Faith

In reading over the preceding blogpost I worry that it may not have been clear about the true significance of recent events. It sounds too critical of Los Angeles County and the other agencies involved with us in this access battle. I failed to emphasize that our greatest obstacle right now is us. We are full of fear and suspicion and, though a modicum of that is well advised under the circumstances, our anxieties are doing us more harm than good right now.

We are afraid to stand up and take leadership roles. We are afraid to take on the financial burdens for projects that will bring back our property values—restoring our fortunes to an extent far greater than the cost of any road or culvert. We are afraid to let our names be known. We are afraid to act.

Are we a bunch of pussies? I don’t think so, not really. We have good reason to be a little shy about stepping out into the light; but right now we need to put on our sunglasses and step forward.

Throughout the twentieth century our little neighborhood came and went with faith that we had access to our homes, regardless of whether all the i’s were dotted or the t’s were crossed. Perhaps that was foolish. In any event, we can never go back there. We cannot sink into catatonia and ignore the opportunity to put together a new and much stronger access. We cannot pretend that we can get along indefinitely with the residue of the old way of doing things. The handshake, the kindly smile, the benign neglect—gone.

This is where the County of Los Angeles has a significant role to play, one which will bring dignity and honor to every office that contributes. Our community needs encouragement. There is no such thing as lifting oneself up by one’s bootstraps. That’s just an old joke, you know. We, and especially the more timid among us, need a boost of reassurance before we can assertively move on.

We need to be confident that our old permit to cross the railroad tracks of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority has been properly and permanently restored.

We need to be confident that the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority is working in good faith and expeditiously to provide an easement for our neighborhood across lands that they have controlled for only a tiny fraction of the time that the Briggs Road Community has existed. Norm Hickling, deputy to County of Los Angeles Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, assures us that this easement is in the works. Some of us really are from Missouri and need to be shown, willing as we are to believe it.

We need to be confident that the City of Santa Clarita, another relatively recent landowner here, will provide an easement across its land. We have no reason to doubt the city will do that, but what a difference it would make to see it!

We need to be confident that the State of California Department of Fish and Wildlife is working in good faith and expeditiously to permit an affordable crossing over the Santa Clara River. Norm Hickling assures us here, as well, that such is the case. Some of us need to see more concrete results.

Are you impressed by the number of public agencies that once collectively denied us legal access to our homes? And even now are only at the lip-service stage? You should be, and don't doubt that the power of these agencies has made quite an impression on us, for ten unbelievable years.

You see, some of the folks up here are broken. They need faith. We can ask each other to join up and be the first or second to sign this or that agreement about an easement passing near their property or pledge this or that amount of money to build a culvert crossing. But here is a radical proposal. Let’s fix it so that they are last to sign, after the City of Santa Clarita, after the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, after the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, after the State of California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Let’s allow our more timid neighbors to be the holdouts for a change—but not for too long, please.

And, certainly, that may not be necessary. It may take only one or two government agencies to take the lead and actually produce something tangible to jog the more intransigent among us into action.

Taking care of the people is the primary purpose of our government. That is the fact that emboldens me to thank the officials of Los Angeles County for their truly inspiring efforts, and to urge them to redouble those efforts to persuade their fellow agencies to do the right thing—and thereby also stimulate our neighborhood to resume its former brave and proud demeanor.

Many believe that I have a knack for prediction, so let me predict this: the officials of the County of Los Angeles who help create our real access are going to be huge winners in the future. You'll see. I'll explain my thinking in a blogpost to come.

And neighbors, if at any time the mood possesses you, please don’t hesitate to come forward and show those governmental agencies that we are made of stronger stuff than they are.

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.

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?