June 20, 2006 Dear Honorable Supervisor Antonovich:
It is with great sadness I write this note. Last night, although the fight has gotten uglier and uglier over the past three years, last night was the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Nothing would surpass it, short of war or cancer.
The specter of hatred and intimidation was raised to the very rape of a community. I watched the good citizens of this town be verbally accosted and abused. I watched a group of airport proponents shout down everyone that wanted to see their little government work for them. I watched my Town Council forced into not installing its new winners, for the second time. I watched the airport proponents twist the clear intent of The Brown Act in order to advance their own purposes and hence, try and destroy the essence and integrity of America.
Our new Town Council hopefuls ran on a "limited or no expansion" platform, and won, as did the last two winners. These most recent, lawfully elected representatives were not instated, and yet, again. Terry Leonard, the legendary stuntman, I'm afraid, has been warned off, and will not participate in such violent and demeaning behavior. Two people were duly elected to this Town Council, Sir, in a landslide, and were NOT allowed to be instated due to blatant obstruction of The Process.
I watched the Agua Dulce Airpark proponents shout down Peg Spry. Peg Spry, one of the original authors of this Town Council's by laws (the legal set of by laws). Peg Spry, retired school teacher and pillar of this community was almost shouted down. Had Garrett Davis not stepped in, she would not have been allowed to speak at all. When Garrett, quelled, The Beast, she was sorry it had all come to this. She will pray for this town, and she quoted, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."
I am only afraid of the loss of Democracy and the death of common sense. I am not afraid of rednecks or bullies, or undereducated or uninformed peoples, let alone, sycophants of the industrial revolution, or those who hope to bastardize law. I grew up with the carpetbaggers preying on Appalachia, and the sad and uneducated, who know not the difference. But, Appalachians, at the very least, have respect for their elders.
There is no reason this fight should have turned to a war. There is no reason the County of Los Angeles should have continued to fail this community since 1959. There is no reasonable excuse left for this town to be ripped apart at the heart.
We all know that airports diminish property value. It is a well known and historically accountable fact. There is no amount of bullying that will change said fact.
There is no Revocation/Modification Hearing that can legally be turned into a gross expansion. There is no more excuse for a group so heinous as to suggest a "VOTE" on airport expansion would be - "socialism." ( June 14 Town Council Meeting) I would laugh, but it's not funny.
As murky as the permits are, as vigilant as we have been, there is no excuse for, we the people, to have paid our own money, hired our own lawyers, or utilized our own precious time to do the county's job. There is no excuse for the length of this blatantly absurd battle.
Things may be different in Tennessee, but they're not that different. The law is still the law. This ludicrous argument has gone on till it has exploded into a near Epic, a sad miasma of screaming hideous hatred and stupidity.
There is no excuse left for us, or for you. I call upon you to bring a vote to the people on expansion or no. That will put an end to it all. I call upon you to heal this community, because, I fear, it will soon manifest violence. Police were requested at this meeting, as well as recent prior gatherings.
Mary Johnson, former airport manager, whose husband is Wayne Spear's personal pilot, is accusing the Town Council of collusion. (Daily News, June 19, 2006, Santa Clarita Section) The amount of misinformation floating is a good bet for "divide and conquer" tactics.
he little Town Council is either near its end, or should be. The airport proponents are now interfering, and viciously, with my right and this community's right to due representation. They are calling us liars. I can read the seventeen pages put forth by Mr. Spear's lobbyist. I see what the commission signed off on. I fail to see the lie.
Those of us who have kept the flame of hope alive here, have no more cause to be reasonable. A dog will only be kicked for so long before it rallies. There are those of us who do not close their gates at night and ignore our own demise.
Fear and intimidation are now the rulers of my little local elected body, and that Body is as important to me as my Congress, my Senate, my President, or You.
The ruination of this community is on high, and it is, flat out, on the County's back. I, for one, understand that CEQA in this state, let alone this county, is a vastly gray area; I understand only Mr. Spears can afford it. I understand it will not necessarily set us free. It will, however, buy time.
We never should have been strong armed into invoking it. We never should have been muscled into any of this sordid and tragic affair. My father had a mountaineer before him in his Federal Court, and that man had shot a red tailed hawk, which at that time, was a federal offense. The game warden was close enough to the event to make an arrest in the foothills of East Tennessee. The man came before father's court and told him, "It's all I've ever known." He was poor, he was illiterate; he was honest. Father gave him the maximum sentence, then, a few hundred dollars and a few months in jail. It liked to kill my father. That is where I first learned, as a small girl, that the law is the law. Father's enforcement of it was a heavy, heavy, burden. I also learned the inhumane difference between right and wrong, and why the lady with the scales is blind folded.
Right and wrong walk a fine line in life and a fine line in law, but Truth, stands alone. If this airport is to grow, the feds need to be called in to negotiate a reasonable settlement for the people here.
The permits and paper trail on this one, not only stink to high heaven, they choke the gods. I fail to comprehend why the county has yet of proffer negotiations on behalf of the tax payers and voters of this community.
I also, if it comes to it, wonder what a judge could conceivably say to your County Counsel's comment that none of the numerous violations issued to the airport, of late, have been litigated...That is a nice Rove spin, but it begs the question, why does the county have a Regional Planning Department? Why don't we skip that part and go straight to court? It would save the taxpayers improbable amounts of money, and we could use that for, say, California schools... Agua Dulce teachers?
I do not mean to be impertinent, but this now smacks of racketeering. I would like to thank you, Sir, for all you have done. I would like to thank the press, in particular, for their continued and vital interest in this story, especially Jack Leonard. It is, indeed, "The Old, Old Story." I am anxious to see my government execute a settlement in the best interest of the team that played the game fairly, with honor, dignity, and to the best of its limited ability.
I trust that my government, High or Low, will not continue to negate, and abuse, my, and this community's, very rights to human decency and Justice. Most Sincerely, Park Overall
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