Downhill from disaster?

Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

CORRECTION: (ran July 3, 2007): A story on June 13 misspelled the name of North Bend's city attorney, Michael Stebbins.

NORTH BEND - Eugene Hill is beginning to feel like the Wicked Witch of the East. Like the character from "The Wizard of Oz", Hill is faced with the prospect of a house plummeting onto him. In his case, the house is perched precariously on a hillside above his brand-new building.

Nervous diners at his Sapphire's Mongolian Grill are asking that they be seated as far from the teetering house as possible - or else avoiding altogether the restaurant into which he has sunk more than $2 million. Hill figures that he has lost more than $180,000 in business since he opened the place in December.

"How come you haven't been in my restaurant?" Hill asks people he knows in town. "I'm not going in there," he says they tell him. "That hill is coming down."

There's little dispute about that prognosis, although city officials and their engineer apparently want to stay as far from the topic as Hill's customers. City engineer Matt Whitty would say only "it speaks for itself," and referred questions to his boss, City Administrator Jan Willis. Willis said North Bend's attorney has advised her to clam up. The house's owner, Yesi Guirado, also declined to comment.

For months, officials have been puzzling over a solution to the problem, after a contractor's attempt to fix it last winter only exacerbated the looming disaster, Hill claims. He's threatening to file a lawsuit if the city doesn't solve the problem soon.

"I'm holding the city responsible," Hill said. "That hill is stable for the summer, but by next winter, it'll go. I'm going to lose everything if they don't fix it."

The owner bought the house for $12,500 as an investment property, city attorney Mike Stebbons said. Coos Bay firm Stuntzner Engineering stripped the hillside of what foliage was still holding the soil together, so crews could build retaining walls to save the house, Hill said. Stuntzner engineer Ralph Dunham didn't return phone calls from The Register-Guard.

Stuntzner's efforts were unsuccessful because the work began in the middle of December, among the rainiest of the Oregon Coast's winter months and no time to be agitating erosion-prone soils, Hill said.

As the city awaits an official report of the cause of the slide - Stuntzner engineers say there were natural springs that may have contributed to the problem - Hill is anxious for some kind of permanent solution.

So are his employees.

"Everybody's worried about it," manager Jeri Taylor said, looking out across a nearly empty restaurant, the only occupied tables as far away from the slide as possible.

"It's scary," said waitress Tiffany Ruddell, who had had several customers ask to be seated away from the slide area.

North Bend City Councilor Larry Garboden said Whitty has advised the council that the house "is not in imminent danger of sliding down the hill right now. When we get the second report, we can decide if it has to be removed."

In the meantime, Garboden said, it's premature to take action.

"Right now, nobody's living in the house," he said. "We can't just have a knee-jerk reaction and say `OK, tear your house down.' '

Winston Ross can be reached at [phone] or [e-mail].