Barrier Breached : Pact Ends 10-Year Standoff Over Flint Wash Bridle Path

Declaring themselves tired of fighting, a La Canada Flintridge couple have dedicated a hiking and riding trail on their property to the city, resolving a decade-old dispute on the eve of a trial over rights to the popular bridle path.

At a court hearing on Friday, Melvin and Loretta Ricks signed a permanent easement for the 440-foot segment of the Flint Wash Trail that runs through their 4.2-acre estate in Flintridge.

The trail, which connects Descanso Gardens to the Arroyo Seco trail system and the Angeles Crest National Forest, has been used by horseback riders and hikers since the 1930s. It has been closed since April, however, when the Rickses received court permission to barricade it after it was damaged by heavy rains.

As part of the agreement signed on Friday, the Rickses gave the city the right to enter their property to repair and maintain the trail, and the city accepted liability for any injuries that occur there, said Melvin Ricks.

The settlement should put an end to the long-simmering dispute about who can use the trail and who should maintain the trail--contentious questions that for many years had pitted the couple against the city and it’s equestrian community.

“I won’t stop anybody from riding on it, because now it’s not my liability,” Melvin Ricks said Tuesday.

Tension over the trail first surfaced in 1981 after a sprinkler system broke, causing a washout on a portion of the trail that crossed the Ricks’ property on Berkshire Avenue.

Ricks contends that state workers repaired the damage but did the work badly and further damaged his property. The homeowner ordered the workers off his land, but they returned with a court order allowing them to complete the job.

The dispute escalated in 1985, when the Rickses offered to dedicate the trail to the city if the city would agree to pay for improvements, including the construction of a retaining wall on the hillside above the trail to prevent further erosion and landslides.

“I offered to give them the trail,” Melvin Ricks said. “They should have taken it gladly. I only wanted them to maintain it properly.”

But the city declined his offer after members of the Trails Council, a local organization dedicated to promoting trails in La Canada Flintridge, objected to the use of city trail repair funds to build the retaining wall, which its members perceived as an improvement to the Ricks’ property.

Ricks said that over the past several years he has continually offered to give the trail to the city--if the city would undertake the necessary repairs to make the trail safe.

Ricks said he feared it was hazardous and that he would be liable for any accident there.

But attorney Orville O. Orr, who represents Equestrian Trails Inc. and worked closely with city officials, said Ricks’ idea of the necessary repairs far exceeded what city officials considered essential to keep the trail safe. Consequently, Ricks’ offers were always declined.

“The city took the position that the work wasn’t necessary,” Orr said.

At one point, the Rickses filed a lawsuit in Glendale Superior Court against the city and the Trail Council to compel the city to maintain the trail. But Orr said that the couple never pursued that legal course.

The issue came to a head in January, 1989, when the Rickses built a gate across the trail, which equestrians feared would be used to keep them off the property, Orr said.

Although the gate was generally open, Orr said that equestrians believed that it posed a hazard by narrowing the trail. In May, 1990, after months of fruitless negotiations, Equestrian Trails filed a lawsuit against the couple, asking a court to declare a public easement on the land and demanding that the Rickses remove the fence. Equestrian Trails is a national nonprofit organization that has a chapter in La Canada.

That August, while the Equestrian Trails lawsuit was winding its way through the court system, Ricks sought a Superior Court order allowing closure of the trail on the grounds that it was unsafe, Orr said. His request was rejected.

But in April of this year, after the heavy rains washed out a segment of the trail, Ricks received such an order, and the gate has been closed since.

However, last month, just as the trial of the Equestrian Trails lawsuit was about to start, Ricks offered the city the trail--no strings attached. The city accepted the offer, and Orr said that, if the fences are removed by Oct. 21, Equestrian Trails will drop its lawsuit.

“Mostly, I was tired of fighting,” Melvin Ricks said of his change of heart. “I hope its a new beginning. That’s what I have been trying to do for the last seven or eight years--get a new beginning.”