellencamp claimed while impersonating Vanderpump. “His needs weren’t met. [Sandoval and Leviss] fell in love. They couldn’t help themselves.'”

Mellencamp and Vanderpump have a feud-filled history of their own. While the two started as friends on RHOBH, they had a falling out during season 9, which aired in 2019. The duo's friendship hit a snag when Dorit Kemsley adopted a puppy from Vanderpump Dogs, only for the pooch to end up at a kill shelter. Vanderpump exited the reality series after the drama unfolded. Mellencamp, for her part, left the show in September 2020.

After hearing Mellencamp’s predictions, Judge, 55, said that she thought that Vanderpump just “wants the best for her cast.” However, the fitness coach retorted, “I think she wants the best for herself, as I would as well. You guys wouldn’t? You’d want your shows to tank?”

While Vanderpump didn't defend Sandoval on like Mellencamp originally thought, the entrepreneur to Madix, 37, amid all the drama.

Meanwhile, the TV personality had some following the scandal.

“I clearly didn’t know who Raquel was. She stuck her toe in the pond, she snagged , she schmoozed with and she shagged Scandoval,” she retorted, calling the model a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Housing group files lawsuit to establish “that the city is subject to the builder’s remedy”

Beverly Hills has long ranked as one of California’s most difficult places to build new homes, a sentiment borne out by its population data: In 1990, the city had 31,935 residents. Last July, a Census estimate counted 31,896.

But for years Sacramento has mandated that the wealthy enclave accommodate more housing, and now a legal battle over the city’s housing plan could bring major implications for builder’s remedy, the controversial development provision that has taken the state by storm since the fall.

“The [thinking] among some cities has been, ‘Well, we can deal with the builder’s remedy on a project by project basis and force developers to expend the resources to actually litigate it,’” said Matthew Gelfand, an attorney with Californians for Homeownership, a housing nonprofit that recently filed a lawsuit against Beverly Hills. “Our goal is to establish legally that the city is subject to the builder’s remedy right now.”

Californians for Homeownership is affiliated with the California Association of Realtors. FIled on Jan. 18, the suit seeks a court ruling against the city’s housing element — the document that outlines every California city’s housing plan — which has already been declared non-compliant by the state.

In response, the City of Beverly Hills, which has already adopted multiple versions of the document over the past year and could adopt another draft to send to the state later this month, signaled it doesn’t plan to acquiesce easily.

“This lawsuit … alleges that we have not done enough to provide for housing,” Larry Wiener, the Beverly Hills city attorney, said in a statement provided to TRD. “However, anyone who has been following the city’s efforts to fulfill the massive state mandate to zone for more housing units knows that the city has gone to incredible lengths to meet this mandate and the city has fulfilled our housing element requirements.”

Multiple rejections

The current dispute traces back to October 2021, when Beverly Hills and other Southern California jurisdictions faced a deadline to update their housing elements to meet state-determined quotas. For the current planning period, the state has determined that Beverly Hills, a highly desirable city with a strong local economy, needs to accommodate approximately 3,100 additional units, including nearly 1,700 affordable units. Under California law the updates are required on eight year cycles.

But more than 15 months after that deadline, the city — along with dozens of others — is still out of state compliance.

In January 2022 the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), the agency that oversees the process, rejected the city’s first updated element, determining that it had failed to identify legitimate sites for potential housing. In late November HCD rejected another version. In mid-January, it rejected Beverly Hills’ revised element yet again.

“The list continues to include questionable sites,” the California Association of Realtors said in a Jan. 19 release, “including modern and recently renovated office buildings, a Jewish community center and a theater.” The sites also included health clinics run by Cedars-Sinai and UCLA.

By signing up, you agree to TheRealDeal Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.

Non-compliance theoretically opens Beverly Hills up to builder’s remedy, a provision that allows developers to bypass local zoning considerations as long as their housing projects include at least 20 percent affordable units. And one application using the strategy has already hit the city: a proposal for a 16-story, 200-unit apartment tower on Linden Drive filed by the developer Leo Pustilnikov in October.

But the builder’s remedy, which surged into statewide prominence only last fall after going all but forgotten for three decades, remains untested in the courts. If HCD and the attorney general’s office decide to pursue a case against Beverly Hills to enforce the non-compliance decision — and allow builder’s remedy projects in the city to proceed — that process could still take months, Gelfand pointed out.

Development implications

The lawsuit amounts to a test case to expedite the process by securing a court ruling on the city’s housing element. A win for the plaintiffs, or a favorable settlement, could then compel the city to revise its housing element to meet state requirements, and clarify that until it does so the builder’s remedy is valid in Beverly Hills. Under state law, the option remains on the table until a non-compliant city regains compliance, although a separate dispute is brewing about the definition of compliance.

“There could be other [developers] that would come out of the woodwork, if there were a clear legal decision that the builder’s remedy applies in the city,” Gelfand said.

Wiener, the city attorney, did not respond to a follow-up question about how Beverly Hills intends to respond to the builder’s remedy application already filed or applications that could still be coming. Another official only said that the city “will continue to address any additional applications.”

More specific court fights in Beverly Hills and other cities are likely coming. Under a different state law, developers can lock in builder’s remedy rights with only a preliminary application and then file a full project application within six months, and some cities have opted to wait to respond until the full applications are filed, adding another wrinkle to the legal drama.

To date, more than a dozen builder’s remedy applications have been filed in Santa Monica, Redondo Beach, West Hollywood and other L.A. County cities, with the charge led by Pustilnikov and WS Communities, the development firm run by Neil Shekhter and Scott Walter.

While the larger builder’s remedy story has so far largely been confined to Southern California, where developers first utilized the provision, the focus will widen soon to include the Bay Area, where jurisdictions faced a Jan. 31 compliance deadline.

Veterans in Citrus County could soon have more access to medical care.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is looking for options for a 55,500-square-foot clinic in Citrus County to offer outpatient care. In addition, the federal agency wants enough space for 350 parking spaces.

The VA announced it was seeking letters of interest from property owner and builders for potential sites in the Lecanto area.

As part of the request for letters of interest, the VA laid out a series of requirements for the property.

The VA wrote it is looking for a lease term of up to 20 years for an existing facility that meets its needs or to lease a facility a builder is prepared to build.

In general, the area the VA is interested in leasing would be bound on the west by South Suncoast Boulevard and West Venable Street. On the east it would be North Croft Avenue, Trail 19, along Citrus Wildlife Management Area border along County Road 491. On the south by Cardinal Street, On the north by County Road 486, then West Pine Ridge Boulevard.

In the VA’s request for letters of interest, the federal agency lists additional requirements such as:

The leased office space must be on a single floor.

The facility and its parking spaces must be inclusive and broken into separate areas.

The space cannot be in the FEMA 100-year flood plain.

The zoning must allow for a clinic.

The building cannot also be used for living space. The space must be close to amenities such as shopping, restaurants, hotels, and pharmacies.

The space must be close to a hospital or stand-alone emergency center, public transportation, and have enough space for truck deliveries.

The VA said in its release that the agency is only requesting information as to what’s available and not formal proposal.

The VA did not respond to the Chronicle’s request for information for this story.

The VA currently has a relatively small facility in Lecanto on West Marc Knighton Court. Many Citrus County veterans travel to surrounding areas outside Citrus for medical care.

Philip Watson, the Citrus County veterans service manager, said the current facility offers only primary health care, mental health and lab work.

The new facility would also include optometry, radiology, and mammography.

“It’s a lot more services, which is great,” he said.

There are more than 1.5 million veterans in the United States. Nearly 16 percent of Citrus County’s population are veterans. Most served during the Vietnam War era.

U.S. Congressman Gus Bilirakis, who represents Citrus County, said more was needed for vets.

“As I’ve spent the past several months speaking with veterans and community leaders in Citrus County, it has been quite evident that more effort is needed to ensure all veterans have access to the quality care and benefits they deserve,” he told the Chronicle. “I’ve already reached out to the VA to express this concern and to ask them to work alongside me to address unmet needs.”

The deadline to have submitted information to the VA was earlier this month. VA’s next step is unclear.

Fred Hiers is a reporter at the Citrus Chronicle. Email him at fred.hiers@chronicleonline.com.

CSWR-Florida, the 12th-largest investor-owned water and wastewater utility in the nation, is in the process of acquiring Rolling Oaks Utilities.

“We signed a contract at the end of December and they completed their due diligence and are now in the phase of looking for approval from the (county) water authority,” said John Patton, president of Rolling Oaks Utilities.

A meeting with water authority officials will be held Oct. 10 in the Lecanto Government Center where officials will consider approving the sale.

Patton said the 6,000 customers of Rolling Oaks, primarily in the Beverly Hills area, should not notice any immediate impacts.

In fact, they should look at this as a good thing, he said.

“They will have a solid company that has the resources to put into the company and modernize it,” Patton said.

Given the expected expansion of the service area, the existing plant would not be able to stay in business without costly upgrades to conform to the state’s new nitrogen and phosphorus regulations.

That would mean significant upgrades to the plant or building a new one.

“We don’t have the resources to do that so this makes sense for the community and for us,” Patton said.

CSWR-Florida is a division of Central States Water Resources (CSWR), founded in 2014 and one of the fifteen largest investor-owned utilities in the United States.

In 2020-2021 alone, CSWR invested more than $70 million to acquire water infrastructure facilities to about 200,000 customers in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

“We’re in the business of ensuring the health of the communities we serve by delivering safe and reliable water,” said Josiah Cox, president of CSWR-Florida and CSWR. “We purchase water and wastewater utility systems that are in severe disrepair – often posing a very real danger to public health, safety and the environment – and quickly bringing them into compliance.”

Patton stressed that Rolling oaks Utilities is far from being in disrepair. In fact, the utility has won recent awards as the best medium-sized water company in Florida.

It all comes down to not having the money to meet new state regulations and modernizing the facility, he said.

“They (CSWR-Florida) have the cash resources to do that, Patton said.

Michael D. Bates is a staff writer with the Citrus County Chronicle and can be reached at mbates@chronicleonline.com.

Citrus County’s modestly-priced Beverly Hills subdivision was among the first retirement-oriented planned communities in Central Florida with a community center, park and swimming pool owned and maintained by the community.

In the decades that have followed, the retirement-oriented community has become more demographically diverse with fewer retirees and more young families in starter or rental homes.

With the changing demographics making the operation and maintenance of the community’s swimming pool unaffordable for residents, the county took ownership of the pool in 2011. Following the pool’s $117,000 refurbishment in 2016, county commissioners voted to close it in 2019 due to declining usage and an estimated $70,000 repair bill.

Even with the pool closed, however, the pool continued to be a community conundrum that just would not go away. Beverly Hills community leaders and residents brought forth various proposals to the Board of County Commissioners without resolution, making the pool’s fate akin to the 1993 movie Groundhog Day where the day is repeated over and over.

The most recent proposal by the Keep the Pool Open Committee appeared to offer a promising resolution for the Groundhog Day conundrum for both the Beverly Hills community and BOCC.

As proposed, the Nature Coast Affordable Housing Corporation would purchase the pool property and a small, nearby parcel of vacant land from the County for the construction of a playground. The pool would be used for free by the Citrus County Boys & Girls Clubs. Also, a reduced rate to incentivize Beverly Hills Civic Association members to join a planned swim club would be offered to help underwrite the pool’s operations and maintenance.

Although the proposal, as presented, had no impact on county taxpayers, it regrettably was a missed opportunity for both the committee and BOCC.

It was a missed opportunity for the committee because it did not communicate the proposal’s details to the BOCC in advance of its scheduled vote. The absence of details left commissioners skeptical, especially Commissioner Ruthie Schlabach, who had previously championed keeping the pool open.

The BOCC, absent the “devil in the details,” missed the opportunity to give the proposal a fair hearing and a more informed vote by not acting upon Commissioner Diana Finegan’s willingness to table the issue pending more detailed information.

In light of the missed opportunity by both parties, only time will tell if the BOCC vote to fill in the pool to end Beverly Hills’ Groundhog Day has best served the community’s recreational needs.