Board to Vote on Access to Scenic Road : Ranchland: Supervisor draws up compromise plan to keep stretch of Sulphur Mountain Road open to non-motorized recreational traffic. One property owner is bitterly opposed.

The simmering feud over a scenic stretch of Sulphur Mountain Road may finally be put to rest today when the County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on a compromise plan to keep the gated dirt road open to hikers, bikers and horseback riders.

An 11-mile section of the road--which connects the Upper Ojai to Casitas Springs--was closed to motorized traffic by the county in 1978 because it was too expensive to maintain. Since then, the area has become popular with outdoor enthusiasts who trek the road to enjoy the sweeping vistas of the Ojai Valley and Channel Islands.

But ranchers, who own the land on either side of the road, complain that the constant recreational traffic is taking its toll on their land, and they want the road closed.

“People are trespassing on my land, causing erosion and opening gates and letting the cattle out,” said Kim Bonsall, whose family owns a 6,500-acre parcel along the road. “This isn’t a park. It’s private property.”

Supervisor Susan K. Lacey has proposed keeping the road--which the county bought in 1930--open while establishing a volunteer group to patrol the area, posting signs asking visitors to keep to the road, and encouraging ranchers and recreation lovers to meet periodically to discuss problems.

“We don’t need to close the road to address the landowners’ issues,” Lacey said. “We just need to educate the public about what is and isn’t permitted on the road.”

Lacey said her proposal had the support of several other supervisors. But Lacey lacks the support of one major non-voting critic: Kim Bonsall.

The southern entrance to Sulphur Mountain Road is an unwelcome sight, which was exactly Bonsall’s intention when she cultivated a batch of poison oak to surround a metal gate that the county installed to prevent vehicle traffic.

Although county regulations say horses are allowed on the 60-foot-wide road, Bonsall has made it all but impossible for a horse to get past an existing cattle grate by surrounding it with a thick, iron fence and barbed wire.

And when people do make an unauthorized trip through the gate, she’s been known to temporarily lock them in, as was the case when a church youth group went for a religious outing in July.

Bonsall, 43, said she has a particular dislike for lost or stray dogs, too, and readily admits to shooting those that roam her property.

The debate over Sulphur Mountain Road isn’t the first time Bonsall has become a magnet for negative attention. She and her family made headlines in the mid-1980s when they agreed to lease a portion of their ranch in Weldon Canyon to a company that wants to build a giant landfill.

Bonsall said she has her reasons for shunning visitors.

She is just trying to maintain a working ranch, she says. Occasionally, people trespassing across her land leave gates open, allowing cattle to roam. The animals journey to areas of her property where the family is growing hay commercially, which Bonsall said results in thousands of dollars lost.

“I’m just trying to protect my property and my business,” said Bonsall, who knew the road was publicly owned when her family purchased the property in 1977.

Unlike Bonsall, who denounced Lacey’s plan as “an invitation to just make matters worse,” many of the other dozen ranchers on Sulphur Mountain appear to be ready to compromise. Although they too would prefer to close the road, even the ranchers balked when Bonsall initially suggested closing the road to everyone--even to them.

“The fact is 95% of the people who walk and bike along Sulphur Mountain are nice people who stay on the road,” said rancher Jim Clark, whose family has owned 400 acres there since 1948. “I think if we put signs up telling people what not to do, then the other people will stay on the road as well.

“I think most of us agree that we have to compromise. I just don’t think the county will close the road.”

Horse enthusiast Norm Davis agreed.

“That road was paid for with taxpayer money,” the Ojai resident said. “I have great respect for private property, but [Bonsall] doesn’t own that land.

“If she wants to keep people off, then she should pay to put up a big, strong fence.”