Bebout’s Crossing : Blind Man Beats City Hall in His Long Fight Against Walkway Fee

They told Earl Bebout he couldn’t fight City Hall.

They were wrong.

The 84-year-old, legally blind Mira Monte man spent 4 1/2 years battling Ventura County officials over their attempts to charge him for the right to cross a path he cannot use.

On Wednesday, an attorney representing Bebout announced that county officials have decided that Bebout and his neighbors should no longer have to pay $50 a year to cross the Ojai Valley Trail, which runs between his North Ventura Avenue home and California 33.

“I was quite glad to hear it,” Bebout said Wednesday, “but it doesn’t really mean a great deal to me because I wasn’t going to pay it anyhow.”

Bebout’s fight with the county began in 1988, when county workers completed work on the equestrian and pedestrian trail in front of his home and then provided intermittent openings in the 9.5-mile fence so residents would not be cut off from the highway.

Originally, nearby homeowners were supportive of the project. But their opinion of the walkway changed when the county instituted a onetime licensing fee of $100 and annual trail upkeep fees of $50 in return for the right to use the easement.

Many of the 25 trail-side residents protested the fees, and some filed their initial payments under protest.

But the fees were especially rankling to Bebout. “I don’t drive,” he said in January. “I don’t even have a car. What are they asking me to pay for?”

Echoed neighbor Julie Rodarte: “It was unfair that only 25 of us were being asked to pay for the whole trail when there are thousands of people using it.”

The fight with the county became a time-consuming labor for Bebout, a retired electrician who walks with a cane because he sees only silhouettes, despite his quarter-inch-thick glasses.

Although he tried to persuade some of his neighbors to fight along with him, many warned him that he couldn’t beat the system, and they all eventually caved in and paid the fees.

But Bebout vowed to carry on his fight. “I think City Hall is just like anyone else,” he said. “After all, there’s still democracy in this country.”

The county filed suit against Bebout last year to recover the crossing charges. A Municipal Court judge ruled in February that Bebout was responsible for paying the charges. He enlisted the help of Ojai Valley gadfly Anne Davis, who in turn recruited Ventura attorney Don Adams to take the appeal on a pro-bono basis.

Adams argued that the trail-side residents had a historic right to use the easements onto California 33. Many had crossed the land where the trail was built for decades before the county bought the area from the Southern Pacific railroad.

Because the county recreation services division has recommended rescinding the trail charges, Bebout’s first court appearance for the appeal, originally scheduled for next week, has been postponed until October. This will give the Board of Supervisors time to vote on the policy reversal.

Recreation services manager Blake Boyle said the decision to cancel the encroachment fees for the trail-side residents was purely economical.

“The amount of revenue derived from that process was not amounting to much,” Boyle said. “The administrative cost of tracking it all was exceeding the amount of revenue derived and it was not cost-effective.”

Bebout’s protest also took its toll, Boyle admitted. “That was part of the equation, sure,” Boyle said. “It took up staff time.”

Taking up time is what worries Bebout these days, he said, now that the flap with the county is settled. “I feel kind of deflated now, like there’s nothing else to do.”

At the end of his long, good fight, Bebout said his battle was about what America was founded on: “I still think people have rights.

“If they fight for them, they get them.”