The Railroad Crossing, The Barricade, The River, and The Conservancy

When I wrote “Yay for LA County,” I meant "Yay" for LA County. I did not mean “Yay” for Briggs Road.

Los Angeles County officials did accomplish something difficult. I complimented and thanked them for it. Then I laid low for a while, reluctant to spoil the moment.

The difficult thing that the County of Los Angeles pulled off was to reverse an unjust policy that had stood for ten years, while saving face and allowing it to look like that accomplishment was a win for the Briggs Road community. Legitimizing the railroad crossing was not difficult. It was easy.

Friends write and ask, “Is it over at last?” No, my friends, you must read very carefully. It is not over. We could well be just the butt of a cruel joke. A month ago we were a railroad crossing, a private parcel, a river, and a piece of state land away from the legal access that even Norm Hickling says he believes is right.

Now we are a private parcel, a river, and a piece of state land away from that legal access.

We are just ten feet closer. Though legally permitted to cross the next private parcel, we are physically barred from it by a barricade we dare not touch. When we ask Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich’s deputy, Norm Hickling, to enforce its proper removal, he changes the subject. And the barricade is still there. What a token of good faith, of truth, it would show us if that barricade were to be caused to be moved! It’s illegal, right now! Norm talks of future adjustments of our easement, but right now, now, that barricade should not be there. What is the message given by its continued existence?

We are just ten feet closer to Soledad Canyon Road. We still have to cross the Santa Clara River. Los Angeles County officials can wring their hands and plead that the river crossing is up to the State of California, but all LA County has to do is say to the State of California, “Move your arm, honey, and snuggle up closer.”

The Mighty Santa Clara River

First of all, there is extreme variability in levels of enforcement regarding disturbances of that delicate river. Stay in touch, because we’ve got some doozies for you.

Second, the State of California and the County of Los Angeles are intricately interconnected in this matter. Forgive me, but it reminds me of two malignant cancers intertwining, with disastrous consequences for the host. We have a lot for you about that, too. (If I were a conscientious office-holder in either the state or the county, I would be very worried right now that the two cancers will devastate one another. I’d ask a conscientious office-holder, if I could be convinced I had found one. I’d love to be convinced that Norm Hickling is one, but he has to prove himself. We’ve been here before, you see.)

Third, come on! Given all of the above and all the facts about the magnitude of Los Angeles County and the power of her supervisors, do any of us really believe that Los Angeles County officials have no influence over the crossing of a tiny stream? Heck, even disregarding all of the above, who in their right mind would believe that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife would ignore recommendations from a Los Angeles County Supervisor who represents two million people, in the most populous county in the nation?

Yes, now we are only ten feet closer. And at the other end of that torturous dirt track, we must pass through a parcel of land that was deeded over from Los Angeles County to another state agency for—not even a song—a gesture! More on that, too.

Beautiful, huh? Could you blame someone for wanting to steal it?

            This is going to get interesting. This current post is just the barest of outlines of things to come.

The railroad crossing is legitimized. Now for the private parcel, the river, and the state parcel.

So tell your friends to tune in and read these next blog posts. And, if you are new to this blog, please understand that this is a running story. You need to read all of it from the beginning in order to fully understand the history and the issues.

Thank you to all of you who are following: in the county, in the nation, and around the world! 

More on the Peculiar Email

In the study of logic two statements are said to be logically equivalent if they are both true (or both false) under the same set of circumstances. And if one statement is the contrapositive of the other, then the two statements are logically equivalent. In symbolic terms, the statements “If A then B” and “If not B then not A” are contrapositives.

Let me give you an example from real life. The statements “If you are granted a building permit then you must have legal access” and “If you do not have legal access you will not be granted a building permit” are contrapositives. Therefore the two statements are logically equivalent.

Our legal research assures us that Los Angeles County has the right to deny a Certificate of Compliance, and thus a building permit, for a plot of land that does not have legal access. We have called the county offices, without identifying ourselves, and been assured that absolutely no Certificate of Compliance will be issued without legal access.

Any office that issued a building permit for any parcel along Briggs Road must have believed that Briggs Road had legal access.

Mr. Novak says, in that peculiar email: “One point about access that is important to bear in mind:  according to Building & Safety records the property-owners you represent have “official” access off the back (other) road, the one that is essentially impassable. Our building officials checked the records, and all of the owners pulled their permits identifying the other road as their access.”

You see, in order to be logically consistent, he had to say that. Otherwise there is a big problem about having issued all those building permits. But in order to say that, he had to say something else that was even more untrue, and imply yet another untruth after that.

Whatever kind of access Mr. Novak imagined the Department of Building and Safety imagined the property owners had, and whatever the word in quotes “official” is supposed to mean, the Briggs Road community does not have legal access out the back way. We have very tentative physical access, but have been informed rather abusively that our access is not legal.

So whose mistake is that? Building and Safety when they approved the permits? The alleged researchers at Building and Safety when they informed Mr. Novak that we had access the back way? Or could this all have been a convenient fabrication?

And, again my question: suppose all of this is simply a web of unfortunate but innocent errors. This email was sent less than a month after the first closure of our access. Mr. Novak is gone now, but why would the County of Los Angeles perpetuate the error and even compound it with other obstacles?

But wait! There’s more!

Mr. Novak admits that the back way is “essentially impassable.”

WHAT ABOUT THE FIRE DEPARTMENT?! The Fire Department would never ever ever sign off on an access road that was “impassable.” In fact, their requirements are very explicit and quite strict—and the back way fails because there are many hairpin turns, many grades are too slippery and steep, and the road is too narrow almost the entire way. 

And you don’t get a Certificate of Compliance without the Fire Department.

There is NO WAY our neighborhood acquired building permits based on the back way. In reality, one of our first neighbors to successfully land a building permit remembers very specifically riding back and forth with a fire department official over the front, traditional route. That official declared our front access adequate for fire protection and it was on the basis of his approval that subsequent Certificates of Compliance were issued. There was none of this nonsense about the back way being official. It was probably never even mentioned.

So we are the victims of a big shift in policy, it would seem, but with no explanation, no redress, no compensation. How can one explain that? I wrote a poem:

L is for the land that we have learned to love so well,

I is for our isolation,

A is for the access that we crave, legally implied, and

R is for the railroad and riparian crossings in our way.

***

I hope you are all reading the many comments we are receiving. Apparently there are a lot of people out there with knowledge and experience and ideas that surpass our own. And I have to say this: if the officials of Los Angeles County and the State of California are ever able to stand up and admit that a wrong has been done and to actually correct it, I, for one, want to be one of the first to acknowledge their courage and conscience. It must be an extremely difficult thing to do; witness how few in politics are able to concede errors in judgment.

But it would be so much more pleasant to have things go that way than into some of the other outcomes our readers have suggested.