Legal Dispute Keeps Hiking Trail Closed

A popular Ojai Valley hiking trail will not reopen to the public today as scheduled because of a legal standoff between the private landowner and a group that fought to reopen it.

In 1996, landowner Ole Konig closed public access to the popular eight-mile loop of trails north of Ojai that walkers, bicyclists and horseback riders had used for at least 30 years.

Konig purchased a 97-acre tract that included a one-mile section of the trail--known as Fuel Break Road--with the intention of building a home on the property.

But the group Alliance for Public Trail Access sued him on the grounds that long-standing public use of the private land gave people a right to continue using it.

Under terms of a settlement reached last year, the group agreed to give Konig $3,000 in exchange for a 10-foot-wide easement that would allow access to the trail.

Konig signed the settlement. The group, however, did not sign after learning that Konig had paved several hundred feet of what is now the driveway to his property.

The alliance recruited two experts who contended the pavement made the route unsafe for horses.

“The ball is in his court,” group spokeswoman Judith Gustafson said. “We’re asking for a simple dirt path that bypasses the paved area so the horses can go on the dirt safely and he has not yet agreed to do this.”

But Lindsay Nielson, Konig’s Ventura attorney, said the agreement has a mechanism for settling the issue--arbitration.

“In 30 years of doing this stuff, I’ve never had someone not sign a settlement agreement they told the court they would sign,” Nielson said.

But the group’s members fear that by signing, they could waive any claim to finding a resolution to the pavement issue.