The prospect to Malibu developers of my gaining a seat on the Malibu City Council must be a reality they’d rather not face. It is utterly appalling that a representative of the Barovsky and Stern campaigns sent a broadside last week in an attempt to discredit me through a letter to the editor, including the false statement that I have “a serious criminal record.” Unfortunately, Malibu politics have sunk to the low standard we’ve seen elsewhere, where twisted character assassinations are common. Yes, I was arrested once-in an act of civil disobedience-for cutting a fence and padlocked gate so antelope could reach their food and family, and for symbolically cutting a nonnative eucalyptus branch- a tree that was entirely inappropriate for the region, preventing hawks and owls from finding their food. When the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ranger caught me, he said, “Drop that saw!”
The Court ordered that I perform community service doing restoration work for Morro Bay State Park, ironically removing nonnative ice plant and building a fence to protect endangered Snowy Plovers. (The hearing was convened in a very conservative town, and the judge did not allow anyone belonging to an environmental organization to serve on the jury.) This case was dismissed in September 2001, and my record was cleared with no objection lodged with the Court by the BLM or the District Attorney’s office.
The account the Barovsky machine’s Lloyd Ahern detailed was lifted from a BLM report falsely trumped up in an attempt to punish and intimidate me for whistle-blowing activities while in the employ of BLM, and there is little similarity in the report with the truth.
I am a biologist who cares deeply for the natural world, and I feel personally wounded when I witness the injuries we have all inflicted on the planet. It was from this place that I decided to speak out against the terrible mismanagement by BLM of the Carrizo Plain, which ultimately cost me my job. I did get re-hired after the first whistle-blowing, being defended by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Government Accountability Project (GAP), but a loophole in the whistle-blowing laws allowed BLM to terminate me a second time.
After I left BLM I was bothered by the injustice toward nature at Carrizo, and I decided that risking arrest was something I was willing to do in order to alert the public. The highly visible trial resulted in reports by the Los Angeles Times, New Times/SLO, San Luis Obispo Tribune and Mother Jones magazine. None of these reports match the inaccuracy espoused by Mr. Ahern. In fact, it was the Los Angeles Times’ piece by columnist Peter King that first attracted Barovsky’s attention when she and I competed for Council two years ago. She immediately began a whispering campaign that erroneously claimed I wore women’s clothing while cutting trees in people’s backyards-as ridiculous as her false claims now that the Coastal Commission will not allow you to have a birthday party on the beach or a rose garden in your yard.
I later decided I would work for nature through political processes, and took a lead role in Sierra Club’s campaign to convince President Clinton to declare Carrizo Plain a National Monument. Now BLM is removing the dangerous fences placed on Carrizo for cattle, but harmful to the antelope.
So, you might say, “I agree with Roy about protecting nature, but I’m not sure about civil disobedience and being arrested.” It may not be your cup of tea, but school chidren are taught with pride about the Boston Tea Party and the civil disobedience in which the early patriots of this land took part. There are several members of the Malibu community who have risked arrest on numerous occasions for causes they hold dear-Martin Sheen, Valerie Sklarevsky, Capt. Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd-and I count these heroes for nature and conscience as supporters. That said, I do not plan any more civil disobedience, and if elected to the Malibu City Council, I would swear to uphold the laws of the land, something I’m not sure all of the other candidates will be able to do, since they are so intent on turning their back on the California Coastal Act.
Robert Roy van de Hoek