Pioneering Calabasas family’s home raided

Some Calabasas property owners are raising a stink over a city crackdown on backyard septic tanks that they say signals a push for new mini-mansions in rural neighborhoods.

Residents on the mountainous south side of the 13-square-mile city assert that officials are using a new onsite wastewater treatment system ordinance to push the city boundary deeper into the Santa Monica Mountains.

They said city officials, backed by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, raided one rural 60-acre ranch and ordered a pioneering Calabasas family’s water and power cut off, leaving four people homeless.

Lloyd Smith’s ranch is a few yards inside the city limits at the north end of mile-long Stokes Canyon, a sparsely inhabited mountain area of unincorporated Los Angeles County that some want annexed to Calabasas.

City inspectors said the water service was shut off because Smith’s septic system was polluting a nearby stream. The electricity was ordered terminated after the 14-person raiding party noticed outdoor extension cords on the property.

Officials said they observed what they characterized as an “encampment” on the isolated property while studying satellite photos of the area above Malibu Canyon. Suspecting that the residents “may be unlawfully disposing of human waste” that could be entering the ocean, officials obtained an inspection warrant from a Superior Court judge in Malibu.

The city requested that the warrant not be served to Smith in advance because it might “result in the termination” of the alleged pollution and the removal of unpermitted structures before the raid could occur, according to court papers.

Steven Rosenblit, a Los Angeles lawyer who serves as a Calabasas city prosecutor, said officials followed “standard protocol” in investigating Smith’s property.

Calabasas officials declined to discuss the raid except to say: “The city has great compassion for the difficult circumstances in this case.”

Smith, a 70-year-old retired Los Angeles Zoo animal keeper, was hospitalized for a stress-related ailment after the surprise July 8 raid. He denied that sewage pollution has ever occurred on the property, which he said was developed under county permits issued long before Calabasas was incorporated in 1991.

“We’ve been here a hundred years. We’re a founding family out here. We helped organized the water district and the school board, the Chamber of Commerce and the Calabasas Pumpkin Festival,” he said from his convalescent home bed. “They want to turn this into a gated community for rich people. We are being treated like common criminals.”

He said five generations of his family have roots in Stokes Canyon that stretch back to 1910. The family purchased its acreage in 1945, when Ervin “Smitty” Smith was the mailman for the rural Calabasas area.

“We’re out here in the middle of nowhere, but still we’re a public nuisance?” asked Cindy Smith, another family member. “I begged the city not to shut the water and power off. The city has created the dangerous situation. We have a fire hydrant up there and they ordered it capped off and locked.”

Tuesday, directors of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District were urged by the Smiths’ supporters to turn the water on. Although the city warned the agency that it would be held responsible for any pollution if it did restore service, district leaders said they will inspect the ranch and make their own decision.

Others have also rallied to the Smiths’ defense. The Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation, a coalition of 25 area homeowner associations, has criticized the raid and questioned the city’s motives.

“The federation is on record as clean-water advocates and we do believe in septic system inspections. We support Malibu’s eight-page ordinance that regulates its 5,500 septics,” said Kim Lamorie, who lives in Calabasas and heads the group. But Calabasas has “a harsh and punitive 30-page document for just 142 septic systems.”

Lamorie described the city’s stance as draconian, giving the Smiths an impossibly short deadline to replace the septic system. She said city officials have demanded the right to enter the ranch at will and require the family to schedule expensive weekly pumping of any new septic system.

Jim Moorhead, a friend of Smith’s for three decades, characterized the city’s action as “highly suspicious” and “a crime against humanity.”

“Lloyd is now facing the prospect of homelessness,” said David Lewis, another friend of 17 years. “My outrage is that he and his family have been displaced based on allegations, many of which are outright lies.”

bob.pool@latimes.com