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