“I respectfully address the Board on Consent Calendar item C6, the agreement with Towill, Inc. for $107,000 in LiDAR mapping services for Phase I of the BRIC program.
On September 17, 2025, in my protected public comment to this Board, I raised the safety and access disparities on the Western Hills ridge line. I specifically pointed out the inadequacies in VHFHSZ egress planning, the fact that I have explicitly held the sole easement to this route since 2014 with no legal access otherwise, and that the corridor I engineered and maintained cooperatively with CAL FIRE for twelve years is the only viable egress route identified in the county’s own planning documents.
I engineered that corridor and kept it narrow for years with CAL FIRE’s agreement because of erosion concerns and to avoid trespass. In 2019, I cooperated with the fire department to widen it despite my reservations about trespassing. Trespassing occurred, and a gate was installed afterward. This route was created specifically for safety, a point I raised myself.
Yet, as the map and pictures I am submitting today clearly show — the narrow break, then the widened break, and the average slope and connection that is the only legal access — the fuel-break work has been completed everywhere else on the identical ridge, while the corridor I engineered and maintained remains the one section not cleared. The property has not been cleared because of assessments and demands that the county and city bypassed. The city went completely overboard with burning in the area, causing additional erosion, and now the vegetation has grown back in on sections that were cleared.
I have been the sole resident of this area for over twelve years, and no easement has ever burdened this property. This corridor is not theoretical — it is the functional firebreak that has served public safety for over a decade, not for a park or development.
I respectfully ask the Board to ensure that the Towill LiDAR mapping under C6 includes full disclosure of any data collected on this corridor and that the property owner who engineered and maintained it is afforded the same process and exemptions as neighboring and City-led projects on the identical ridge line. Seventy-two-hour written notice before any further action would allow safe clearing for public safety beyond egress and ingress during the current fire-season window.
Any attempt to force an easement through this property, or to piece together parcels under the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Act to create a servient estate where none has ever existed, or to sever emergency safety and ingress/egress from my estate to a landlocked parcel, would violate California law, federal law, and the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Act, including the principles reaffirmed in Murphy v. Burch (2009) 46 Cal.4th 157, which limits implied easements by necessity and requires strict necessity and common ownership at the time of conveyance.
Thank you
“I respectfully address the Board on Consent Calendar item C6, the agreement with Towill, Inc. for $107,000 in LiDAR mapping services for Phase I of the BRIC program.
On September 17, 2025, in my protected public comment to this Board, I raised the safety and access disparities on the Western Hills ridge line. I specifically pointed out the inadequacies in VHFHSZ egress planning, the fact that I have explicitly held the sole easement to this route since 2014 with no legal access otherwise, and that the corridor I engineered and maintained cooperatively with CAL FIRE for twelve years is the only viable egress route identified in the county’s own planning documents.
I engineered that corridor and kept it narrow for years with CAL FIRE’s agreement because of erosion concerns and to avoid trespass. In 2019, I cooperated with the fire department to widen it despite my reservations about trespassing. Trespassing occurred, and a gate was installed afterward. This route was created specifically for safety, a point I raised myself.
Yet, as the map and pictures I am submitting today clearly show — the narrow break, then the widened break, and the average slope and connection that is the only legal access — the fuel-break work has been completed everywhere else on the identical ridge, while the corridor I engineered and maintained remains the one section not cleared. The property has not been cleared because of assessments and demands that the county and city bypassed. The city went completely overboard with burning in the area, causing additional erosion, and now the vegetation has grown back in on sections that were cleared.
I have been the sole resident of this area for over twelve years, and no easement has ever burdened this property. This corridor is not theoretical — it is the functional firebreak that has served public safety for over a decade, not for a park or development.
I respectfully ask the Board to ensure that the Towill LiDAR mapping under C6 includes full disclosure of any data collected on this corridor and that the property owner who engineered and maintained it is afforded the same process and exemptions as neighboring and City-led projects on the identical ridge line. Seventy-two-hour written notice before any further action would allow safe clearing for public safety beyond egress and ingress during the current fire-season window.
Any attempt to force an easement through this property, or to piece together parcels under the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Act to create a servient estate where none has ever existed, or to sever emergency safety and ingress/egress from my estate to a landlocked parcel, would violate California law, federal law, and the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Act, including the principles reaffirmed in Murphy v. Burch (2009) 46 Cal.4th 157, which limits implied easements by necessity and requires strict necessity and common ownership at the time of conveyance.
Thank you
ATTACHED ARE PICTURES FOR THE BOARD