Letters to the Editor 1-2-14

Meeting
Editor: Regarding the public meeting held last Wednesday by the team at Hotel Healdsburg, why wasn’t there advance notice of this meeting in the previous weeks paper. It’s rather a slap in the face to the public to hear about a public meeting after it is over. Those of us who are not in any of the “In groups” may still have an interest in this issue.
Maureen Mosley
Healdsburg
Open ridge reply
Editor:  In response to our letter to the editor (More on Open Ridge 12/19) discussing the recently erected No Trespass signs, gates and fences adjacent to the publicly travelled paths on either side of the Healdsburg Ridge, a reader responded by citing a Code section and also somehow lumping us in a group he calls the Me Generation. We’ll pass on the Me Generation label with the simple observation that expressing one’s views on a disputed subject leads to a worthy community discussion and does not deserve name-calling.
Turning to the writer’s citation to Calif. Civil Code Sec. 1009(b), which may or may not remove the public’s need to establish a prescriptive easement, the writer may wish to consider WHY this law was passed, i.e., what was, and is, the purpose of this law. One needs to look no further than the preamble to this law, which states:
“1009.  (a) The Legislature finds that:
   (1) It is in the best interests of the state to encourage owners of private real property to continue to make their lands available for public recreational use to supplement opportunities available on tax-supported publicly owned facilities.
   (2) Owners of private real property are confronted with the threat of loss of rights in their property if they allow or continue to allow members of the public to use, enjoy or pass over their property for recreational purposes.
   (3) The stability and marketability of record titles is clouded by such public use, thereby compelling the owner to exclude the public from his property.(emphasis added)
Given the fact that the owners of the two private parcels discussed in the earlier letter have now erected signs threatening prosecution, installing gates and at least one fence, they are preventing, not encouraging, public recreational use. Public recreational use is what the Legislature was trying to encourage when it enacted this law. It appears that one of the key goals of the statute is being nullified. In other words, the “bargain” reached by the Legislature seems to have been protecting the owners from claims of prescriptive easements provided the owners make their land available for public recreational use.  Otherwise the owner ends up no longer worrying about prescriptive easements but the public gives up a legal right it had for over 150 years and receives nothing in return.  Really? From our perspective, the owners’ signs threatening prosecution, the locked gate(s) and recently erected fence(s) are in direct violation of the purpose of the statute.  If the owner is violating the intent of the statute, is the statute still enforceable?
It should also be pointed out that the public is now partially prevented from reaching the Healdsburg Ridge (a Public preserve).  This public preserve was previously accessible by hiking along the already established trails on either side of the Preserve, which are the trails in question. (This now leaves the only Ridge entrance at the end of Parkland Farms Blvd.).
It should also be pointed out that Civ. Code 1009 is prospective only; if any of the subject trails were in existence and used openly and adversely by the public for at least 5 years before March 2, 1972, there may be a prescriptive easement anyway.
As we stated in our first letter, let’s hear from the owner.
Ron and Sally Grassi
Healdsburg