The World Will Know

I am going to take a charitable approach right now, because I want to present the most upbeat interpretation of events I can manage. Our positivity makes it easier for the other players in this drama to be creative and flexible—and kind. So let me spin the events of the last nine and a half years in the most positive light I can imagine.

Dawn's Early Light

What if it really is a coincidence that four different obstacles to our property access were set up within about one year? Let’s resist the appeal of a conspiracy theory for a while, just to see what we come up with.

The new owners of Oasis Park had their reasons for closing our access over their existing road. Maybe they were a little nervous about getting their new venture going.

Maybe the Metrolink office misplaced the permit for the Briggs Road railroad crossing, and so closed one of the at-grade crossings that have a perfect safety record (not all of them do) kind of by accident. We were happy and grateful when Norm Hickling reported recently that a member of Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich's staff has found that permit.

A Bad Sign at the Railroad Crossing

Maybe at about the same time, Los Angeles County officials decided that the best thing to do with a tax-delinquent parcel of land was to slip it quietly and very cheaply to a state conservation agency with a history that some find controversial. Maybe it is normal for one governmental body to sell things to another governmental body at an 80% discount. It would be wasteful to do otherwise. Unfortunately the far end of Briggs Road passes through that property.

Maybe California Fish and Game officials got mixed up when they threatened to arrest any Briggser who put a tire into the Santa Clara River, or to fine any minnow-killing Briggsman $2000 per fish. Maybe they were just having a bad day, and their more reasonable treatment of other Santa Clara River crossings could really apply to Briggs Road residents as well.

Whitewater in Soledad Canyon

Got the picture? Now let me tell a famous story—famous in the Briggs Road Community, anyway.

Once upon a time, after enduring their lack of proper access for four years, after receiving promise after promise from Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich that he would work very hard to restore our access, and after winning the court case that county officials told us we would have to win first, the denizens of Briggs Road got fed up and restless, and began calling the office of Supervisor Michael Antonovich’s deputy, Norm Hickling. Mr. Hickling’s response was to ask, “What the heck do you people want?” In stingier days I might have poked fun at Mr. Hickling for an incredibly silly question, but maybe that would not be fair. Supervisors and their deputies have two million people to look after, and it might not be reasonable to expect them to keep track of a little neighborhood to which they had made—and broken—several promises.

We told Mr. Hickling that we wanted out and suddenly our hills were alive with surveyors and their trucks and equipment. We were going to get a new road, a wonderful straight and level road that would be our very own. There were some glitches, such as a cliff in the path of the roadway, but we were pleased and hopeful that these little problems could be worked out.

Our present route is neither straight nor level

Then came discussions with Mountains Conservancy and Recreation Authority, the state outfit that had bought that last parcel on Briggs Road at a stupendous discount. To summarize a bit, the conservancy attorney refused to grant an easement, even becoming verbally abusive to advocates of the community.

The entire project came to an immediate halt. The conspiracy theorists among us—most of us—chose to believe that the conservancy attorney was working under the instruction of her agency, that the conservancy and the county were working hand-in-glove (as they have been known to do), and that Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich’s office had simply come up with a plan that made them look good while still denying residents access to blacktop at either end of Briggs Road.

Norm Hickling told me in a recent telephone conversation that this impasse is now near resolution. The argumentative attorney is no longer with the conservancy, and more reasonable heads are prevailing. The diehard conspiracy theorists among us don’t believe it. They believe Los Angeles County to be inextricably bound up with the Mountains Conservancy and Recreation Authority. But I am very tired of that negative analysis, and prefer to believe that we really are near a breakthrough.

In that telephone conversation Norm also told me that a creative solution to the river crossing was under discussion, and assured me that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife was much easier to deal with than our conspiracy theorists have made them seem.

Okay. I want to believe Norm. He comes across as a very kind and caring man, especially if I choose to trust what he says. I am troubled that a recent news story by our local radio station KHTS has quoted him as reluctant to be optimistic, but anyone who helps supervise two million people has clout and help and resources beyond my poor imaginings. I believe with all my heart that Norm Hickling can make this thing finally happen.

When we from the Briggs Road Community tell our story to others, the most common response is, “They can’t do that! Isn’t that illegal?” And so, in order to tell our story in the most believable way I can manage, I refuse any credence in conspiracy or skullduggery. The most I will say about hidden agenda is to note the peculiar coincidence of events. I will tell, in other words, the most believable story I can manage, while still telling the truth.

Mr. Norm Hickling has demonstrated what I believed he could do all along. He has shown that he is capable of creating change, and that he is strong enough to publicize that change. I have immense respect for him for that. But you must understand this: there are folks around here who impute trickery to Norm’s actions. They insist on believing that the four besiegers of the Briggs Road Community are in tight cahoots, and that when one blockage fails, county officials will erect another one, until we all fall down. Some folks expect a disappointment of the nature of the Great Survey.

Join me, if you will, in the belief that Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich and his deputies have the will and the power to accomplish what they said they would from day one. Join me in the belief that they are, and have been, sincere.

Red in the Morning

I can think of a dozen ways that Mr. Antonovich’s office, in the capable hands of Mr. Hickling and others, can negotiate and persuade our way out of this encirclement. I will not yet state any of my ideas, so that all of them will be available for ownership by the real movers and shakers. I have total faith, and absolutely no doubt that a supervisor of Los Angeles County can break the Briggs Road Landlock.

And so know this: if through some equally creative turn of events legal access for the Briggs Road Community is once again delayed, in the hope that we will once again be lulled to sleep for another seven years, we will know for certain that we were foolish and naïve to believe again. And the world will know, this time.

This time, the world will know.