We’re Not Done!

It looks like things have slowed down. The word according to Norm Hickling, deputy to Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich is that negotiations are moving along at last, that someday soon the Briggs Road Community will be free from the landlocking perpetrated by a private LLC, Los Angeles County, the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.

Whew! What a cast of characters! And to think that all these agencies just happened to deny passage to the residents of our little community all at virtually the same time—supposedly independently of each other!—between 2004 and 2006.

If you are a new reader of this blog, please skim through earlier posts to get a more complete story.

What is happening right now is that a permit for Briggs Road residents to cross the Metrolink tracks was found, after nine years of being lost, somewhere in Los Angeles. Trouble is, the permit was lost for long enough to endanger our court-mandated easement across the LLC Property. If everyone is telling the truth, and the several parties involved are independent of each other and wish to accomplish what they say they wish to accomplish, it really is in the best interest of all involved to unlock this landlocking. Now.

If, on the other hand, this whole issue is as laden with secrecy and malevolence as it would appear, anything is possible. It could well be that the game is being delayed while the obstacles to our access are being reinforced. There remain several ways that our community could be played for fools. Though we are aware of that, we must be very careful with our accusations at this point, for reasons that are easily understood.

Shortly after the errant railroad crossing permit was unearthed, the word came down that Fish and Wildlife was open to the creation of an affordable Arizona crossing of the Santa Clara River, and that Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority was ready to discuss granting an easement across their holdings at the other end of Briggs Road. Also, plans to improve the road out the back way were revived.

That was three months ago. Since then, nothing.  I am not aware of the production of a single document, or even a hand-shaken agreement, that takes us any further with either of the two remaining access blockers: California Fish and Wildlife or Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.

If my intuition is at all valid—and it often is—I just get such a strong sense that something is dirty. I smell dirt. I suspect that if the human beings behind this effort to choke a good neighborhood to death are successful, they will likely finish their lives content in the knowledge that they killed a community for their own profit. I also suspect that their own grandchildren will correctly despise them, as do the offspring of several recently exposed perpetrators of corruption. I would be delighted to be wrong and, as I have said earlier, proud to be one of the first to admit my error and celebrate the great goodness of those I have maligned in my heart.

Until that happens, I am keeping my eyes open.

I wish to make three entreaties of you, dear reader:

1.       Too many have been coddled into complacency by recent assurances that have produced nothing. Please urge your friends to keep up with us, to keep up the communication with us. Please let’s all keep the light on.

2.       If you have connections, if you know of an honest government official or a compassionate member of the media, please put us in touch with each other. We are already developing a surprisingly extensive network, but until something real happens with our access, it is not enough. Yet.

3.       Stay focused and steadfast on this issue. Granted it is a local issue, fought at a local level against local opponents, possibly outside of your sphere of concern. But have you heard of the Broken Window policy that has been so effective in curbing crime? [Not to be confused with the Broken Window Fallacy.] The theory is that if blight as minor as a broken window is left unaddressed, criminals get the idea that more brazen acts will also go unnoticed. Conversely, repairing windows discourages crime. It does work.

We must discourage corruption and victimization by government in the same way. You may feel that our issue does not touch you, that our broken window does not let freezing air into your home. But if you fight in whatever way you can—by writing letters to Governor Brown or Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, or by spreading the word about this blog, or sending us your ideas—you will be joining us in sending the message to all public “servants” that the People will not tolerate mistreatment. And that may well matter a lot to you one day.

One last point. We are seeing more and more allegations about Agenda 21 these days. Agenda 21 is a 300-page document produced twenty years ago by the UN. Its intent is ostensibly to address the ills of the third world, but the Glenn Becks and other reactionary conservatives have chosen to read it as advocating the shoveling of all of us into urban high-rises. I don’t know how many of the Agenda 21 alarmists have actually read the thing, but I don’t share Glenn Beck’s vision.

Anyway it doesn’t matter. Our local problem may or may not be related to this strange and dire theory. But I fear that if we ascribe all of our troubles to an Agenda 21 or other massive faceless oppressor, we are going to collapse into a soggy, passive muddle, unable to face so large an opponent. Remember the Broken Window policy.

Turn on the light. Focus on the issues at hand.

We’re not done!

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.

Grandmothers Unite!

Evidence that I believe in the sincerity and helpfulness of the office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich is that I publish this blog under my own true name. My conviction is that if I cannot be above-board, it is not reasonable to expect Mr. Antonovich and his deputies to be open and transparent with us. And maybe they will see my fool’s courage as a challenge, and resolve to be equally daring. Also, finally, if we are honest and they turn out not to be, what a public relations coup for our side!

Me. Just kidding around! Not really grumpy.

Sometimes I remind myself of the grandmother who refuses to move out of a drug-infested neighborhood, and who faces the personal danger posed by the dealers who want nothing more than to shut her up. When I see that I am the only one using my own truthful name, it makes me a little nervous. Am I a fool? But then, Norm Hickling and Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich are using their own truthful names on this blog, too, whether they want to or not.

I got these from the internet:

County of Los Angeles Supervisor Michael Dennis Antonovich

Our Benefactor, Norm Hickling

 Back in November 2013 when I began this blog my intention had been to relate several of my neighbors’ stories, but soon more and more of them began telling me that though they were willing to help out with photos and news notes, they desperately wished to remain anonymous. When I built a website for our neighborhood some years ago, one by one they all begged me not to publish pictures of their houses. Most humorous to me is the neighbor who tells me that he cannot be known because he has so much to lose, and I don’t—he wants to be sure never to have as little as I do!

It’s not as if my neighbors are unknown to the powers that are besieging us; of course those authorities know plenty about every one of us. But apparently many members of the Briggs Road Community fear that being landlocked for a decade is not the worst that can be done to them. I have no idea what worse offense Los Angeles County or other agencies may be contemplating against these good people, but I do have great respect for the creativity of the designers of this landlocking plan, whoever they may be.

You hear weird rumors about “other” depredations allegedly committed by our own supervisor. And when a member of the media chooses not to run our story, some folks explain that choice by suggesting that the newscasters and commentators are afraid that our own county officials would shut them down or even get them fired.

Miraculously, we are at a point now where officials on the staff of County of Los Angeles Supervisor Michael Antonovich appear to be working toward freeing our community. In a blogpost to follow I will list the actions we find so encouraging. Right now, my focus is on our community and its state of mind.

Our next task is to shift gears a bit and prepare to take on a share of the financial responsibility for the roads and river crossings for which we have been pleading. We never dreamed these would be free of charge. They never have been in the past but we will now be required to construct a better road and a better river crossing. Gone are the days when a bunch of guys could reassemble the culverts after a gully-washer with a tractor and a case of beer.

Formerly not such a big deal

One tiny step for a man; one giant step for Briggs Road

Some of our neighbors may be a little hesitant to join the effort. Post-traumatic stress disorder is working on all of us, and we don’t know what or whom to trust.

You can’t beat someone nearly senseless for ten long years and then expect him or her to jump bravely to her feet, fully functional. Given all that has happened, and how long it has been happening, it may take a moment for all of us to shake it off and adjust to a new reality—if in fact the new reality is really real, which is our constant concern these days.

But “they” are not really out to get us, are they? The trouble is that when there is as little explanation as there has been—as little believable explanation—people naturally assume the worst. That is a very typical response, and often a good survival tactic. I can’t imagine why Los Angeles County officials and State of California officials would not enthusiastically proffer reasonable explanations for whatever was their role in the landlocking of a neighborhood. We are hoping that as they think about it, they have realized that whatever reasons they once had, those reasons are no longer feasible. Maybe they will divulge old motives, or maybe we will never know what was behind ten long years of an excruciating commute—four or five miles of the worst dirt road anywhere, according to UPS and propane delivery drivers. I’ve driven many dirt roads shuttling my canoes all over the United States, and I have to agree.

It behooves county officials to lend extra compassionate support to this community, in the aftermath of Goliath pounding David into the ground mercilessly for ten long years. I would like to refrain from accusations, but we all know that urging Los Angeles County’s support, even advocacy, for this community is fully appropriate.

Norm Hickling has been delivering the good news that he and the rest of the staff of Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich have been hard at work and reports a fair amount of progress. But we can’t quell this niggling fear that he will also say that we have just one more little obstacle to overcome. Then I will have to hear my conspiracy-theory-prone neighbors say, “See! I told you so!” to me, and I have no good comeback for that.

I just hope, please dear God and Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, that the last little obstacles are things that can, and really really will fall away. And that they really do! And then we all drive out to Soledad Canyon Road blowing kisses! Scattering roses! Calling out, “We love you Norm!”

We love you Norm! Do yourself proud. Do us right!

Yay for LA County!

The railroad crossing that has been landlocking Briggs Road residents for the past ten years has been recognized by Los Angeles County as a legitimate crossing. Norm Hickling, deputy to Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, made the announcement at a community meeting in Agua Dulce Monday night, February 10, 2014.

Sunrise at the Three Sisters

It is the first encouraging move toward the result for which our community has been struggling, namely to be able to drive to our homes by a legal route of reasonable distance and construction. For a decade our path to our properties has been neither legally our own nor of a truly manageable length or condition.

Is the End in Sight?

I promised I would say it and now I will. My hat is off to you, Mr. Hickling. From where we sat it appeared that Los Angeles County was locked into a position from which it could not gracefully extricate itself. We do not know enough about the actions of other players, but Norm Hickling is exhibiting the kind of grace and sophistication that seems to elude so many public figures—and thank you for that, sir.

I want also, at this point, to give Norm all the credit he is due. And I most certainly do not want any undeserved credit given to this blog. Norm Hickling was making promising statements before I made a single post. It was his remark that he was working on the railroad crossing that first encouraged me to begin this blog. You see, we had been bitterly disappointed before, and I decided to do anything I could to prevent that from happening again. Others in the neighborhood pitched in with the same resolve.

One Giant Step for LA County

But stay with us! Things have looked almost this good before, then come to naught. And, though we are inclined to believe that this time it could actually happen, we have determined that it isn’t over until it’s over—until we are actually driving out over the lovely concrete railroad crossing and the beautiful Santa Clara River.

Our Next Hurdle: Crossing the Santa Clara River

There are kinks still to be worked out. Our drive home is not yet guaranteed. We will report on our progress as fully as we can in future posts.

Stay with us! And we love those comments! Keep ‘em coming!

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.

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.

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.