Being Reasonable

Within the last several days a few people have commented on my restraint in this blog and in my online radio interview with Jeff Rense. One, Mr. Rense, complimented me on it, while others may have wished I would be more forceful. I am sure there are many with an opinion one way or the other, and since I have been wanting for some time to talk about it, this seems to be the right time. I’ll get back to Mr. Novak’s email in another post.

Every morning I wake up saying to myself, “What if they actually mean no harm? What if they have a perfectly honorable agenda and we are unavoidable collateral damage?”

I want to believe that the people running Los Angeles County, the California Department of Fish and Game, Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (or Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority—take your pick), and Metrolink (aka Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCCRA) and aka Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA)) are all decent and empathic people who are horrified at the thought of hurting their subjects. Maybe they are doing the very best they can to unravel our access problem. Maybe two of the organizations just simply cannot open up our access, for whatever legal or idealistic reasons, and expected the other two would be more open minded. I want to believe that the decision makers in these agencies are ethical and caring, but stuck in some kind of principled dilemma.

I said I wanted to believe that. I did not say I did believe it. I mean, for our legal access to be shut down by four separate entities all in the same brief time span? What, they just accidentally happened to be on the same schedule?

But I do want to leave the door open to the possibility that this is all a sad, decade-long misunderstanding. Because if it is, and I come on like gangbusters, it will be as hard for Messrs. Antonovich and Hickling, Fish and Game, Metrolink and the Conservancy to back off honorably as it was for Johnson to quit Vietnam.

Also, if it should be the case that those folks have been carelessly wrong-hearted, I would like it to be as easy as possible for them to have a change of heart. Being screamed at does not make it easy to give in to the screamer.

And, finally, just in case all these players are in it for their own gain, whether egotistical, dogmatic or financial, the world will know. And the world will recognize our tone as reasonable and their actions as unconscionable.

Works for us.

By the way, speaking of numbers, I stated a month ago that we were dedicated to assisting Michael Antonovich in case he was engaged in a quest for fame. This blog had enjoyed some three thousand pageviews and was perused around the world in ten different countries. I will not list the countries this time, because there are more than twenty-five of them, and our pageviews have almost doubled. I’d give a number, but it is changing too fast. 

Not bad considering that we started all this only last November.

And I just want to say, in case our international readers get the wrong idea, that this is not an example of American democracy in action. The five incumbents on the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors are known as the “five little kings.” Each one “represents” a couple million people and is so difficult to unseat by election that they are now subject to term limitations. The head of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (why do these organizations have so many aliases?) is also beyond the reach of the people and never has to stand for election. 

This is not how America properly works. The America we love and take pride in has a system of checks and balances that are meant to prevent this sort of bullying, a system of laws—which by the way prohibit actions like those taken against us—and elections. Some people’s human nature leads them to seek and exert unreasonable power over their fellow citizens, but please understand: this is not the American way. Nobody’s perfect.

Just OPEN (RATTLE) THIS FREAKIN’ (RATTLE RATTLE) GATE!!! RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE.

There. Is that better?

A Misleading Email

In September 2004, the month after Briggs Road residents were closed out of their homes by a private LLC landowner, one of our neighbors received an email reply to the question, “As the County did issue… Certificates of Compliance, doesn’t some right of access exist to the property owners?”

The reply appears to be replete with errors, which is surprising because it came from one of Michael D. Antonovich’s deputies, Paul Novak, who was Planning Director for the County of Los Angeles at the time.

Our copy of the email is barely legible. In the belief that our access difficulties would be short-lived, we did not retain digital copies of the email. All we have is this copy of a scan of the printout of the original.

Sorry. Perhaps it would be helpful to retype a portion.

Subj:      RE: Agua Dulce Homeowners

Date:     9/17/2004  9:20:38 AM Pacific Daylight Time

From:    PNovak@bos.co.la.ca.us

…

CC:       NHickling@bos.co.la.ca.us, …

One thing to bear in mind about the certificates of compliance is that they do not “confer” access. The certificates merely reflect a County determination that the property in question is a legal lot consistent with the State of California Subdivision Map Act (SMA). A legal lot does not necessarily have access—regrettably, there are many lots in the County and in other jurisdictions that do not have legal access.

I have read the 100 plus pages of the Subdivision Map Act of California, and I could find nothing that required a lot to have access for its map to be accepted as legal. What is required, though, is that the parcel meet the requirements of the county.

Specifically, “Section 66411: Each local agency shall, by ordinance, regulate and control the initial design and improvement of…subdivisions for which this division requires a tentative and final or parcel map.”

And from the LA County Regional Planning website: “Major issues involved in the evaluation of proposed tract maps include: … Availability of adequate access… to serve the proposed development.”

Item 6, on the County’s Land Division Application Checklist is “Affidavit of Easements.”

Do you believe that a five-and-a-half mile long course of torture by automobile, open only at the whim of an eccentric state agency, constitutes “adequate access”? It will not take many trips over that bone-jarring track to convince you that it is not at all adequate.

If you don’t have adequate access, you don’t get map approval. Isn’t that the clear implication?

But let’s back up a bit, cut the bad guys some slack, and re-examine what Regional Planning says on the web page:  Adequate access is a major issue involved in the evaluation of proposed tract maps. Those are the exact words, reorganized a bit, cut and pasted from the very website.

Is it possible that Mr. Novak meant that adequate access is a major consideration in the approval of a map, but is not an ironclad requirement? I have been working on this particular post for a very long time and do not want to mess it up with a sloppy interpretation, so let’s be super accurate and give Mr. Novak the benefit of the doubt.

       The best I could find in the LA County Code was: 

21.48.100 Access to property.

The advisory agency may require as a condition of approval of a tentative minor land division map that the subdivider produce evidence that the property as divided will have access to a public street or highway.       

It says “may,” but I am assured by folks in the business that they actually always do require access.

So, sure, if you want to split hairs and be a bit of an ass about it, the Subdivision Map Act doesn’t confer access, but in conjunction with Los Angeles County ordinance and actual practice, it requires access. What’s the difference? It looks like having a legal map comprises a pretty strong affirmation of access.

And you need map approval to get permission to pay for a Certificate of Compliance, and you need that for a building permit. And the houses up here—the newer ones anyway—have building permits.

So okay, maybe Mr. Novak made a mistake. Director of Planning but, you know, to err is human. And maybe, to use his words, there are, regrettably, many lots in the County and in other jurisdictions that do not have legal access.

Briggs Road is a County easement. Long ago, when establishing that easement, the County left off the parcels at the ends of the road where it meets the blacktop—most likely as a strategy to avoid taking any responsibility for grading or maintenance. And the fact-checkers should have discovered that—if they really did any checking at all. That could explain a mistake.

Regional Planning expressly considers adequate access a major issue, apparently a very high priority. The Director said that lack of adequate access is regrettable. Somehow the County failed, for whatever reason, to ensure that many lots would have adequate access. Regrettably.

But what are we to make, then, of the fact that our adequate access is cut off by public agencies?  Worse yet, what are we to make of the fact that sitting on the board of the most intractable public agency cutting us off from the world, Metrolink, is Mr. Novak’s boss, Michael. D Antonovich?

And even worse, that obstacle was created after we (and Mr. Hickling) received Mr. Novak’s email.

And Fish and Game slammed the river shut after we received Mr. Novak’s email.

And LOS ANGELES COUNTY sold the parcel at the other end of our road for a PITTANCE to the Mountains Conservancy, a CALIFORNIA agency, after we (and Mr. Hickling) received Mr. Novak’s email.

That is regrettable.

What part of this was a mistake?

Or do you have a better theory? What do you think? Write us a comment.

I will take up with Mr. Novak’s email again in the next post.