They Just Want Him to Move His Mountain

This city has long boasted that Mt. Baldy is right in its back yard. But one peak is enough, thank you.

By a 4-1 vote Tuesday, the City Council offered to give a resident $500 to defray the cost of moving his mountain.

But Michael Gray, 25, a mountain climber, replied that he wouldn’t budge.

He said he would seek legal action against the city, which originally issued him a permit to build a 20-foot simulated mountain face behind his home at 2230 Brescia Ave.

Gray said he has paid $1,800, plus labor costs, to erect a framework to which rocks would be affixed. He said it would cost $2,500 to disassemble the structure and remove the five feet of concrete that anchors it.

City officials haven’t known what to make of Gray’s project since he applied for a permit last spring: Was it a wall, which would not be allowed because of its height, or a permissible “structure”?

The city development staff ruled that it was a structure, and a permit was issued May 8; the city Planning Commission upheld that ruling in mid-June.

Tuesday evening, Councilman Algird Leiga suggested that it was neither wall nor structure, but more like a “vertical” tennis court.

In the end, he and his fellow council members decreed that the permit had been issued erroneously, and that Gray should be given $500 and asked to move the mountain within 30 days.

Councilman Bill McCready voted against the motion, saying he did not believe the permit was issued in error.