With signs and social media attacks, Watsonville developer takes aim at city manager in occupancy dispute

The large white signs with bold black and red lettering are hard to miss. They ask Watsonville residents to urge their respective city councilmembers to fire City Manager Tamara Vides. Expect to see more in the coming months, says the man behind them. 

Developer Raeid Farhat put the first signs up in front of his 49-unit townhome development on Airport Boulevard on Jan. 17. Farhat, a Watsonville native, has been developing housing in the city for almost 20 years. He now has five signs — four of which are on Farhat’s properties. 

The signs are just one expression of his displeasure with Vides. Farhat has taken his criticism of her to social media, posting personal information, such as her personal foreclosure statements, and calling her unqualified to be city manager.

What is Farhat’s dispute with Vides, appointed to her position last fall by the Watsonville City Council? Three months ago, he said, the city denied his request for temporary certificates of occupancy (TCOs), which allow a building to be occupied before all city developmental departments — planning, building and engineering — have given final approval. 

TCOs are given regularly, said Farhat, and every development project he’s completed in Watsonville has been granted one.

“When we requested TCOs, they wouldn’t,” he said. “They never gave me a no, and they would always avoid my question.” 

City spokesperson Michelle Pulido said TCOs are issued on a case-by-case basis. The timeframe for TCOs is set based on particular circumstances and anticipated time to address any final details. 

Farhat’s previous project, a 16-unit townhome development on Marin Street, was issued eight TCOs in March 2020. In his experience, he said, the city has granted TCOs for a 30-day period. 

But the issue was apparently more complex. The city claims, per a news release on Feb. 4, that Farhat demanded temporary, or partial, occupancy before he paid his impact fee — a one-time fee used by the city for paving roads and other infrastructure improvements related to a development — which violated a 2021 agreement between the developer and the city council. 

In the agreement the city provided to Lookout, Farhat agreed to pay nearly $1 million in impact fees once the project was completed. Before being granted the TCOs, according to the city’s statement, Farhat needed to pay the impact fees. 

Vides told Lookout she had her first one-on-one conversation with Farhat last November, just three months after she became city manager. Going into the initial conversation with him, Vides said she didn’t want a repeat of what happened in 2020, when the city filed a lawsuit against Farhat due to not paying impact fees — a lawsuit Farhat remembers differently. 

The lawsuit, settled in November 2023, had been filed by the City of Watsonville after it claimed Farhat refused to pay the impact fees for his development on Marin Street. But Farhat said he went to pay the fees with a check for $183,027, but it was refused by the city. Soon after, he said, the lawsuit was filed against him and the city added additional late fees. 

“It was my position that we were not going to repeat that,” said Vides. “We learned from that. … And those were my words [to Farhat].” 

Any attempts at extending the city’s olive branch to Farhat were denied, Vides said, and she always made sure to remind him about the contract he agreed to. 

“So, I said I will be happy to entertain any ideas that you may have to ensure the completion of your project,” she said. “If the city could play a role in lowering a barrier to have housing come available in our community, I’m definitely in support of that.” 

Farhat paid $928,072 in impact fees and $9,500 in additional fees to the city on Feb. 12. He said he had always intended to pay the impact fees – he wasn’t going to commit to a $40 million project, like the development on Airport Road, and skip out on the impact fees. 

“I cannot be unfair,” Vides said. “He never said he wasn’t going to pay. What it is about is that his agreement very clearly outlines that full payment of impact fees are due at occupancy.” 

But even before paying the impact fees, Farhat’s project was waiting for the city council to pass an affordable housing agreement, as several of the units in the new development will be affordable, he said. Watsonville’s ordinance requires most new housing developments to include units that are affordable to low-income households. 

In the 2021 agreement, he committed to setting aside seven of the 49 units as affordable housing. Farhat said he believes, however, that if he had paid the impact fees three months earlier, before the affordable housing agreement was drafted, he still wouldn’t be able to get occupancy. 

If he had demanded temporary occupancy as the city said happened, Farhat said, then the units would already be occupied. People won’t be moving into the townhomes until March 1, he said. He added that he’s been compliant from start to finish and had not requested final inspections until after the affordable housing agreement was in place. 

Despite having paid the impact fees last week, Farhat said his public campaign against Vides is just getting started. 

He plans to make more signs calling for Vides’ firing. In 2026, four of seven Watsonville City Council seats will be up for grabs, and Farhat is searching for candidates to change the makeup of the governing board. Farhat said he has no intention of running for public office. 

“We have 18 months before elections next year,” he said. “That gives us a lot of time to meet with the people of Watsonville in the different districts and hear what their needs are, what their wants are.” 

“It is deeply concerning that the City Manager appears to feel confident in your support while engaging in behavior that misrepresents the truth, misleads the public and damages my reputation,” Farhat wrote in the letter to Watsonville Mayor Maria Orozco and city council members. 

But why dig into Vides’ personal life? Farhat’s main point is that Vides lacks competence, he said. On Farhat’s Rent Watsonville Instagram page, among posts for open houses at the Airport Boulevard townhomes, there are posts posing questions about Vides and her role. One reads: “Top 5 reasons to urge your city council to fire City Manager Tamara Vides.” Others ask questions like, “Should we trust City Manager Tamara Vides with the city’s $278,000,000 budget, when she cannot manage her own household?” 

Vides, meanwhile, said it is concerning to see that Farhat feels so strongly and is personally invested in attacking her, someone he doesn’t really know and hasn’t worked with that much. Despite the situation, Vides said the city won’t change the way it works with Farhat in the future. The city will do its share, by being fair and respectful, she said, in hopes that private developers — like Farhat — do their part, too. 

“This is definitely a personal attack,” said Vides. “I just took this job. I haven’t even had the chance to show what I’m going to do as city manager.” 

She calls the posts on social media unfair and false and a character assassination of someone who is trying to do their best for Watsonville and its residents. 

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