Appalling

Even after nine and a half long years, it is truly astounding that decent legal access remains out of reach for this tiny neighborhood. All we in this community want is the legal right to drive to our homes over our traditional, historical route—a little over a mile of dirt road—that we and our predecessors had been continually using for close to a century.

That’s all we want: to drive on a road that had been in common, constant use since before any of us were born, to our own houses. I need to state that over and over again, because the fact is so basic and we do not want it buried under a lot of verbiage.

The consequences to us of this injustice are dire, and the spoils to those who block us may be enormous, but I want to review just the appalling nature of our predicament in this post.

It is appalling that our route home is almost indistinguishable from that of several other communities along Soledad Canyon, but only ours is blocked.

It is appalling that the organizations blocking our route home are public agencies that should properly have no interest in bedeviling us or depressing our property values.

It is appalling that a deputy of Supervisor Michael Antonovich of the County of Los Angeles will tell contradictory stories according to what suits his office at the time, and continue to pretend to be truthful.

It is appalling that Los Angeles County would place a property in the hands of an aggressive player in this drama, a player that would then withhold legal access at our only other point of entry, albeit an astonishingly rough and difficult drive of five and more miles—a drive that has already killed one of us. (His car was found aflame down a short ravine. Maybe he died of a heart attack and not the crash or the fire. His body was too charred to tell—but struggling on that bad road did not help.)

It is appalling that a public official—again Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich—who represents more than two million people in the most populous county in the United States of America cannot find a way to allow us across a legal obstacle created in large part by a commuter rail line, Metrolink, on whose board he sits with his fellow supervisors.

Whoa! Read that again!

Michael Antonovich sits on the board, he has power only a handful of people can even imagine, the unfairness of the blockage is obvious to everyone to whom any of us has spoken, and in almost a decade he has produced zero results. We cannot legally cross those tracks, though our crossing is just like all the others. That’s a zero. All that power, all that posturing, all that time, and all Michael Antonovich and his deputy Norm Hickling can accomplish is zero.

Appalling.

I hear it all the time, and I heard the accusation again just the other day, that Mr. Antonovich just wants to see his name on a sign. We really struggle to be more decent about it, but it is very difficult for us to quell suspicions that Mr. Hickling’s and Mr. Antonovich’s motives are far more nefarious. But hoping that fame will please the gentlemen, we are proud to offer the following:

This blog, and hence the names of Michael D. Antonovich and Norm Hickling, have been viewed well over 3000 times, and you know how they say that any publicity is good publicity. We expect our numbers will continue to grow faster and faster, and are looking forward to 10,000 page views soon. You can erect signs all over our properties after we have been squeezed out, but they cannot compete with these numbers in such a short time.

Furthermore, only people who drive by the signs with Michael Antonovich’s name will see them. This blog, on the other hand, is viewed worldwide! True, the thousands of page views come mostly from local citizens of Los Angeles County, but hundreds of others come from other countries. Think of it! If Mr. Antonovich wants fame, his name is now being seen and read by hundreds in

France

Malaysia

Indonesia

Canada

Australia

United Kingdom

Czech Republic

Germany

Belgium

Netherlands

Isn’t that cool?!

You’re welcome.

Cabins in the Woods

I love this country, always have. I come from a long line of America-lovers. I have toured—and I mean more than flown over or driven through—every state. Camped in all but one (RI), canoed the rivers of almost all, explored the capitol buildings of most (yes, including RI). It is exciting to investigate Chicago, Seattle, Anchorage and many others on foot. Public transportation in Boston, NYC, and Chicago is a trip.

But far and away my favorite parts of America are her open spaces. I especially enjoy the National Parks, the state parks, the National Forests, even BLM lands where I can paddle, hike and camp. Naturally I have been a contributor to the parks and conservancies every year, and get the junk mail to prove it.

There is a short hike in Zion National Park along Taylor Creek to the Double Arch Alcove. It takes you past two abandoned cabins, the Larson and the Fife cabins, built in the 1930s before this area was absorbed by Zion National Park. That’s about all you’ll know.

Paddling down our nation’s first National River, the Buffalo in Arkansas, you pass several abandoned homesites. Information about their former owners is sparse. You assume the residents went broke and moved.

In Montana there is a 150 mile section of the Missouri River, left intact since Lewis and Clark’s Discovery Corps came through here over two hundred years ago. You can get out and inspect several abandoned homesteads. Again, very little information is given in the guide as to why these ranches and farms lie untenanted and collapsing.

As you drive through Smoky Mountains National Park, the guide brochure points out former schoolhouses, homes, and stores. Where did those people go?

Throughout the country there are hundreds of abandoned homes on now-public land, and you can find them in parks, on preserves, and written about in books. Until now, I had assumed that these unfortunate people, who had to abandon their dreams, had simply chosen an inhospitable location, or had been bought out.

Now we have to wonder. The relocation of the American Indian, an injustice that they found fatal to resist, is a horror in American history eclipsed only by the enslavement of human beings. Stop and think that the same has been done to Japanese Americans less than 80 years ago, and you begin to wonder how many families were uprooted and tricked out of homes that lay in the path of a railroad or highway or shopping mall. And what about those cabins in the wilderness that were devoured by the machinations of an ambitious park administrator?

When I moved onto my little patch of land north of the San Gabriel Mountains I was in awe of my surroundings. I still am, by the way. I wondered, “How can I possibly own this? I do not own this; I can only cherish it and steward it for the animals and people (me) that live here.” I was proud to take over a small old stone house, rather than to carve up the land and build yet another structure. Over the years I watched Acton get chopped into smaller and smaller parcels, as city people bought, built, split and split. I was proud that our neighborhood was not turning into a suburb.

Not everyone in the community felt that way; some did build, some did split. For the most part, though, the area has maintained its outback character—partly because of the terrain, but mostly because that is how enough of us wanted it.

Yes, some did build, some did split. Was it necessary, then, for the State of California to come in here and engineer a way to trick the residents out of their property values? Aren’t there plenty of ways a heavy-handed government can prevent, or at least slow, the ticky-tackinization of a rural area, without resorting to strategies that would be illegal for a private speculator?

Besides, our area is one of the better preserved, by our own efforts, unlike many others in the County.

But this is not really about conservation, is it? This is about a handful of people making millions from a sneaky land deal, and scooping up a dozen homes for good measure—and why not? They are the government; they can do what they want.

Don’t be a dope. They are not the government; they are acquisitive people who are misusing the powers of their position to make a personal gain. And if you now think, as I once did, that people just walked away from those cabins, and that you are secure from the scheming of people who look at you and see dollar signs, you are as dumb as I was.

Are you going to wait until the gravel trucks are running down your street and you can’t stand to live there anymore and so you sell at a terrific loss, maybe to a developer in cahoots with a County or State official who happens to have directed those trucks your way? You think that can’t happen? You think they are not that creative?

Don’t be a fool. Write a letter. They’ll only scatter when the lights are on.

What’s a County For?

Some years ago, already deep in our sordid struggle to regain access to our homes over our historic, usual route, we attended a town meeting in Agua Dulce. Norm Hickling, Deputy for our Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, spoke about our issue. I must apologize that I have little recollection of Norm's comments other than my own frustration. He handed out a booklet about what Los Angeles County could and could not do. I cannot refer to the title exactly right now because I threw the booklet away a couple of years ago.

But let me summarize and read between the lines:

The County of Los Angeles cannot stop itself from causing the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Rail Authority to close a specific crossing, while leaving other equivalent crossings open.

The County of Los Angeles cannot take control of a road in order to keep it open for residents who live along it, except for the hundreds of roads it does keep open. The County does not want to be responsible for our dirt road. Are we supposed to believe that there are no other dirt roads in all of the County of Los Angeles?

Two questions:

Are we to believe that the County of Los Angeles is too WEAK to create or enforce a policy of fairness for all of its citizens?  Really?! There is no way, there is no person or committee creative enough to find a way to correct a wrong largely perpetrated by this very County? REALLY?? Yes, I’m yelling now. REALLY??!?

Let’s get this straight. The County of Los Angeles is more populous than forty-two of the fifty states. It is the most populous county in the State of California, nay the entire country! Each of the County Supervisors represents two million people. And we and you and everyone else is supposed to believe that with all those people, and all that power, there is NO WAY Michael Antonovich and Norm Hickling can correct a misreading of federal railroad guidelines, NO WAY they can pick up the phone and insist on honesty and responsible care for this community.

Bull. With a constituency of two million people it is inconceivable that Mr. Antonovich could not re-open our road tomorrow. We can’t help it; we just do not believe it, and as long as we get no sensible explanation as to why we are legally cut off from the blacktop, it is exceedingly difficult to feel we are being treated fairly or honestly.

Maybe some are fooled into believing that with such a large population to tend to, Mr. Antonovich has no time to take care of a small neighborhood. Yet Mr. Antonovich has time to tweet about adopting pets, and his deputy Norm Hickling has time to talk to members of our community and soothe us with pap that the facts render us unable to believe.

We are left with no choice but to believe that the County of Los Angeles has no desire to restore our access and property values. Speaking just for myself, if I had that kind of power and responsibility, I would move Heaven and Earth to make sure that our roads worked for everyone, and that all were served fairly. This episode is a blot on the honor and integrity of Los Angeles County, and, sadly, supports the contention of University of Illinois at Chicago Political Science Professor Dick Simpson that Los Angeles County is the second most corrupt in the country.

So what chance do we have against a steamroller that intends to crush us?

We believe that there are two forces that are more powerful even than rogue agencies of the State of California and County of Los Angeles:

·         The People of the County of Los Angeles, the State of California, the United States of America and even the world. Our plight is being recognized across the nation and in ten other countries. We are confident that public opinion can overpower this injustice, just as it has in other fights for the fair treatment of the citizens of America as well as in other countries.

·         Dedicated, honest members of the Government of our state and county, wherever they may be.

We await your awakening and action.

Which One is Different?

Take a look at these photographs, all taken along the same stretch of railroad, between Canyon Country and Acton, California. One of them is different from all the others. Can you tell which one is unlike all the rest?

Did you guess that photograph No. 3 is the different one? 

Yes! Photograph No. 3 shows a railroad crossing so dangerous that residents of the neighborhood it has served for almost a century are no longer allowed to cross there.

The others are okay.

I say this tongue in cheek. There has not been a single crossing accident at site No. 3 except for a woman on foot who tried to stop a freight train fifty years ago. You may have found it confusing that all the crossings are at-grade, and are regulated by stop signs. You may have been confused that one of the crossings boasts two tracks, or that some are paved and some are not; but the different one, the dangerous one, the one that fits with the unacknowledged schemes of our public officials, is ours.

        Did you notice that it is no more dangerous than the other crossings?

Actually, Federal studies of railroad crossings have found that the chance of an accident at crossings such as these is insignificant. The real crossing danger occurs at industrial sites.

In the process of "looking out for us," railroad officials created a barrier against our access to the world, which did not please us, but certainly pleased some other people who were simultaneously receiving a piece of land from Los Angeles County at our only other access point.

It will be interesting to discover just how our properties will enrich a bunch of people who don’t need to be any richer. We do not have a problem with them enriching themselves on the many hundreds of acres that have lain unoccupied for generations, but there is something about our living here, our being able to have legal access to the world, our being able to build on our own property, our being able to sell our property for what it is worth, that just gets under the skin of those acquisitive individuals.

The railroad, by the way, is intimately connected to Los Angeles County. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors sits on the Metrolink board as well.

But what do the railroad guys get out of this? What do the Supervisors get out of this? What sort of person can face himself and his family when he selectively isolates one neighborhood and lets the others go, just because that one neighborhood is vulnerable to the bullying of public officials? How does that happen, that an entire organization is silenced?

Meantime, other public officials and other powerful members of our larger community stand by, just like the teachers and administrators who stand by and permit bullying on the playgrounds and in the halls of their schools. If you hate bullying, here is a classic example. If you are not powerful enough to intervene you can at least express your disapproval by spreading the word about this blog and our issue. Many already have and we do thank you for your moral support and assistance.

Wouldn’t it be cool if just one big railroad official, just one, stood up and said “Wait, this is wrong, and I am not going to compromise my own ethics to enrich some other guy.”?

We need your help to reach that one person.

BIWT

“Because I wanted to.”

In my family, that is one of the most common answers to the question:

“Why did you do that?”

“Because I wanted to.”

Here we are, legally landlocked. Our little neighborhood is cut off through the actions of the very people you’d expect to be devoted to preserving our lives, not ruining them. Why have the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, California Department of Fish and Game, and Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy blocked our community’s legal access to the world, while our own Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich stands by pronouncing that there is nothing he can do? They are not telling—not in a believable way. But we know.

Why are the people who run Metrolink, Fish and Game, and the conservancy working together to render our property worthless?

Because they want to.

The explanation that my own two little girls have given me over the years, and sometimes even my own grown up wife—“Because I wanted to”—really says it all. My girls’ explanation is a non-explanation, but is really the only true one. “Because I wanted to,” augmented by an examination into just what she gets out of her actions, tells more than she wants to admit. It tells that her bottom-line motivation is selfishness.

And don’t give me that hogwash that every action is at bottom selfish, or that we do good just to make our own selves feel good. That may be—very trivially—true; but there is such a thing as good and evil. You know it, I know it, my girls know it, even Michael Antonovich, the SCRRA, Fish and Game—and even Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy knows it!

It’s just that they calculate to gain more out of selfishness than they stand to lose feeling crappy about themselves. We don’t know what they calculate to gain. They won’t say, but it must be of more value to them than right action.

Personally I hope I am a healthier human being than that. And I imagine that I am in that regard much closer to average than public officials are. The degree of crappy I would feel for ruining the property values of a dozen families is much greater than almost any monetary gain.

Do you wonder where you stand between selfish gain and right action? Aren't you just a little tempted to dash off an email or note to Michael Antonovich or your favorite legislator or the newspaper, or us?

There is another non-explanation for dirty behavior: “Because I can.”

Who says, “Because I can”? A wise-ass. Someone with no regard for the feelings of others and the consequences of his actions, right?

Why would Metrolink close our railroad crossing and leave others open? Why would Fish and Game allow culverts all along the Santa Clara River, and even assist a movie company to install one near our old crossing, but prohibit us from crossing? Why would Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy quietly acquire property at the end of our only other access route and refuse us an easement through it? Why?

Because they can.

Communism in Soledad Canyon?

Let’s assume for a moment that the government agencies responsible for cutting Briggs Road off from the world actually mean to perform a kindness. We will do our best to suspend our incredulity and try to figure out why the folks in charge might imagine they are doing good deeds.

First, consider the California Department of Fish and Game. Maybe they really do care about the stickleback in the river, but these guys are a tough one to figure out. If they really were holding a bunch of fish in higher esteem than human beings, then we might consider them rabid Democrats, or even Tree Huggers and roll our eyes. But actually they hold film-makers in higher esteem than the fish. That’s right; they allow film-makers to cross the river but not us. One might argue at this point that they are actually callous Republicans, but then what about the fish? Real Republicans would not value fish more than people, even if they did consider human beings inconsequential next to their businesses.

I cannot justify even a stupid altruistic motive for Fish and Game. Something is fishy here.

Second, take a sympathetic look at the Southern California Regional Rail Authority. Suppose the only notion working here is that the people in charge just want to close all those “dangerous” crossings. Let’s even give them that it is possible for someone to be so single-minded that they miss the fact that many dozens of other at-grade crossings, far more dangerous than ours, remain open.

In the years after World War II psychologists concerned themselves with the psychological mechanism that allowed everyday people to become monsters. Social scientists developed a measurement they called the f-scale, where the “f” stood for fascist. A compulsive rule-follower rated high on the f-scale, and had a high potential for authoritarian abuses. If there is a better altruistic explanation I hope someone will send it to us via comment, but right now the best we can figure is we are dealing with some kind of Railroad-Crossing Nazi, of a mind-set similar to Seinfeld’s Soup-Nazi. But though the actions of railroad officials are damaging our property values and quality of life, they are not necessarily working to oust us from our homes. At least that is not their prime objective.

It is the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy that appears bent on turning our region, including our own private property, into a park-like area dedicated to animals and the public. I am all for parks, but wonder why it is necessary for every acre, every home to be sacrificed to the State of California. When private land is taken over without fair compensation by the government, isn’t that what we call Communism?

Americans have not taken to Communism because they do not want what is happening to the Briggs Road community to happen to them—and who could blame them? But if our property is being devalued, and it is, without the compensation guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment (Eminent Domain), with the intent of takeover by the State, what else can you call it but Communism?

Beyond the evils of sacrifice of property, Communism seems to be fertile ground for dictatorship and corruption. This is all the more reason that Americans feared it so, and why it has fallen in so many countries. It might be interesting to see whether our home-grown communists show similar tendencies. That’s a homework assignment for you.

We wish Mr. Antonovich would make this ethical cause a priority, but he seems somehow comfortable with the way things are going and we wonder why.

Does it worry you that this communistic turn of mind might spread to distress your life? It should worry you. The spread of Communism used to be a major concern of this country, until it finally collapsed of its own ineffectiveness and U.S. resistance.

We don’t have time to wait for that to happen here.

After You've Gone

I was brought up by agnostics—at least that is what my parents wanted to believe that they were. I believe that they were a lot closer to atheism than agnosticism. But they did send me to Sunday School, and went on a couple of brief church-attending binges themselves. My stepmother would encourage me to believe in something bigger than myself, whatever that meant, but I was not prepared to worship a railroad locomotive.

I asked her once about afterlife. I was about twelve. She said that people lived on in the memories of those who survived them. A person’s reputation, her influence on the world, was her legacy and her afterlife. I found that unsatisfying.

However, I would move Heaven and Earth, if I could, to avoid an afterlife like Richard Nixon’s. Apparently my mother’s teaching stuck. It matters very much what sort of reputation I leave behind. The world is full of people who do not believe it matters. In death, the world does not respect their memories.

Mathematicians and physicists have satisfied themselves that reality consists of ten dimensions, not four. That is reason enough for me to suspect that there is more to this business of living than meets our worldly eye. We read the accounts of people who have experienced near-death, and some of them write of a truly horrifying afterlife of, for example, existing forever alone in a blank gray hall. Do we believe it? I don’t know, but if there is an after-life, I want to spend it in a happier place than that.

My own experiences have turned me into a believer of sorts. Too much really compelling stuff has happened to me for me to dismiss.

But I don’t believe we are to do the right thing out of fear of eternal punishment, nor out of expectation of some everlasting treat. We are to do right out of love for right action.

What does all this have to do with Briggs Road? I think you know. I try not to imagine torment in store for our persecutors, but their pleasure is most implausible.  They may expect extinction, and they may get it.

But I am not really concerned with the afterlife of people who damage the lives of others. There is nothing I or anyone else can possibly say to turn them from their worldly pursuits. The person I am hoping to inspire is you, and all I dare allow myself to anticipate are the tiniest of actions.

1. Spread the word about this blog.

2. Leave a comment at this blog, especially if you have encouragement or information.

There are much more significant things you can do, though these involve more effort. You could, for example, write to any government official on whose role you wish to comment or of whom you wish to urge action.

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Martin Niemöller 1892-1984

Not Corrupt!

The other day I typed “Los Angeles Second Most…” into Google, and Google, as is Google’s wont, finished my sentence for me.

Now Los Angeles might well be the second most populous, the second most affluent. Los Angeles has the second largest school district. Perhaps LA County is the second most prone to earthquake. 

No! Google says that the Los Angeles area is the second most…CORRUPT!

Ours has been named the second most corrupt area in the country, second only to Chicago.

Actually Google didn’t say that; University of Illinois at Chicago Political Science professor Dick Simpson and colleagues released a report that said so, back in February of 2012. The fallout continues twenty-one months later. Google presented me with hundreds of articles on the subject, far more than I choose to count. Some articles call out the City of Los Angeles, others the county of Los Angeles, and still others seem to indict practically all of southern California.

Is that true?! Well, then, no wonder honest public officials are not beating a path to our neighborhood. Could it be that there aren’t any straight-arrows in office?

I do not want to believe it! I do not want to believe that Michael D. Antonovich is out to collect all the loot he can. I do not want to believe that he is scheming to displace neighborhoods just to put his name up all over the region as a creator of green space.

I want to believe that the California Department of Fish and Game, Oasis Park, Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCRRA) just happened to close off our passage in the same year, just by coincidence. See, if I can believe that, then I can believe that they are compassionate and reasonable people, who, as soon as they realize the great inconvenience and losses they have caused, will act immediately to restore our right-of-way.

So NO! Don’t say CORRUPT, because then I can never convince any of them to move to the side of justice, no matter how carefully I write! If corruption was their motivation, then I would have to be fearful of my own government representatives.

Please somebody convince me that nobody has done squat to open our historical access to the world only because somebody made a mistake, somebody didn’t know, somebody is working on it.

Well, here, this feels good: Norm Hickling, deputy to Michael D. Antonovich, is working on it. Norm has been working on it for nine long years; but oh dear, Norm has not found a single correctible mistake.

Well, thanks for trying.

Here, let me try a logical argument on the railroad. Norm says the railroad is key.

A US Department of Transportation Secretary’s Action Plan (May 2004) advocates closure or consolidation of unneeded railroad crossings.  The emphasis is on “redundant” and/or “particularly hazardous crossings.”  The crossing in question is neither.  The report suggests closures “with no other adjustments to the road network,” or, “in other cases short extensions of access roads.”  Neither is the case for this closure.

 In 1994, the report states, there were 110,000 private highway-rail crossings, and “most private crossing accidents occur at industrial/business crossings.”  According to information in the report, the probability of an accidental death in any one year at a rural crossing is miniscule.   

In a logical discussion, then, we would assure SCRRA officials that we understood their desire to comply with that action plan, but that our crossing was not unneeded, not redundant, and not particularly hazardous. We need it, there is no other crossing we can use, and the crossing has been accident free since anybody can remember, except (to be fair) for one lady on foot who attempted to flag down a freight train fifty years ago.

The railroad guys say, “We have looked at that crossing and the curves are so tight you can’t see very far.”

Then we say, “And yet there have been no accidents. You see,” we say, “in the canyons, trains are forced to travel at a very slow rate, and the chance of an accident is correspondingly reduced. We may not be able to see far down the line, but we have more than enough time to see the train coming.”

And the railroad guys say, “Hmm. We see your point. It still makes us nervous, though.”

And we say, in the spirit of compromise, “Maybe there is a way to put up a flashing light. Would you like a flashing light?”

But apparently the railroad guys don’t want to talk to us. Michael D. Antonovich, who sits on the rail authority board, could, in light of the argument above, be extremely persuasive. We are beginning to face up to the fact that he will not do that, and we will need someone to persuade him.

But we still hold out hope. So don’t tell us anyone is beyond reach. Don’t tell us any of these people are corrupt!

Come Save the Day!

I just hung up from an ominous and very scary phone call. As a result I am setting aside the post I just finished writing and starting anew.

The whole thing puts me in mind of a story from my past. When I was thirteen and fourteen back in New Jersey I had a cute little girlfriend named Linda. I was aware that she had a former boyfriend from a nearby town known to be the home of tough guys, but I didn’t worry about that. Well, maybe I worried a little bit.

One day two guys from that town somehow accompanied Linda and me into my very home. My parents were not home. Stupidly unafraid, I probably invited them in. One of the guys went off to talk to Linda, and the other, bigger and older than I, sidled me off to our living room.

“Stay away from Linda,” he warned. “If you see Linda any more I am going to knock all your teeth down your throat.” Those who know me know that I remember the words of others quite well, and these were words to remember.

I am not a fighter. I am easy meat for anybody that wants to beat me up. So what did I do? I kept seeing Linda. I did break up with her a couple of years later, but for reasons that had nothing to do with those tough guys, whom I never saw again.

Now I find myself really afraid of some really tough guys. That phone call was scary.

But I think I’ll keep seeing Linda.

I realize that Michael D. Antonovich can pull some really mean dirty tricks on me if he chooses to. Well, hell, cutting us off from our homes was a pretty dirty trick, wasn’t it? I can’t say Michael Antonovich was directly involved in that, but I definitely believe that his influence has been far more negative than positive, as far as my family’s and neighbors’ quality of life is concerned. I have been told by many people that he is very likely behind much of the loss of our access. That phone call this morning put fear in me, but it also convinced me again that powerful, self-interested officials of Los Angeles County and the State of California are well-equipped to strip us of everything.

So why am I back? Because I know the difference between right and wrong, and I know that if I stop seeing Linda just because a hoodlum from the next town told me so, I will still lose everything, plus my self-respect. I was minding my business, teaching mathematics to the youngsters of our county, when all of this started in 2004. I did absolutely nothing to bring this on myself, and nor did any of my neighbors. So, despite your phone call, and you know who you are, I intend to continue seeking wide-spread public support for our cause, because that is our only salvation.

But no, of course I will not divulge the name of the caller. I’m not stupid.

I’m just an old guy who can’t fight, and surely those who did our neighborhood wrong are fully aware of how powerless we are. Our only hope is that someone who can fight, someone who is tougher and meaner than Michael D. Antonovich and certain officials of the State of California—or at least can’t be destroyed by them—will step forward and open up our access to our homes.

Our hero doesn’t have to be meaner, although the people trying to ruin our real estate values may think she or he is, for taking away their spoils. But I would prefer to be championed by someone nicer.

I am put in mind of my father, who never took my side against bullies. He believed that though I was younger and smaller and outnumbered, I should go back to that playground and get my basketball back. Okay, we are not looking for that kind of father. We are looking for someone who gets it, and who sees the need to assist innocent, unassuming folk such as me, my family, and my community.

Mighty Mouse, where are you?

A Gallery of Rogues

This is a summary of the role of each of several agencies complicit in the legal isolation of the Briggs Road community.

There are two routes from black top to our community. To landlock us, it was necessary to close both. The historical access started at Soledad Canyon Road, crossed the Santa Clara River over a pair of culverts, ran through Oasis Park on existing park roads, crossed the Southern Pacific Railroad (now used by Southern California Regional Rail Authority, i.e. Metrolink) on a paved at-grade crossing, and continued on dirt road to our neighborhood. 

The “Back Way” is on Southern California Edison’s easement road. It starts at Agua Dulce Canyon Road, crosses a small piece of property owned by Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, an agency created decades ago by the California Legislature, and continues on for five or six (depending on where one lives) miles over a miserable dirt road.

• ·         Rancho Agua Dulce LLC, new owners of Oasis Park, began the nightmare by blocking Briggs Road residents one day in August, 2004. Paul Novak, deputy for Los Angeles Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, appeared to save the day and managed to get the route open.
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• ·         That December, a flood wiped out the culvert in the Santa Clara River—not a rare occurrence. The owners of Oasis Park refused to allow residents to repair the bridge, and so we began to use the back way. Meantime, on behalf of the Briggs Road community, the title insurance companies took Oasis Park to court for a legal easement, and after a lengthy battle, won an Easement by Necessity in court. 
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• ·         However, by now the California Department of Fish and Game had decided that even if Oasis Park had to allow residents through, they were prohibiting replacement of the culvert, on the grounds that they were protecting an endangered species of fish, a subspecies of stickleback trout that lives only in the Santa Clara River. Other abuses, up and down the river, were ignored by Fish and Game. As far as we know, only the residents of Briggs Road were forbidden to cross the river. And…
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• ·         Just to make sure, Metrolink also barred use of the long-existing crossing, threatening handcuffs and jail. Dozens of other crossings remain open.
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• ·         The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy bought the last bit of acreage through which the back way crossed. It was a tax sale, but the County of Los Angeles somehow failed to notify the community of their chance to prevent themselves from being sealed off. When approached by the title companies to negotiate legal passage for Briggs Road residents, Conservancy representatives became abusive and refused even to consider accepting payment of some $700,000 for an easement.
  The Conservancy vowed that there would be no building permits issued in the area, easily enforced because no landowner could claim legal access to his or her property.
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• ·         All this time Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy was buying up properties as owners gave up on ever building their dream homes or just enjoying owning a piece of bare California land.
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• ·         The City of Santa Clarita also began buying properties, as the County of Los Angeles assisted with funding. Possibly embarrassed by the placement of Stevenson Ranch, a tract of homes just west of their western boundary, Santa Clarita may be intent on avoiding a similar humiliation to the east.
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• ·         Norm Hickling, deputy for Michael Antonovich, has been acting as go-between and some-time advocate, though it is increasingly apparent that the word “acting” is the most appropriate. Observers with experience of the man assert that Mr. Hickling is motivated only by the wishes of Mr. Antonovich, and we can be assured he has little intention of assisting this community.
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• ·         Further, again based on anecdotal reports from those who have seen him work in other contexts, Mr. Antonovich is widely believed to be working solely for his own benefit, and depends on Mr. Hickling to intercept any mud tossed his way. All we know about any of this is that in almost ten years Mr. Antonovich’s office has accomplished no visible progress in opening the Metrolink crossing, despite his position on the board of same. Nor has he or anyone in his employ made any headway in re-establishing the river crossing. Not to mention the back way.

So that’s the cast of characters, as best we know. If you go back into past postings, you can find more fleshed-out stories for most of these. There are a couple of stories yet to bring out.

If this were a bank robbery or some kind of street crime, and only one of these outfits held a gun and pulled the trigger, all would be charged with the offense. We learned that in high school. Readers have emailed their concern that a focus on one of the perpetrators of our nightmare might be letting others off the hook. No, every single member of the list above is an eager participant, should be regarded as such, and thus held responsible for the part it plays in this heartless collusion. A posting can expand on only one of them at a time.

It is amazing that among all these complicit participants, not one single person has had the guts or the simple decency to stand up for what is right. But I have yet to meet anyone outside of this issue who is not horrified by the actions of these Southern California public offices. I dare not begin to express the disdain of the larger community for those people.

Just as reprehensible, not one representative of any of those agencies has had the common courtesy to come forward and attempt to justify the actions of his or her office. Perhaps they realize that if they did so, the world would soon discover that their arguments are specious and absurd. We can only interpret their silence as voluntary participation in a self-serving scheme.

We would like to find one, even just one California public official with a sense of ethics evolved enough to support our righteous cause.

Do you know one?

No Guts No Easement

If you go to the State of California Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy webpage, you will read there that “Through direct action, alliances, partnerships, and joint powers authorities, the Conservancy's mission is to strategically buy back, preserve, protect, restore, and enhance treasured pieces of Southern California to form an interlinking system of urban, rural and river parks, open space, trails, and wildlife habitats that are easily accessible to the general public.”

Their mission is to cooperate with other public agencies to secure land. There is nothing in there that says they will do it ethically, or even legally. It does not say that private ownership of land will be in any way respected. Yes, they could buy land back—from a huge, powerful organization—but there are other ways to push out the little people.

Early on in the course of our community being cut off from the world, a Los Angeles County official assured us that eminent domain was not part of the plan. We were comforted. Little did we know that this official was telling us that the spirit of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was to be violated, that we would receive nothing for the loss of our property values, that we were to be besieged by the State of California until we gave up our property for nothing, because we would eventually give up paying our taxes for land we could not use. The Conservancy would buy our land back in a tax sale.

A friend told me recently to be careful, that the agencies cutting off this neighborhood’s legal access to the world were run by powerful, dangerous people.

Really? What might they do? Ruin my property values? Physically close off the only reasonable route to black top, a route that has been successfully acquired legally twice? Force me and my family to traverse five and a half miles of a rough and treacherous dirt road going out from and coming in to our property?

Should I worry that these dangerous people have worse tricks to perpetrate? I can only hope that, if I am taken out of the picture, another will take my place. The first time our easement was won in court was by folks of our parents’ generation. Our generation has won it, but only to be cut off by other means that some find very suspicious. Our children, and others of their generation, appear to be stepping forward.

Am I in some sort of danger? Surely there is a lot more bad stuff “they” could do. Maybe if "they" do something bad enough it will actually motivate a public official with competence and a conscience to actually do the right thing. But let’s hope that no more damage than we have already suffered is necessary.

Anyway, it makes you wonder: who else, besides the inhabitants of the Briggs Road community, might fear the actions of our besiegers?

Their mission statement does say that the State of California Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy works “Through direct action, alliances, partnerships, and joint powers authorities.”

Could it be that Michael D. Antonovich and his deputies, good men all, have been muscled into a very uncomfortable position by the much more powerful State of California? They have a lot to lose. I don’t know for sure, but I’ll bet anything that they still have access to their own front doors. What if they and their families had to drive a horrific dirt road in and out every day? That thought would be enough to frighten anybody. It sure upset us, anyway. And those guys have even more to lose.

Previously I argued that intelligence stood on the tripod of brains, heart, and courage. I claimed that it was not courage that was lacking in our besiegers. But could Mr. Antonovich and his deputies be motivated by fear? Is guts the missing component of character? Guts to turn around and tell California that “this is wrong and I’m not having any part of it?”

Of course none of us have any idea, but we do have a hard time accepting the possibility that Mr. Antonovich and his deputies are as humanly limited as all of this is making them appear. But maybe? Who knows? Anyway Occam’s razor suggests that it is highly unlikely that all of those people are motivated to strangle a neighborhood .

When the truth is withheld, as it is here, all sorts of theories spring up. Anything is believable. It’s only human nature. By not openly and honestly defending their actions, the City of Santa Clarita, the County of Los Angeles as represented by Mr. Antonovich, and the Conservancies run by the State of California all indicate that they have little confidence that their motives could stand public scrutiny.

On the other hand, if the City of Santa Clarita is really only about green space, and is willing to trash the property values of eleven families as collateral damage, then let that be acknowledged—and please, let there be one, just one public official with a conscience stand up and say, “But that is wrong.” My personal favorite is to see Norm Hickling turn into a hero. I hear from various sources that I should give up that hope, but I can still dream.

Similarly, if the State of California is really concerned with the well-being of all animals (except the human animal), and is willing to wreck the finances of eleven families as collateral damage, despite the laws of the land and common decency, then let them openly say so—and please, let there be one, just one national magazine or media outlet that has the guts and conscience to stand up and say, “This is not right.”

If anyone knows what altruistic goal Mr. Antonovich might be pursuing in so weakly pretending to defend this community, please tell someone.

If you don’t see another post here in a few days, call the cops. If they won’t do anything, come looking for me.