The 20 page report details the perceived findings of City Officials after serving a search warrant on the residence of animal keepers Phil and Aida Lough.  The afternoon raid took place on March 17^th just a week after the March 8th election in which Mr. Lough was a candidate for a seat on the City Council.  This reporter was made aware of the raid after monitoring traffic from the La Habra Heights Fire Watch radio.  The Avocado Express.com published an exclusive in-depth report on the Lough raid, but many questions remained despite attempts to get City officials to comment. 

Hints as to a possible City Hall leak first appeared April 6th on the Topix Reader Forum under the off topic controversy of the dysfunctional Park and Recreation Commission.  A reader, posted under the pseudo of “Reason”, claims to know the accurate count of  animals on the Lough residence.  Additional details unknown to the general public were included in the anonymous post.

With the recent leak of privileged information, new questions as to the constitutionality of the search have surfaced.  Specifically, the unauthorized search of the Lough residence for items not listed on the search warrant, but detailed in the reports by city officials.  The search warrant sought various items including evidence of excessive animal keeping, running a business and animal keeping in the setbacks.  Issues such as over hanging trees, above ground swimming pools (which are exempt in La Habra Heights), storage of two parked cars, trailer parking and the keeping of fertilizer were not mentioned within the scope of the search warrant.  Additionally, the City’s search team did not include an agricultural expert, leaving staffers to guess that organic fertilizer was fecal matter stored in containers.  A search of the interior of the house was not included in the search warrant, but that did not stop the Deputy City Clerk from taking a peek inside the windows as she stated in her report.  Aida Lough, speaking via telephone, said she had not seen the report but felt it was illegal to release the report since the City does not disclose information regarding code enforcement action against residents.  The Loughs, who have a May 12^th 2PM court hearing at the Whittier Courthouse, are seeking dismissal of code violations against their family for excessive animal keeping.
 

In communications today via email we asked La Habra Heights City Manager Shauna Clark for clarification on how the report on the Lough raid became public.  Ms. Clark responded, “The documents are public record”.  She did not elaborate nor disclose if someone made a public records request for the documents. The released public documents appear to have been scanned by a model similar to that used at City Hall to create PDF files, which was then distributed via email to undisclosed recipients by an individual known only as lhhresideint@___.com