Trail System Opposed

I have just turned into a confirmed NIMBY, literally, after reading “Trail Drive” (Glendale Section on July 12). Not in My Back Yard, Andy Montealegre, will you add to your proposed trail system through the Glassell Park hills so you and your equally self-serving ilk can follow your totally selfish interests at another’s expense. Is it OK if I parade a bunch of neighbors and friends--maybe kids, dogs and all--through your property (where you have been living for just two years) because I probably walked over the land before your house was built?

Sure, I relish the country atmosphere too. That’s why I came here. But it was also for privacy and seclusion, and it is that I cherish even more.

Foresight told me it would not stay pastoral forever. I ate hot dogs and hamburgers for years to scrimp together every cent I could to be able to put down payments on adjoining lots to ensure my privacy. You think you are going to destroy it without a serious tussle on your hands, especially now that I can just begin to enjoy my hard-gotten gains in my retirement?

I do not resent Johnny-come-latelies. That’s life in the big city, or anywhere. No matter how well planned for, the increased population does bring its attendant problems, we all know too well. So now that I am ringed with new houses peering down at me and squeezing me, I long for perhaps 20 acres in the boonies somewhere.

What you are proposing is a back-door way to limit growth. The trails often traverse the best building spots. You expect a house to be sited differently for you on another’s property? You figure maybe that the lot owner will sell, instead of building, so you can continue use of another’s property? Do you realize that this is a condemnation for no justification, except the trumped up convenience of a few?

You seriously expect an owner not to mind anybody at all traipsing past his house? You really think that’s what ownership is all about? Exactly how do you propose to maintain an owner’s security and privacy? And who do you propose will oversee the dog and people litter problems when you yourself are depicted with your dog off-leash, a planner with flagrant disregard for city law, unless, of course, the picture shows you on your own property? And is that a club or a poop-scooper you carry?

I hope, for your sake as well as mine, I never catch you or your dog on my property, sir. You’re liable to find some dog-doo flying into your face.

Now does that indicate heated objection?

RAY ARONOW

Glassell Park