Land Rights Network American Land Rights Association

Land Rights Network
American Land Rights Association (ALRA)
PO Box 400 - Battle Ground, WA 98604
Phone: 360-687-3087 - Fax: 360-687-2973
E-mail: alra@pacifier.com
Web Address: http://www.landrights.org
Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE - Washington, DC 20003

An un-elected autocrat, Joe Edmiston has terrorized private property owners for three decades with no countervailing political checks and balances of any ...

Joe Edmiston Becomes The Power Broker replacing Robert Moses

Plans giant Rim of the Valley National Park near Los Angeles.

-----Get on Park Service e-mail list for two studies they are doing preparing for the giant Rim of the Valley National Park. Information below to get on the lists.

Edmiston keeps a copy of the Power Broker by Robert Caro on his desk. He is copying his techniques, strategies and tactics.

If you haven't read "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro you have a treat in store. Do not fail to pick up a copy of this book. It is the most important book I've read in learning to understand practical politics.

If you like the book, then read "A Rage For Justice", the Life of Philip Burton by Jacobs printed by the University of California Press. These two books will teach you more about practical politics and how powerful people use politics for land use control and the control of Congress and the states.

McIntyre: Mountains of money smooth way for The Edge's Malibu project

Doug McIntyre LA Daily News Posted: 04/30/2011 04:56:53 PM PDT

Joe is a big bearded man with a badge, a gun and a Smokey the Bear hat. He loves everything green - grass, trees and money, especially other people's money.

Ask famous U2 guitarist, David Evans, a.k.a., The Edge.

Evans bought 156 acres on Sweetwater Mesa above Malibu with the idea of developing a mini-enclave, including his own dream house, along with four other mogul-homes. It's good to be a rock star.

It's even better being Joe.

As in Joseph T. Edmiston, the Godfather behind America's most perfect political machine- the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (SMMC) and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA)- which is quite a mouthful.

The Edge quickly learned building on the California Coast is no simple matter, even if you know Bono. Since 2006 Evans has been denied permits from the various regulatory agencies, including the fatal opposition of the California Coastal Commission (CCC) and Edmiston's hydra-headed SMMC/MRCA.

Joe and his wingmen at the Coastal Commission threw every possible obstacle in Evans' way, chewing up a fortune in revised architectural drawings and legal fees. Not content to simply bankrupt a challenger, Edmiston's playbook also calls for character assassination. He and/or his goons malign anyone who has the audacity to insist upon their property rights by inflaming the passions of class warfare.

A famous multi-millionaire rock star wants to rip up a pristine ridgeline so he can party in the company of A-list neighbors, hogging a Pacific vista Mother Nature bequeathed to future generations! It's demagoguery 101.

But The Edge is pretty sharp.

He realized the Coastal Commission is hopeless - a wild-eyed gaggle of ideologues and zealots who are impervious to reason. However, Edmiston's "principles" are negotiable.

In fact, they're cash and carry.

After fighting the project for years, Edmiston has suddenly agreed to keep the SMMC/MRCA "neutral" in the permit fight with the Coastal Commission.

He's also agreed to have the SMMC/MRCA "communicate support in writing" and "attend public meetings and hearings and speak in favor" of the very project he so vigorously opposed.

What's in it for him?

A cash payoff of $750,000 to the SMMC/MRCA and an additional quarter million for a consultant.

While the world watches Middle Easterners fight and die to cast off un-elected tyrants who rule by decree, thousands of acres of private lands in California have been either arbitrarily seized by Edmiston, or wrested away by the ruthless exercise of his limitless powers. An un-elected autocrat, Joe Edmiston has terrorized private property owners for three decades with no countervailing political checks and balances of any kind.

How does he get away with it?

Perhaps you've thrown a Frisbee at "The Michael Antonovich Regional Park" or taken in the vista from "Zev Yaroslavsky Mulholland Gateway Park" or jogged at sunset along "The Sheila Kuehl Beach Reserve?"

Politicians burnish their green credentials courtesy of Joe while private citizens are forced to fight him in court or buy him off.

Meanwhile fundamental property rights are routinely trampled by Edmiston's empire. The SMMC - and even more so the MRCA - represent a monumental mockery of the rule of law.

Obviously property owners don't have absolute rights. But neither does the government.

The basic objectives of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority might be noble- preserving California's natural beauty- but Joe's methodology is Machiavellian. These rogue agencies threaten the very notion of a self-governing people.

When Edmiston is allowed to use regulations and codes, joint power agreements, "Benefit Assessment District" taxes, the threat of expensive litigation and actual police powers - including guns - to enforce his will, we have lost the mantel of citizenship and are once again subjects to the whims of an arbitrary ruler.

The Edge's fight is our fight. Rock on.

See the maps of the area at www.landrights.org
- - - - - - - Alert - Alert - Alert-- Alert

New NPS Special Resource Study Underway-Rim of the Valley Corridor.

The NPS is also carrying out a separate study of the San Gabriel Watershed and Mountains Special Resource Area.

The Intent of the Park Service is to combine these two areas and take control of all of the Angeles National Forest and a large part of the San Bernardino National Forest as part of a new area managed by the National Park Service. All of it will eventually be managed by the National Park Service. If that happens, you lose.

168,000 landowners have their property in jeopardy in this plan.

Your access will be limited if not eliminated. The entire area will likely be declared as Wilderness which means that only healthy people age 18 to 40 can hike it. NO motorized vehicles.

Rim of the Valley Corridor Study Team pwr_rimofthevalley@nps.gov

Last summer, the National Park Service initiated a new "special resource study" of the Rim of the Valley Corridor surrounding the San Fernando, La Crescenta, Santa Clarita, Simi and Conejo Valleys in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties of southern California.

As you are probably aware, the National Park Service has been working on the San Gabriel Watershed and Mountains Special Resource Study for the past few years.

These two studies were authorized by Congress to prepare a giant new National Park called the Rim of the Valley that may include all or part of the Santa Monica Mountains NRA or simply be connected to it. Because of the proximity of these study areas to each other, we wanted to make sure that folks interested in the San Gabriel study were also aware of this new Rim of the Valley Corridor Study that is why you are receiving this e-mail.

How does the new Rim of the Valley Corridor study relate to the San Gabriel Watershed and Mountains Special Resource Study?

Each of the two studies was authorized through separate legislation by Congress, at different times and for different geographic areas.

However, the basic purpose of each study is the same, which is to determine whether any portion of the study areas is eligible to be designated as a unit of the national park system or, in the case of the Rim of the Valley Corridor study, added to an existing national park such as the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Similar to the San Gabriel study, the Rim of the Valley Corridor SRS will also explore other ways that private or governmental entities can protect resources and provide more outdoor recreation opportunities.

There is an overlapping portion of the two study areas in the western San Gabriel Mountains. Because this area is being studied through the San Gabriel Watershed and Mountains study, information from that study will be considered and integrated as appropriate into the Rim of the Valley Corridor Special Resource Study.

As we begin the Rim of the Valley Corridor Special Resource Study, we wanted to provide you an opportunity to join the email list for this new study. To that end, we would like to invite you to register for email alerts on our website.

People on the Park Service e-mail list will receive notices of upcoming meetings and current newsletters summarizing the study process and draft findings when they are available. Once you opt-in to our email list, you can easily opt-out if you decide that you are no longer interested. We will not share our email list with any other entity.

For more information, please visit the study website: http://www.nps.gov/pwro/rimofthevalley

Anne Dove ---------------Project Manager

Margie Steigerwald ----- Planner

-----The mailing address for the Rim of the Valley study is: 570 W. Avenue 26, #175, Los Angeles, CA 90065

-----The mailing address for the San Gabriel Study is: San Gabriel Watershed and Mountains Special Resource Study Park Planning and Environmental Compliance, 1111 Jackson St. Suite 700, Oakland, CA 94607

Margie Steigerwald Outdoor Recreation Planner National Park Service Santa Monica Mountains NRA 401 West Hillcrest Drive Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 Phone: (805) 370-2373 FAX: (805) 370-1850

We need your help getting the word out!

Given the size and complexity of the study area, we need your help in getting the word out about the study. If you know anyone who would be interested in this study, please forward this message to them and encourage them to sign-up for our distribution list.

a.. Download the Newsletter b.. Provide Comments Online c.. Attend a Public Meeting d.. Email or mail your comments (see mailing address below)

Mail: National Park Service Rim of the Valley Corridor Special Resource Study 570 W. Avenue 26, #175 Los Angeles, CA 90065

Website: www.nps.gov/pwro/rimofthevalley

E-mail: pwr_rimofthevalley@nps.gov

Phone: Anne Dove, Project Manager (323) 441-9307 Margie Steigerwald, Planner (805) 370-2373

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Background on the Rim of the Valley: From American Land Rights:

National Park Service Rim Of The Valley Park Study

The huge new Rim of the Valley National Park land grab study placing new regulations and land use controls on 158,000 private land owners in LA County and 11,000 landowners in Ventura County is announced below in the press announcement by Rep. Adam Schiff.

Below we have listed the website information and contact information for both the Rim of the Valley National Park study and the San Gabriel River Watershed study. The Rim of the Valley website is set to start by the National Park Service on Friday but may be delayed.

Eventually the Park Service plans to combine the two areas and take over the Angeles National Forest and the San Bernardino National Forest into one giant National Park. Present users of the National Forest areas are likely to be removed over time.

You can go to the Rim of the Valley website and the San Gabriel Watershed website and sign up for announcements of the progress of the two studies. It is critical that you sign up because there will be important meetings and events that you will learn about by being on the Park Service e-mail and Snail Mail mailing list. Make sure you sign up.

Rim of the Valley: www.nps.gov/pwro/rimofthevalley

San Gabriel River Study: www.nps.gov/pwro/sangabriel

Make sure you sign up for Park Service releases at both websites. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You can see a quality map where you can find your individual property location by going to the American Land Rights Association website at: www.landrights.org

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Rim of the Valley will place a Park Service noose around the necks of 169,000 threatened landowners. 158,000 in LA County and 11,000 in Ventura County.

The regulatory cost is staggering. Landowners have no idea what is coming at them.

$2 Billion is our projected land acquisition cost but it could easily cost much more. That will make it the most expensive national park in history. It will jeopardize funding for other parks nationwide needing money for maintenance for years to come.

The Park Service is approximately $10 billion behind in basic health and safety-deferred maintenance. At some point we need to take care of what we've got rather than keep adding and adding.

The Park Service is a bad neighbor when it comes to fire. They will not allow you to clean your land of fire hazard brush and will not clean their own ground. Giving the Park Service control imposes a huge fire hazard on any landowners near the Rim of the Valley.

Rim of the Valley is adjacent to and attached to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. That area's real claim to fame is that it burns every five years.

-----It will include and threaten 158,000 private parcels in Los Angeles County and 11,000 in Ventura County. These are in addition to those landowners trapped in the existing Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and those in the San Gabriel River Watershed study area.

There are many National Forest Cabin Permittees in the proposed area. Large portions of the Angeles National Forest will be converted into National Park. The San Bernardino and Las Padres National Forests are also threatened with at least partial national park status. Call any cabinowners you know to urge that they oppose the Rim of the Valley National Park. The Park Service does not allow permit cabins.

Rim of the Valley - Who is affected and what areas are covered.

The Rim of the Valley National Park would surround the:

parts of the Santa Monica Mountains; the Santa Susanna Mountains; the San Gabriel Mountains; the Verdugo Mountains; the San Rafael Hills;

Nearly the entire Angeles National Forest, part of the San Bernardino NF and adjacent connector areas to the Los Padres National Forests will be made part of the Rim of the Valley National Park and change control to the National Park Service. This means the loss of access and closed roads in the Angeles National Forest and the San Bernardino National Forest. It will mean huge loss of recreation.

The giant new Rim of the Valley National Park is estimated to ultimately cost over $4 billion making it the most expensive park in American history. That is the way Santa Monica Mountains NRA started out. It was only supposed to cost $155 million in 1978. Today it is nearly $1 billion when you combine the National Park Service land acquisition and land acquisition by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. It continues skyward.

The legislation that created the study is called the Rim of the Valley Corridor Study Act and would study expanding the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area by adding a corridor of all the mountains surrounding the San Fernando Valley, La Crescenta Valley, Santa Clarita Valley, Simi Valley and Conejo Valley.

Don't be confused when they call it a study. Congress will ask the giant Park Service bureaucracy if they want more land, more money, more power and more people. What do you think any self-respecting bureaucracy is going to say? Of course they want it. They always want more.

The Rim of the Valley consists of parts of the Santa Monica Mountains, the Santa Susanna Mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains, the Verdugo Mountains, the San Rafael Hills, and adjacent connector areas to the Los Padres and San Bernardino National Forests according to Congressmen Adam Schiff.

The study area will encompass 491,518 acres. That is nearly three and a half times the size of the existing Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area that is 153,750 acres and over two thirds the size of Yosemite. All that in an urban area.

You can see a map by going to www.landrights.org Just click on the link on the website homepage.

This map was originally produced by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. They have deliberately tried to hide the full impact of the Rim of the Valley by how they have shaded the areas in the map.

They call it a corridor but it actually surrounds and includes huge areas of private land. The Park Service does not like private land within their boundaries. They will try to buy it all or regulate it all over time.

**Be sure to call your local newspapers to get them to print a map of the giant new Rim of the Valley National Park Service area.

The Rim of the Valley National Park will put a circle of Park Service control around tens of thousands of landowners. Anyone familiar with how the Park Service works knows that is the beginning of ratcheting down the regulatory controls and land acquisition. They want it all eventually.

This writer was told by the Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks in the Carter Administration in 1978: "If Congress puts a circle around it, we're going to own it all."

The Rim of the Valley will become a huge fire hazard. The Park Service will prevent landowners from removing vegetation and brush for fire protection and will not clean their land. The result will be fires even more massive than you are suffering now. This is not speculation. This is how the Park Service presently manages the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Be sure to go to www.landrights.org for a copy of the map of the Rim of the Valley. You can enlarge it to make it more readable. Make sure you ask your local newspapers to print a map of the proposed Rim of the Valley National Park Service area.

People in the Rim of the Valley study area and the San Gabriel River Watershed study area have no idea what is coming at them.

If you don't have the equipment to enlarge the map, take a disk with the file off the web to Kinkos and they can do it.

The Rim of the Valley National Park:

-----1. Will threatened thousands of landowners and recreation users.

-----2. Create a huge fire hazard. The Park Service will not allow you to clear your brush and they will not clear theirs. The result could be a disaster.

-----3. By our estimate, it will cost over $2 billion dollars and perhaps a great deal more to carry out their grandiose land acquisition and regulatory scheme. It will become a never-ending money pit with Congress having to keep up with public expectations.

-----4. Would study expanding the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area by adding a corridor encircling large portions of all the mountains surrounding the San Fernando Valley, La Crescenta Valley, Santa Clarita Valley, Simi Valley and Conejo Valley in California on the North side of Los Angeles.

-----5. The Rim of the Valley new park study includes part of the Santa Monica Mountains, the Santa Susanna Mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains, the Verdugo Mountains, the San Rafael Hills, and adjacent connector areas to the Los Padres and San Bernardino National Forests.

-----6. The new Rim of the Valley National Park or whatever name they finally give it will combine the areas of the two Park Service studies plus the Santa Monica Mountains NRA.

-----7. The study area will encompass 491,518 acres, that's two-thirds the size of Yosemite. It's nearly three and a half times the size of the existing Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area which is 153,750 acres. It will run approximately 300 miles giving it a huge scope.

-----8. Will control land use within and adjacent corridors by threatening eminent domain (condemnation) of the land. That is how they prevent building and lots of other uses. ALRA saved a ski area in Maine recently that had been continually threatened with condemnation.

-----9. The Rim of the Valley National Park will ultimately dilute the Park Service budget meaning less care for other parks.

-----10. The combined length of these Rim of the Valley corridors is likely to run as much as 300 miles long. The Santa Monica Mountains Corridor NRA is only about 40 miles long and is already costing over one billion dollars. And this does not include all the costs associated with the San Gabriel River Watershed study and what it adds to the Rim of the Valley National Park.

----11. The corridors will be like a series of giant nooses put around the necks of the many communities in the encircled areas. Economic and social activities will be greatly inhibited. Access people now take for granted will be lost forever. Frankly, the Park Service has a record of being a very bad neighbor. Go to www.landrights.org for several socio-cultural assessments and histories of Park Service abuses.

----12. There will be a massive increase in regulations controlling private and community activities with the encircled areas. The Rim of the Valley National Park will interdict transportation corridors, which will mean new bridges and passageways for wildlife corridors throughout the region.

----13. They'll use the wildlife as an excuse for substantial new regulatory controls. They'll build bridges for the wildlife over the freeways but you'll be locked out. For example over 90% of Yosemite is now closed off to most of the public. They are closing campgrounds and parking lots and soon you will have to take a bus just to get into the park.

----14. Force the closure of hundreds of miles of exiting roadways substantially reducing motorized recreation. Your access to areas now managed by the US Forest Service will be greatly reduced.

----15. It will be hard or impossible to get communication towers and other utilities installed in these corridors.

----16. Movie and TV companies who use these areas for films will be prevented from doing their normal work. The Park Service likes naturalness. They don't really like people. They just want enough to justify their budget.

----17. Creation of the Rim of the Valley Corridor could require tougher Class I air standards that would have a negative impact on private industry throughout the San Fernando Valley and the other areas. If you like the notion of viewsheds and soundsheds, you love the Rim of the Valley Corridor bill.

----18. Even though there is very little water, what exists is valuable. The Rim of the Valley will give the National Park Service a large measure of control over all the high ground around these valleys. Historically that means the agency uses that power to interdict the goals of local communities and business.

----18. The Park Service also seeks to keep communities from allowing landowners to use their land by threatening the cities and towns with the loss of Federal funds of all kinds.

Why is the Rim of the Valley Corridor National Park so important?

It will threaten thousands of landowners and permittees in the mountains around Los Angeles. It will threaten private owners in the Angeles National Forest and may threaten owners in the Los Padres and San Bernardino National Forests as well.

When the Park Service takes over the Angeles and San Bernardino Forest Service areas, landowners and recreation users lose. The Park Service does not like private uses and has almost no permit system.

The Rim of the Valley National Park will set a standard nationwide for corridor and greenway bills involving many urban and rural communities. It will likely lead to other corridor measures in other National Forests. If you like the notion of viewsheds and soundsheds, you love the Rim of the Valley Corridor bill. If they pass it in California, it will be hard to stop in other areas.

The Rim of the Valley is a study. But it is much cheaper and easier to stop the new area as a study than to stop the authorizing bill that will most certainly come from Congress later. You need to get involved now, get on the Park Service mailing list, and oppose the creation of this giant noose around your neck.

The Rim of the Valley Study is really creating a monster new national park. The size is huge and the cost will be even larger. The size could be a series of corridors with a total length as long as 300 miles and could cost you, the taxpayer over $4 billion dollars and possibly a lot more.

Ultimately what the Park Service will want is a giant network of corridors, some very wide, covering all the mountains around the North West part of Los Angeles and part of Ventura Counties. Some of these corridors will likely mean the conversion of multiple-use land managed by the US Forest Service to the National Park Service.

The Park Service is famous for its land grabbing and regulatory technique. One example is that Santa Monica Mountains NRA is well known for being a park where the Park Service was sued and ultimately had to pay large damages for initiating a raid against an innocent rancher, Donald Scott, who was killed in the raid. All because the Park Service wanted his land.

The Park Service has been a nightmare for landowners in Santa Monica Mountains. Relations with landowners and others who traditionally used the area have always been bad and continue that way.

It was said in 1978 when the bill creating the Santa Monica Mountains NRA It was supposed to be a "string of pearls" with most land left in private hands. But that concept largely went away as the Santa Monica Mountains NRA gradually grew and more landowners were wiped out, either by purchase or by regulation.

The National Park Service promised they would protect private property owners and that most private land would not be purchased. However, they continually expand their appetite so the scope and cost of the NRA just keeps increasing. Much of the actually land acquisition has been carried out by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. They and the Park Service work closely together to strangle landowners.

The Santa Monica Mountains NRA surrounded thousands of landowners preventing them from getting access. Then they bought out the major landowners and just left the small landowners to twist in the wind. Numerous complaints have been filed about the Park Service creating hardships and doing nothing about it.

That is what will happen in the Rim of the Valley Corridor. It will start with a small scope and gradually increase over time until the Federal Government and the National Park Service take over huge portions of the mountains around Los Angeles.

The proposed new Park Service area is likely to cost over $2 billion in additional dollars. That could be grossly understated. The funding required would detract from existing National Parks that are already strapped for funds for basic health, safety and visitor services.

Chuck Cushman American Land Rights Association PO Box 400 Battle Ground, WA 989604 (360) 687-3087 ccushman@pacifier.com www.landrights.org

Short LA background of Charles (Chuck) Cushman

Appointed to the National Park System Advisory Board by President Reagan in 1981.

Chairman of LA Mayor Bradley's Education Committee in 70's.

Father was a Boy Scout Executive in both the San Fernando Valley Council and the Verdugo Hills Council in the 40's and 50's. These assignments cover a lot of the area in the Rim of the Valley. It offered a chance to cover most of the back roads of the Angeles and San Bernardino National Forests.

Camped and traveled in the Rim of the Valley area extensively.

Graduated from North Hollywood High School in 1961.

Father left the Boy Scouts and taught at North Hollywood High in the 50's and 60's.

Father was a Summer ranger in Yosemite National Park in the 50's and 60's.

I was in the YMCA in North Hollywood as well as the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Explorer Scouts in North Hollywood.

I was in the Deputy Auxiliary Police in Los Angeles.

I was in the insurance business in Sherman Oaks and then Beverly Hills from 1963 to 1977. I'm a life member of the Million Dollar Round Table with 13 qualifications.

I believe I know the proposed Rim of the Valley and San Gabriel River Watershed study areas well.

Chuck Cushman

You can obtain more information on the Web by using the following search terms on Google:

Chuck Cushman Charles Cushman Charles S. Cushman American Land Rights Association National Inholders Association League of Private Property Voters

You can also go to www.landrights.org

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