Federal armor for the Rim of the Valley

On February 26th, 2021, a major milestone was passed in the fight for federal protection of the Rim of the Valley, the catch-all name for the various lands, ecosystems and open spaces occupying the hills that surround the San Fernando Valley, and the site of the in-progress, 200-mile Marge Feinberg Rim of the Valley Trail. 

Specifically, the House of Representatives passed The Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act, legislation included in the Protecting America’s Wilderness and Public Lands Act.

This is a bill Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) has, in his words, “been championing for nearly 20 years.” Schiff’s website offered the announcement here.

In memory of Ron Webster (1935 – 2021) — our own literal trailblazer

For my four years as a student at Palisades High, I’d look upon the inviting green sprawl of Temescal Gateway Park and wonder, not without some imaginative embellishment, what sorts of wild little treasures might be hidden in its crevices and canyons. Regretfully, it wasn’t until I was out of high school that I decided to see for myself. Two decades later, and with untold miles of mountain trails under my feet, I never really considered the creators and caretakers of these trails beyond the passing assumption of faceless state park folks, or an organic caravan of hikers carving their way past oak and chaparral.

Then, in October 2019, I knock on the door of Ron and Mary Ann Webster, having arrived early for my first meeting with the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force. Ron opens the door, I introduce myself, and he dutifully pops open a beer and hands it to me (his hospitality quite at odds with the self-designation “Rotten Ron”). Sitting with him for the twenty minutes or so before others arrived, I learn, casually and unexpectedly, that I live just a few blocks’ walk from the person responsible for many of the hikes enjoyed by myself and so many others in Los Angeles.

Here we celebrate the life and legacy of our own Ron Webster, who passed away January 7th, 2021 at the age of 86. As a premiere trail-builder and founder of the trail crew, his is a name virtually synonymous with the Task Force.

Photo by Jane Simpson

Since the lockdown, I sometimes think back to Ron’s words on solitude. “I enjoy being alone more than anyone you know,” he said, in describing solo journeys across the mountains, usually to flag (or mark out) a new trail. The potential dangers — mountain lions, rattlesnakes, ticks — never bothered him, just as any potential hardships wouldn’t dissuade any born artist. And certainly trail-building is an art, one in which patrons can fully engage with the canvas. “I love seeing people walk all over my best work,” he often remarked with a smirk.

Bill Vanderberg, our vice chair, trail crew leader, and friend of Ron’s for over twenty years, said, “He was a mentor who taught me the value of public lands comes from building trails that allow people to experience its beauty.” Indeed, Ron’s was a sensitive touch, crafting trails that complemented the natural splendor and didn’t suggest themselves too strongly. “Trails,” he noted, “should lie lightly on the land.”

Photo by Sue Palmer

Before rounding out a legacy that began with Topanga’s Musch Trail and included 31 miles of the Backbone Trail, Ron worked as a machinist and led hikes for the Sierra Club, usually up fire roads. As we all know, though, fire roads are less… immersive. After some thought, Ron wrote a letter to someone in state parks asking about building a proper trail. Star-wipe to an early retirement, and a $25,000 grant from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy that allowed him to become a Los Angeles industry of one — a full-time trail architect.

Of course, it’s not an industry of one. Ron — who, among other accolades, was in 2017 granted a Lifetime Volunteer Achievement Award from the California Trails Conference Foundation — would go on to lead many hardworking volunteers over the years in the building and maintaining of local trails. Most assuredly, he still looks over our shoulders as the McLeods fly, the pickaxes clang, the brush falls and the sweat drips.

Photo by Nancy Le

It would be a foolish chef that never indulged in the fruits of their own cooking, and Ron created hikes in more ways than one. With a network of trails blazed across the mountains, he continued leading excursions for the Sierra Club, including his own “Tiger Hike”, a tidy, 25+ mile jaunt from Will Rogers to Malibu Creek State Park. Much as when I made the six-block hike to his home for my first Task Force meeting, I’m told he had beer waiting at the end.

Photo by Sue Palmer

We honor him directly here, but we honor him also as caretakers and conservationists, and as sheer nature lovers.

Here’s to you, Ron.

Gondolas over Griffith: a soaring controversy

Imagine a hike through scenic Griffith Park: great California weather, fantastic views of the city, and… a giant metal pillar? Cables, stretching across the sky? 

Possible aerial tramway routes are currently being assessed across the park, as well as plans for a visitor’s center, and a viewing platform near the Hollywood sign. Mayor Garcetti has shown public support for the project, despite backlash from various groups such as Friends of Griffith Park and the North Hollywood Zoo Magnet Center, the latter of which was offered as a start site for one of the tram routes despite not being consulted on the project.

Each of the routes would stretch roughly 2.5 miles, requiring 19 to 24 towers placed throughout the park. The construction would mean the protracted closures of the park’s trails and other popular attractions. The tramway itself would threaten the habitats of many plants and animals, alter wildlife behavior and biodiversity, and undermine the founding spirit of the park as a touchpoint of rest and recreation for the community at large.

The Santa Monica Mountains Task Force stands with those opposing this project, including the Sierra Club LA Central group who are calling for concerned Angelenos to voice their opposition to the tramway. One simple action you can take right now to help keep Griffith Park wild is to sign their petition and share it with your friends.

You can also make an impact by emailing, calling, and putting pressure on local politicians to heighten their awareness of the problems this project will create.

We ourselves issued a letter to Mayor Garcetti on September 20th, clarifying the Task Force’s opposition to the aerial tram.

Featured image by Daniel Pouliot licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.0

Legacy of land: Trebek Open Space

In honor of the late Alex Trebek, we thought we’d acknowledge the Trebek Open Space, 62 acres of parkland in the Hollywood Hills that, in 1988, was donated to the Santa Mountains Conservancy by the iconic Jeopardy! host.

Nestled specifically in Nichols Canyon in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains — and right next to Runyon Canyon — the space offers a network of trails for bikers, hikers and horseback riders.

Toyon and Mexican elderberry to be added to Protected Tree Ordinance

On December 2nd, after many delays, the amendment to add the toyon and Mexican elderberry to the City of Los Angeles’s Protected Tree Ordinance was heard before the City Council’s Public Works and Gang Reduction (PWGR) Committee. The amendment was unanimously passed, with the Committee choosing to support a superior measurement standard that had long been sought by tree advocates.

These two native species, which grow as shrubs or small trees, were used for many and varied purposes by indigenous peoples — the toyon’s pomes used as food or made into a jelly, and the leaves, flowers, and bark used to make different medicinal teas. The two species are also highly important for wildlife as a source of food, and as an integral part of the ecology of our hillsides. As the Center for Biological Diversity wrote in their letter to the Committee: 

“Toyon berries provide a source of food for native birds including American robins, western bluebirds, mockingbirds, and California quail. Toyon also is a prominent component of the coastal sage scrub plant community and is evolved to thrive in Southern California’s drought-prone landscapes. Likewise, Mexican elderberry is a key source of food for Southern California’s birds, and acts as a host for many species of butterflies and moths. Both shrubs provide much-needed shade for mammals, birds, and reptiles during hot summer days, and can provide nesting sites for some species.”

Toyon | Image courtesy of Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council

The Santa Monica Mountains Task Force was among the many environmental and stakeholder organizations to submit a letter of support for the addition of these species to the Protected Tree Ordinance. The process to add the two species was begun seven years ago by some members of the City’s Community Forest Advisory Committee (CFAC). Much of the delay in its progress was due to repeated efforts by the Urban Forestry Division to reduce the number of trees that would qualify for protection by insisting a different measurement standard be applied to the two new species.

The recently appointed City Forest Officer, Rachel Malarich, in an October staff report, joined UFD and the City Planning Department in supporting the changed measurement standard that would have seen few of these ecologically vital small trees protected. The SMMTF joined other organizations in supporting the call of CFAC to apply the same measurement to the new species that applies to the four species already protected in the Ordinance — that the diameter of the trunks or stems be a minimum of four inches, measured cumulatively, at four and a half feet high.

Mexican elderberry | Image courtesy of Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council

The SMMTF letter was referenced in the hearing by the Committee Chair, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, long a champion of our protected native trees. He read aloud the following paragraph as being aligned with his thinking as the City moves forward with a separate comprehensive overhaul of the Protected Tree Ordinance:

“Developers should be advised at the outset of their projects that the City expects — and potentially in the future even rewards — project design that accommodates the retention of the naturally occurring native habitat on their sites so that removals of protected native trees and shrubs are largely avoided up front. They should also be informed early that any absolutely necessary removals will need to be mitigated through the planting of the same species on site at the current Board-mandated 4:1 ratio. This “education” of developers at the front end could serve to make removals and replacements less common generally, and help reduce and avoid an expressed “need” for off-site and out-of-kind replacement plantings.”

Read our letter of support

The Task Force also supported the Community Forest Advisory Committee’s additional (and, unfortunately, unsuccessful) recommendations in their letter of November 16th to the PWGR Committee, which called for the administration of the Protected Tree Ordinance to be removed from the Urban Forestry Division and housed in an environmentally oriented department such as LASan’s Biodiversity unit, and for the team administering it to include a biologist or ecologist and an architect, rather than only the UFD staff arborists recommended by the Bureau of Street Services, in order to provide an appropriate knowledge base for this work. 

After passing through the PWGR Committee, the amendment subsequently went before the full City Council for its final vote on Tuesday, December 15th, where it was again unanimously passed.

Endangered plants bulldozed, LADWP fined

On November 4th, the California Coastal Commission ordered the LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to pay $1.9 million for restoration efforts after the utility bulldozed environmentally sensitive chaparral shrubland by Pacific Palisades, destroying nearly 200 Braunton’s milkvetch plants, which are federally protected under the Endangered Species Act. 

The destruction began in March of last year, when LADWP began replacing a large number of wooden poles with fire resistant steel ones just north of Will Rogers State Beach, in the Santa Monica Mountains. To facilitate the completion of the project, the utility expanded and graded the Temescal Ridge Fire Road, and added 30 branching roads. 

“Our task force has been involved with far too many cases of utility companies not using good judgment and failing to comply with the laws, policies, and ordinances that are in place to protect and preserve our finite natural resources,” wrote Eric Edmunds, Chair of the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force, in a letter addressed to the Coastal Commission.

Click here to view the letter

The Braunton’s milkvetch, Astragalus brauntonii, is a purple-petalled perennial wildflower endemic to the Mountains. Only an estimated 3,000 remain today, after a century-long battle against continuous urbanization of the area. In 1998, for example, a milkvetch patch was deliberately destroyed by a Ventura County developer, despite ongoing negotiations with agencies to protect it. 

The LADWP’s activities impacted 28 acres of Department of Parks and Recreation land, housing coastal chaparral, coastal sage scrub and 2.72 acres of federally listed critical habitat for Braunton’s milkvetch. What’s more, the grading was poorly done, spilling over and crushing vegetation downhill; some runoff even made its way into the watershed. 

“What is quite alarming is that LADWP would even consider bringing this type of destruction into a State Park,” Edmunds wrote. “Our parks and protected open spaces are scarce and sacred – they deserve our highest level of respect and protection.”

Image courtesy of California Coastal Commission

The tragic uprooting was avoidable. LADWP failed to consult the Coastal Commission’s staff, as well as the accessible statewide database of endangered species habitats. Local hiker and botanist David Pluenneke had alerted the LADWP about the Braunton’s milkvetch’s endangered status, and was thanked for doing so. However, eight days later he returned to find several acres of destroyed vegetation. 

“It’s hard not to think that if there had been blue whales and panda bears up there, they would have bulldozed them, too,” Pluenneke told the LA Times.

The Coastal Commission’s cease and desist order was reached in cooperation with LADWP, and with input from other agencies and local organizations, including the Sierra Club Los Angeles Chapter. It requires that the LADWP halt further development until seeking a permit from the Commission, undo the roadwork, place temporary erosion control measures and revegetate the area with native species. Further, LADWP will continue to monitor the damage it caused. 

Of the $1,947,500 the utility will pay to remedy the violation, 575,000 will go to settling liabilities with the State Coastal Conservancy, $272,500 will go to the Department of Parks and Recreation for habitat enhancement, and the remainder will go to the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority to purchase and protect new property. 

“The fact that $1,100,000 will go towards the acquisition of property that will be conserved (and protected!) for the next generations is very exciting,” Edmunds said. “And gives us hope for the future.”

Featured image by Joe Decruyenaere licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0

Winter 2021 update from the Task Force Chair

One of the things I’ve learned in 30 years as an environmentalist fighting legal and political battles to save and preserve wilderness open space in the Santa Monica Mountains is, there are no permanent victories.

Just when you think you have achieved something final and forever, ten or twenty years later, the beast re-awakens and roars back to life. A wealthy developer or builder, eyeing a jewel of a parcel of pristine open space, armed with seasoned high-priced lawyers from the city’s premier land-use firms, makes a move.

This can be depressing and discouraging, but requires us as environmental activists to remain vigilant, intrepid, determined, and ready to keep fighting.

That is where we find ourselves today with the so-called Berggruen Institute in the Sepulveda Pass in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Last week (as I write this) was the official City of Los Angeles “Scoping Meeting,” the first step in entitling this massive project under the City’s codes and process, and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

You can learn more about this project here at www.protectourwildlands.org

Swiss billionaire Nicolas Berggruen is currently planning to build a vanity project “think tank” supposedly dedicated to “advancing good governance and environmental stewardship” on the 447 acres of open space in the former Mission Canyon landfill area of the mountains. The area in question spans from upper Mandeville Canyon to Mountaingate and consists of two ridges: Ridge 2 above Mandeville Canyon, and another north of Mountaingate and south to Mount Saint Mary’s College (Ridge 1, Stoney Hill Ridge). More than 420 acres of this land is protected open space, including the heavily trafficked Canyonback Trail and Mount Saint Mary’s Fire Road, outdoor treasures which the surrounding communities have fought long and hard to protect.

According to agreements between Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) — a government agency, and the former owners of Berggruen’s property — much of the area currently being discussed for development cannot be developed. In 2017 their plans showed serious encroachments into protected land. These protected areas do not belong to a developer, but rather belong to the people of California, held in trust for future generations. This precious wilderness houses native plants, coyotes, great horned owl, quail, deer, mountain lions, etc. Overdevelopment of these lands presents significant other immediate risks to the community — from fire hazards and higher traffic to increased noise and light pollution.

Berggruen’s goal is to rival, in regal splendor, the Getty Museum to the south (J. Paul Getty) and the Skirball Center to the north. Except those institutions are open to the public, but Berggruen’s private “think tank” will not be. It will impact important trails used by hikers and the public, including the Mount Saint Mary’s Fire Road from the college up to Mountaingate, and also the epic Riordan Trail linking that fire road down into Bundy Canyon (a beautiful riparian Oak and Sycamore-studded canyon) and up the other side to Canyonback Road. Creation of the Riordan Trail was an important Sierra Club victory ten years ago, for which I as your Chair was honored ten years ago.

Importantly, Berggruen has no right to build this project. It may violate numerous easements, including a Conservation Easement held by the MRCA, and City codes and regulations. Berggruen’s answer to that is for his lawyers to propose to change the rules, enact an unprecedented amendment to the City’s General Plan, and ask for zoning variances and other deviations from the Building Code, and the Baseline Hillside Ordinance. The MRCA hired counsel to vigorously defend the public easement, and the neighboring Mountaingate community has won the first important skirmish in their lawsuit against him. 

But when you’re a billionaire, nothing is too much to ask for: you never hear the word “no.” The world is your oyster.

Speaking of the world, Berggruen has built vanity projects allegedly dedicated to “good governance” all over the world. According to reporting, his normal modus operandi is allegedly to make “gifts” and contributions to whatever local officials need to approve his projects.

As anyone knows who has been reading the newspapers lately, local officials in Los Angeles who have taken large contributions from developers are disgraced or pleading guilty to bribery and corruption, including former Councilmembers Jose Huizar and Mitch Englander, and a former deputy mayor and the head of Building and Safety. But Berggruen has feathered his nest with many elected officials who support his goals of “good government,” democracy and reexamining capitalism. And who, incidentally, would like a splashy prestige project to go up in their district.

We fought this battle 15 years ago. The prior owner of the property, developer Castle & Cooke (who built Mountaingate) sought permits from the City to build 29 luxury homes on the subject property. But that would have entailed cutting off the Mount Saint Mary’s Fire Road and other hikers’ access to this portion of the mountains. We sued to protect those rights, and after intense litigation, achieved a City-brokered settlement that protected 95 percent of the land as a public Conservation Easement, protected or preserved historic Canyonback Trail, and created a new hiking trail down into Bundy Canyon, and a new trail, and up the other side. Victory achieved! Or so we thought.

As I said at the beginning of this piece, no victories are permanent in the Santa Monica Mountains. Constant vigilance, intrepidness and stomach for battle are required. That’s where we are now, folks.

Fortunately, the Sierra Club is part of a great coalition of activists, environmental land-use lawyers, organizations and HOAs opposed to this project and dedicated to fight. Stay tuned for updates about the City’s land-use and CEQA process. We’ll keep you informed. 

Eric Edmunds, Chair
Santa Monica Mountains Task Force

“Park to Playa” Baldwin Hills restoration underway

Just south of the Santa Monica Mountain range lie Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook and the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, city gems long hidden in plain sight. Beginning in 1998, our trail crew built the first of what became eight miles of hiking trails snaking across this urban park, casually considered a kind of a hiker’s “warm up” to the Santa Monicas. One of Kenneth Hahn’s especially popular trails, “Ron’s Trail,” was dedicated by County Supervisors to honor the trail crew founder, Ron Webster. Today, the crew continues its trail maintenance at the park, and participates there every January in the Martin Luther King Day of Service.

Several of our trails connect with the Park to Playa Trail, a 13-mile route newly-completed now with the bridge over La Cienega Boulevard that links Kenneth Hahn to the Stoneview Nature Center, Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook and the Ballona Creek bike path. One can now strap on their hiking shoes at the corner of South La Brea Avenue and Don Lorenzo Drive and walk in peace all the way to the ocean. 

Thus, we’re happy to report that the Baldwin Hills Conservancy recently granted North East Trees — a program dedicated to “greening up” urbanized areas — over a million dollars to implement what’s known as the Five Points Habitat Restoration Project. In a letter of support to the Baldwin Hills Conservancy, our vice-chair Bill Vanderberg cites, the project will “aim to restore native habitat along the Park to Playa Trail, bolster the ecosystem of the Ballona Creek watershed, improve water quality and storage, provide conservation benefits for people and wildlife, increase climate resiliency, and provide jobs skills training for local at-promise youth through the restoration of native ecosystems.”

Dogs: to leash or not to leash?

Well, this one is simple for me. As the owner of two fairly small dogs, I’m dog-matic (yeah, yeah) about leashing them no matter where we’re walking. A recent case, Wolf v. Weber, put this debate into starker relief for local park culture, where the plaintiff (Wolf) suffered minor injuries as a result of being unexpectedly “bumped” by an off-leash dog while hiking on a trail in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Though Weber tried to argue that hiking in off-leash areas entails certain risks, the court ruled in favor of Wolf. You can read the official court opinion in full here. Consequently, dog-owners from now on can be held liable for incidents involving unleashed or “uncontrolled” dogs.

Leashing your dog might not only save you from a lawsuit; it will keep your beloved canine safer, especially on trails known for rattlesnakes, coyotes and the occasional mountain lion.

Featured image by Kara Brugman licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.0

SMMTF hike leader Ernie Scheuer celebrates 90th birthday

Sierra Club hikers in their 60’s and 70’s can often be heard to say, “We want to be like Ernie when we grow up.” It’s easy to see why.

Ernest M. Scheuer made the Los Angeles Westside his home around 25 years ago, after retiring in 1993 from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Before JPL, he taught at Cal State Northridge for more than two decades.

In his search for new places to hike — and new people to hike with — on the Westside, Ernie turned to the latest issue of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter’s Schedule of Activities, where he learned of the Tuesday Conditioned Hikers (TCH) and subsequently its sister group, the Tuesday Moderate Hikers (TMH). These two groups, both sponsored by the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force, have been leading the public on hikes in the Santa Monica Mountains since the early 1970’s.

And so began his many years of exploring the peaks and trails of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Ernie leading a hike for the Sierra Club | Photo by Bob Cody

Ernie became a Sierra Club outings leader in 2007, and has subsequently been a mentor and provisional evaluator for several others. He is well-known to be a “quietly rock solid leader” who many find to be a calming presence on the trail. He has been described as “selfless” and “stalwart”.

In Ernie you will also find a great conversationalist: thoughtful, knowledgeable on a number of topics, and forever curious — he always takes a great deal of interest in anything his hiking companions share with him. He is also, according to his friend and TCH hiker Jeri Segal, “a bit nerdy (in the very best sense!)”

Ernie has done a great deal to support TMH and TCH off the trails, too, including serving as Outings Chair for TCH, taking the lead in scheduling the weekly hikes and writing them up for the schedule, maintaining the sign-in sheets, and additionally undertaking the role of Safety Chair for both groups. In 2015 he received the Outings Service Award from the Angeles Chapter for his dedication to the program.

To mark his milestone birthday in July, Jeri Segal conspired with his friends in the Club and beyond to surprise him with a “birthday book”, bringing together an astonishing number of heartfelt tributes, special memories, cherished photographs, and entertaining anecdotes.

Fellow hiker Craig Percy said of his friend, “One thing that makes Ernie special for me is his eyes and smile. He always, always, has an impish grin and sparkle. He always looks like he’s ‘up to something.'”

Happy 90th birthday, Ernie!