Homeowner litigants get court scolding.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first in a two-part series.

Now that it's over, after nearly four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney fees, let me tell the story of how some adults solve their neighborhood disputes.

Let me tell you about your tax dollars at work - the wheels of justice slogging through the muck of pride and pettiness while you and I pay the mileage.

Picture a gated retirement community, Southshore, south of Florence, where the trees and rhodies are so thick you think you've stumbled across an upscale hobbit village. Now picture a bright orange work glove - as if a nod to a scene in Kesey's "Sometimes a Great Notion" - stuck on the end of a post, its fingers carefully contorted to show the international sign of un-neighborliness: the flipped bird.

Meet co-defendant John Balanco, 57, who created the glove in response to pressure from the Southshore Homeowners Association to conform to its covenants.

Meet James Rassman, 55, the director of the association that demanded that Balanco and Balanco's 56-year-old wife, Toni - the co-defendant and, ironically, an association board member - follow the regulations. (The same James Rassman who recently made national news, honoring Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry for saving his life in Vietnam.)

It began when John Balanco moved a street sign from his property to the other side of the street. In October 2000, the association began sending letters to Balanco - also a Vietnam vet - saying that he had violated the association's code on that matter and on others. Comply now, they said.

Balanco, believing that he and his wife were being subjected to standards far higher than others, answered by playing loud music, putting up satirical signs and, of course, displaying the glove.

Dan Neal of Eugene, among a handful of attorneys who represented the Balancos at one point or another, admits that his client was ornery. But he said the Balancos began complying.

The association wasn't impressed. A few weeks later, it filed a lawsuit in Lane County Circuit Court against the Balancos. "They jumped the gun," Neal said.

The suit charged that the Balancos "engaged in conduct which includes, but is not limited to:

"Failing to complete their landscaping within the time allotted."

"Decorating the house and yard in yellow tape, unapproved and inappropriate lighting, various inappropriate signs, debris and other items (including a large cross, a confederate flag, a Marine Corps flag and a 'Don't Tread on Me' flag).

"Continuously subjecting (people) to verbal abuse in the form of obscenities and threatening statements and gestures."

Some of the allegations the Balancos would admit, others they deny. But soon after the trial began in June 2002, Circuit Court Judge Lyle Velure made it clear that he thought the entire case was a waste of time. "You people are spending a lot of money on high-paid lawyers, and you're acting like a bunch of immature children," he said. "Now, for crying out loud, this lawsuit just ought to go away. Everybody ought to behave themselves. ... If you don't like living there, move. If you don't like them, buy them out.

"Face it, folks, at our ages, we don't have that many more days left on the face of the Earth. Why don't we enjoy them?"

He suggested both sides just "go home. Drop everything. And pledge to each other that you will act as ladies and gentlemen. And whatever he (Balanco) does, leave him alone. And" - referring to Rassman - "quit nitpicking everything."

Velure said he was going to allow 15 minutes for the attorneys to meet and settle matters. But pride can be an ornery cuss, which is why the bird-flipping dispute dragged on for more than 17 months before it was settled - ironically, out of court.

"It was," says jury foreman Peter Mohn, "a long-term circus."

TUESDAY: The rest of the story.