​Subdivisions aren't organic

For anyone whose imagination could sometimes take a surreal turn, it might've seemed that the state, in approving such rural subdivisions, which each county then oversaw, was perhaps employing social scientists to conduct a weird social lab experiment, like wanting to determine how many strangers could live together in the middle of nowhere for how long while dealing with a given load of over-exacting rules and regulations before it drove them all nuts. "Hey guys, I think we might have a new contender here..."

 

People moved to the country for peace and quiet. To enjoy fresh air and the quiet and live more simply...and be left the hell alone. They no longer wanted to have to deal with the intrusive bureaucratic mandates of dense city living. Naturally, they did their best to ignore them in the Vista -- even if in the process it might've allowed for unintended consequences like an infusion of sometimes less than law-abiding persons, who became attracted to the wayward place as a promising cheap "badlands" hideout. Some might've even said the very word 'subdivision' handicapped developments from ever thriving, as the word itself sounded so, well...divisive.

 

Historically, when a settlement was founded by one or a party, unless a boom-town, it evolved slowly. There was an organic process at work. New residents gained a sense of belonging and measure of empowerment within the slow-growing community in which everyone played a role and pulled their weight.

 

The Vista, in stark contrast, was founded by a realtor who lived six hundred miles away; he had every last bit of the land cookie-cutter-platted into 1,641 lots before the first parcel buyer or future resident ever set foot on it. It was his creation, such as it was, at first seeming to aspire to be no more than a simple shared recreational land, where one could enjoy roughing it in nature a few weeks a year. Then, after a few dozen excited vacationers got ambitious and actually relocated onto the land,  the lack of  infrastructure, fine-tuned growth plans, and vested, unified interest by a majority of lot holders all torpedoed even their best efforts to keep the development a standard community. The approach seemed to have been to play it by ear: "Hey, let's see what we can maybe do here if enough of us can get on the same page." (And, again, the possible darker, less altruistic mindset of some might've been more like, "We're going for it and, frankly, don't give three hoots in a holler what happens to the rest of the place. Buyer beware.")

 

Of course, nowhere near enough ever got on the same page. It soon became obvious that a wildly diverse ownership, interests and intentions for the parcels at perpetual odds, were more than simply on different pages -- or even chapters; they were reading different books.

 

Vista's already trey iffy situation was made iffier still after various one-time residents started leasing their homes once the blush of Vista living was the rose for them. Such lessees as non-owners had zero say in how the place was run as far as board eligibility, even if one might've grown a keen interest in getting involved and trying to help the helpless place along. That is, beyond joining the volunteer fire department, doing fundraisers for it, or spouting one's two cents' worth at monthly meetings (if allowed to, for not being property owners).

 

And, again, the place's myriad problems were exacerbated by that legion of disinterested absentee parcel owners who long constituted over ninety percent of the association's membership. They dwarfed the tiny number of actual residents, yet held equal voting power for any proposal. To many of the purely speculative, the place had become a gone-sour investment they'd sell the second they got any decent offer. In the meantime, they'd scream and holler over every cent of annual dues increase, right along with the few scattered residents, many of whom over time likewise became indifferent to the outlandish notion of ever trying to help the one-time wilderness condo that had obviously long ago lost any chance for redemption whatsoever.

​

Why bother?

The professional association manager eventually hired by the board in the 1980s was relied on to take care of mundane everyday things, like legal matters, routine billing, accounting and budgetary concerns. By then things had gone wrong so long that many felt there was nothing meaningful anyone could do except nurse the wobbly operation along the way it was and hope for the best. Long-established residents had their own social scene wired, thank you, and were all too aware how steeply the cards were stacked against the place ever turning itself around. They'd reject as naive and unrealistic pipe dreams the efforts of others to try to straighten the place out.

​

Cynicism ran so deep, hope had become just another four-letter word.

 

A prime example illustrates how widespread the lack of civic-minded spirit was: One day in the 1990s, dozens of orange plastic bagged phone books had been dropped off atop the busy Juniper Drive entrance's mailbox complex -- and were promptly swept to the ground by one irate resident, no doubt taking umbrage at their presence and being just another of competing local phone books annually cranked out. They stayed there on the ground for weeks, like some weird avant-garde art installation. While it created an obvious eyesore for everyone each time driving by, over a month went by and still no one had bothered to deal with it. I didn't live in that part and so held off, waywardly fascinated by such monumental indifference. (Finally, I gathered them up for recycling.)

 

No doubt many had grumbled to themselves how someone ought to clean them up, but of course never thought to be that someone. Disheartened and disgusted over the place being so untogether and community indifferent, they probably felt a perverse rush every time they drove past, mentally raking the board over the coals for being so discombobulated that it couldn't even deal with such a simple matter. The place really was like a rural parcel condo: Its already overworked one-person road management was somehow expected to keep all the common grounds tidy as well -- not its residents. Earn your pay, slacker.

 

A more far-reaching example: In 1981, a majority of association members overwhelmingly defeated the proposal made by then-board president Eric Prescott. He'd envisioned the Vista building a modest multi-use community center on one of the hundreds of empty lots, for the mutual benefit of residents and owner-visitors. The population of the place, then still relatively code-compliant, was growing quickly. It would’ve meant only a modest extra assessment for two years to fund, for the cost being spread out among so many, and would've benefited myriad parcel holders over time, fostering a better sense of community: a dedicated relaxed place where residents and visitors could meet and trade notes, brainstorm, and coordinate civic activities. It would've almost certainly increased lot values. But the sea of terminally disillusioned absentee parcel holders shot it down gleefully. With blinders firmly in place, they'd chorus their favorite refrain: Not One Cent More! (Telling result: Though Prescott and I moved here at almost the exact same time in the late seventies, we would never even meet.)

​

Many embraced the notion that once they bought the land, except for annual property taxes -- some newbie landowners no doubt weren't even aware of that recurring expense -- they were home free. So absentee lot holders took strong exception to having to feed the parking meter every year for road maintenance on roads they never drove on lest their property get towed away by the Association through legal repossession...for resale to the next, possibly equally clueless buyer. 

​

Sweet someday...

Not to paint the situation with too broad a brush... There were also a few absentee owners who, despite all, still treasured the land and its possibilities. They admired and envied those who'd made the bold leap to genteel backwoods living. They held wistful hopes its promising beginnings might yet resurrect. Some no doubt still entertained hopes of moving in and joining their number once it finally pulled itself together...or even as-is and hoping for the best. And a few others kept enjoying their periodic camping retreats on lots located furthest away from the main traffic arteries and the established residences, which were often clustered along the few power lines and or within a mile or two of the blacktop.

 

But such fond sentiments always faced the gale-force headwinds of the all-is-futility, long-entrenched cynicism of other lot holders who felt intractably stuck with a sucker investment they'd been fool enough to sink their hard-earned money into. And it seemed most owners -- jaded residents and disillusioned absentee owners alike -- held a stark contempt towards any Pollyanna notion that the place could yet somehow turn itself around. Leastwise, not if it meant prying one more penny from wallet or purse. To them it was obvious (in perhaps self-fulfilling prophesy) that there was zero hope of the outlandish basket case of a failed subdivision ever resurrecting.

 

Many who wished the place well but not at their expense thought that some portion of their annual assessment fee could surely go towards funding whatever civic improvements community-minded residents thought would benefit the place. But the annual budget was invariably stretched to the breaking point over the high cost of maintaining the sixty-six miles of fragile roads. Plus, the board repossessed parcels of defaulting owners, lots that couldn't be resold readily, and so their annual county property taxes were absorbed by the association until finding a buyer in the super-soft market, further eating into available funds. Then there were vandalized, damaged, and stolen road signs. They needed frequent replacement, back when it was still done, and in a timely manner. And skyrocketing insurance rates. And thorny legal matters with potential lawsuits, requiring keeping a pricey attorney on retainer. And...

 

Disinterested association managers &

board president with conflicts of interest

At some point the association started shelling out for the annual salary of the professional association manager. Things had gotten too complicated and time-consuming for the volunteer board members to deal without specialized help; most were not versed in legal matters enough to grasp the intricate procedures required to run the development (such as it was) according to Hoyle. Especially after the state legislature in 1985 enacted the flurry of new regulations for California subdivisions, soon known as the Davis-Stirling Act.

 

It would add insult to injury when one of the salaried managers (the place has had two) -- whom residents naturally assumed would work for the good of the place, it being a nonprofit public benefit corporation, after all -- himself brokered lot sales as a realty agent on the side. In itself, this was perhaps no big deal. But then, in 2015, he joined the flurry of realtors hustling to sell lots to those obviously intent on snapping up the long neglected lots for illicit scaled pot grows. He, like many, seemed indifferent to the chaos and disruption the sales would unleash on the laid back, serene lifestyle that the Vista at its best had enjoyed for decades by its few hundred residents, who were an unlikely mix of older retired, younger working and ne'er-do-well hangers-on of all ages. 

 

And while some, maybe even most, volunteer board presidents, themselves residents, tried to keep the well-being of the residency in mind -- balanced with the reasonable concerns the absentee parcel holders -- one herself later on actually played a vital part in the full-tilt realty campaign to sell to underground-market growers. Her realty outfit sent out letters to every single parcel owner, inviting them to sell, knowing how many had long felt stuck with unsellable lots (pitching something along the good-news line of "You might be surprised to know that there are actually people interested in your property!"). She knew such owners would pounce at the chance to finally unload the clunkers and -- surprise! -- at an actual healthy profit. She had always held it was the right of each property owner to do with their lot whatever they wanted. "One can cut down every tree on their parcel if they want to", she once said at a board meeting. In her book, doing whatever one wanted on their lot trumped any consideration for the well-being and quality of life of the community as a whole. With such a mindset -- willing to lead the charge in pulling the rug out from under the place's long-established, fitfully tranquil air solely to make  fast money -- long established residents suddenly felt like so many expendable pawns on the realty market's chessboard.

 

Though the development was ostensibly a nonprofit public benefit corporation, there was so much blatantly for-profit, make-money-anyway-you-can-off-the-lame-ass-dead-in-the-water-parcels hustling going on by self-interested parties, it beggared belief. It made your average just-in-it-for-the-money, for-profit concern look like a piker in comparison.

 

No there there

Many residents had low to no expectations going in; they'd accepted that there wasn't any more there, there. Nothing beyond the junipers and sagebrush and simple roads amid a confused mishmash of wildly varied dwellings. Maybe they were even relieved; it suited them just fine. Some would just use the place as a temporary perch, ready to move on if and when something better opened up.

 

Many of those the realm eventually attracted indeed seemed to be far from your conventional sort. They'd moved here to get as far away from over-complicated, peace-eroding urban forces as possible, yet be not too far from town. They didn't mind a few inconveniences. As one late section 13 Pilar Road resident, then president of the Siskiyou Arts Council, said gleefully in a public-radio interview, "We live out in the middle of nowhere and we love it!"

 

Those who had conformed to code requirements, or bought places that had, at least potentially possessed peace of mind to enjoy them as law-abiding citizens. But even those who hadn't, who were hunkering down hopefully under radar, seemed to feel they had the same inviolable right to enjoy their parcels any way they chose and not get hassled -- while at the same time naturally ignoring any laws and ordinances they didn't approve of. Human nature could be so contrary, especially if living in a dreamland.

 

Handy place to perch

Thus it was that the Vista, an arrested de facto recreational subdivision that had failed to segue into a recognized community beyond its fleeting early incarnation, for decades remained an embarrassment of mostly empty lots amid the thinnest scattering of approved residences, all the while growing in an ungovernable spirit.

 

The situation had struck all sorts of refugees from urban life as making a dandy place to land: cheap and remote, but not too remote, with scads of undeveloped acreage all around. The code-compliant could enjoy simple stand-alone country living, while the non-compliant could often get away with not conforming to code or suffer singed feathers at worst. Both paid the mandatory annual dues (usually) and as a popular pastime demonized the property owners association board as the source of all evil. With a remarkable shortsightedness living in the place sometimes seemed to foster, it was the fly in the ointment interfering with any more carefree country living.

 

The more cynical suspected the board setup was bogus, probably illegal. Corrupt as hell, anyhow. "Someone oughta sue", "Why I ever moved here...", "This place would be just fine if it weren't for...", "They can't do that, can they?", "This place is friggin' nuts!", ad infinitum. Unfounded rumors of corrupt board members dipping into the treasury were rife.

 

Though such gnarly energies weren't always evident, it often felt that way. There were in fact welcome respites, pleasant lulls when the dread fire-breathing beast of contention slumbered. During such times -- especially during gentle springs and balmy early summers -- a peaceful laid-back spirit might prevail over the land that, despite all, felt blessed with a rich and nurturing feel of tranquility. Polarized energies checkmated, grateful denizens relished the solitude living in such a secluded domain generously provided.  

 

But such idyllic periods, alas, seldom seemed to last for long.

​

 

Perennial joker in the deck during

the Intolerable Years:

mid 1970s through mid 1990s

While there was something to be said for the place making everyone feel like a king or queen of their own mini kingdom, their own little backwoods hideaway bought for a song, one had to keep tuning out the perennial joker in the deck: the endless battles over code compliance. It could make the less affluent and nonconforming instead feel more like oppressed serfs living under the yoke of the overlords who'd met legal residency requirements and were determined to keep them enforced by any means necessary short of armed vigilantism. Sometimes they succeeded; other times they came off more like so many bumbling Barney Fifes.

 

This joker in the deck, like a rude Jack-in-the-box, kept popping up to put a crimp in the lives of the countless non-complying dwellers during the Intolerable Years, which roughly spanned between the mid 1970s and mid 1990s. As said, domains furthest away from the blacktop often had so few others nearby that inhabitants could easily imagine their digs being more like pioneer homesteads of yore rather than any dratted modern-day subdivision parcels subject to a slew of nit-picky, spirit-stifling rules and regulations. But even then, the latter reality would sooner or later usually assert itself and put a damper on one's day.

​

Some (certainly not all) board members and their cohorts of that period -- fondest hopes for the place having faded into oblivion and, consequently, minds being bent into pretzels -- went on a mad drunk with the intoxicating power being a board member seemed to confer. They ran amok like so many little T-rexes.  With barred teeth and razor claws, the uber law-and-order champions wielded ruthless authority over the rabble, or tried to. They were dead-set on heroically salvaging what they could of their Shangri-la, in the process becoming out-and-out authoritarians and making the place hellish for everyone. No doubt they felt their extreme mindset was justified. The only alternative had been to stand by idly and watch their sweet dream circle the drain.​

​

Fast forward and board members, though still grumbling over all the rampant non-compliance going on, further ruining their property values and quality of life, seemed to gradually become more or less resigned to what time had proven to be an unsolvable problem. Board meeting members and attendees, many mindful of the briefly idyllic times of yore, at some point had simply sank into a collective depressed what's-the-use? mindset.

 

Perhaps it wasn't surprising that, even as their once iron authority began rusting away, serious inertia yet prevailed. Residents of a place long paralyzed by ceaseless discord still somehow felt that they couldn't do diddly-squat without getting the seemingly do-nothing, would-still-be all-mighty's board's approval -- and then grow old waiting for it. ("Matter tabled til next month [yawn]; motion for adjournment?")

 

The same if one wanted to start a volunteer effort to help the place along.

 

Beleaguered crew of a foundering HMS Vista

​One day at a monthly meeting held in then-president Bonnie Jolly's living room, I volunteered to become the subdivision's unpaid custodian. I was psyched to tackle the epidemic of road litter and windblown detritus often despoiling the endless miles of otherwise scenic wooded roadsides. They apparently seemed to think it was a good idea and duly voted me into the new position. But it was an unreal experience: It was almost as if they'd approved the new post in their sleep. They didn't bother to address any of the details the position might require, like supplying trash bags or possibly reimbursements for any dump fees, or a nominal gas allowance stipend; nothing. (I hadn't thought to bring them up, either.) So I quit my official post before I started, knowing I needn't even bother saying anything to anyone.

 

Their hearts simply weren't into such things. Burned out volunteering and used to receiving only grief for their efforts, and being depressed over the hopelessly sorry state of affairs in general, coasting on automatic  pilot, they could only muster enough energy to cover essential routine matters like road maintenance. (I would continue gathering road litter informally, as did a few others likewise concerned.)

 

The way board members often seemed to so woodenly go through the motions, calling it in, other residents, knowing the beast was losing its teeth, began tackling things as they saw fit, on their own, not seeking any board's permission. Things like setting aright a road sign that had been struck and was precariously listing or fallen, or themselves repairing a stretch of road in front of one's place rather than go through stupefyingly sluggish official channels.

 

Apathy and a sense of hopelessness in the place in time became so chronic and entrenched, we were like a beleaguered crew aboard a foundering ship: We lacked the will to do anything more than bail just enough water to keep from going clear under.

 

What rules?

Jumping back again to the earlier, super-intolerant years... Despite a seemingly bonkers board throwing its weight around while on nearly constant red alert, remote circumstances had still somehow lent a tenuous assurance that, even then, one could do (or should be able to do) whatever they wanted to on their own land. No uptight board -- lacking credibility and legal fining power and, over time, receiving less and less support and cooperation from county authorities -- could stop them regardless of how much ruckus they might raise.

​

Private-property rights were sacrosanct, after all. The more independent-thinking dwellers blocked from mind the reality of being part of any external world's standard rules and regulations -- and especially any busybody board of meddling "directors." It didn't register as something needed in their rustic realm; it was too invasive, too arbitrary, too self-defeating to the very reason one moved here.

 

Nudist paradise

At the risk of overstatement, the illusion of anything goes manifested in profound measure due to the overwhelming majority of parcel owners being detached investors living far away and rarely, if ever, visiting their land. To actual dwellers, they held no more than an easily tuned-out phantom presence. Inhabitants came to view the thousand-plus vacant, undeveloped, unsellable parcels almost as a de facto permanent park commons. As a result, some residents could feel like stewards over not only their own inviolate mini fiefdom of two to three acres, but of the luxuriant buffer zones of dozens, even scores, of empty parcels absentee owners had so generously provided; it could make one feel land-rich indeed.

 

And made for conditions so isolated -- nobody around to say boo -- that certain social norms, even deeply entrenched ones like mandatory dress beyond the privacy of one's home, could fade away over time.​ I was one among a handful living in Vista's more remote reaches who for decades was surrounded by hundreds of such undeveloped, unfenced lots. Anyone of bohemian-minded leaning could, if they wanted to in nicer weather, stroll about their land without a stitch on. One felt the freedom to enjoy the exhilarating rush of an intimate oneness with nature that being unencumbered by unneeded cover so easily allowed. Oftentimes, no vehicle migt drive through furthest back roads for a week or longer. (And almost no one else ever walked anywhere, perhaps a legacy of most founders being from uber car-centric L.A.) Such remote conditions in time inspired more than a few less clothes-minded Vistan denizens to enjoy being naked as jays all day long, both on their own lots and while freehiking uninhibitedly the uninhabited region.

 

Obviously one benefit of the Vista being such a vast, failed subdivision was that it was a de facto nudists' paradise.​ ​​

​

Who's minding the place?

Some residents beyond board members in contact with absentee owners might've vaguely sensed the latter's displeasure over how the place was doing. At times, it was truly a disheartening situation, one that often enabled firewood-selling tree poachers to raid absentees' unfenced lots at will. Sometimes parcels and adjacent forestry land harbored actual squatters. And off-roaders often tear through absentee owners' usually unposted, undeveloped parcels with impunity, having zero concern for being others' private property.  Though perhaps having no one to blame but themselves for being dumb enough to buy into what quickly became a colossal developmental misfire, it was easier to blame the residency and the mostly powerless board, who together sometimes gave the impression that they didn't care diddly-squat about anything that was going on. (And, indeed, some, only trying to make the best of a bad situation for a while, really didn't; a few even participated in the various lawless misdeeds themselves.)

 

Whether or not one sensed this subtle yet pernicious force at work, the absentees' collective ire over the sorry state of affairs was part and parcel of the overload of corrosive influences busy at work. It gnawed at one's peace of mind -- if only vaguely and on the unconscious level -- right along with the in-your-face code compliant dwellers waging war on the non-compliant and dealing with water scarcity. One might argue that it was the huge absentee ownership -- which as a whole never mustered enough public-minded energy to help the place out of its dire straits enough to even vote for a modest community center -- that became the straw that would break the camel's back.

 

Vigilante episodes

inside an intractable tract

In the early 2000s, one of the few residents then furtively growing illicit cannabis for the underground recreational market -- long before changing California pot laws effectively decriminalized such once-nefarious doings -- one day found himself with new neighbors. The couple appeared to be intent on doing the exact same thing as him. Wanting to avoid increasing the possibility of bringing unwanted attention to his own clandestine operation, he confronted them, persuading them to leave by threatening violence in no uncertain terms if they didn't.

 

An isolated few others were also discreetly growing small patches of pot outdoors by then (plus maybe one or two indoors, using grow lights), mostly for their own enjoyment, but possibly also to generate a bit of extra income. The place had a nice sunshiny climate (if not ideal soil) and was remote enough to pursue such cultivation without getting hassled if one kept their operation low-key.*

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* The Vista's early pot grows, limited as they were, of course had helped set the stage for the later, scaled-up cultivation phenomenon, showing yet again how the remote place was an irresistible draw for all sorts for all sorts of reasons.

 

California had legalized medical marijuana  back in 1996, the first in the nation to do so. In the years preceding recreational pot legalization by voters in late 2016, which dramatically changed the rules, a few enterprising Vistan residents had pooled together the scrip from the sea of registered, mostly-sham medical-marijuana 'patients' ("I can't sleep, Doc"..."Well hey, slip me a Franklin and your troubles are over"), entitling them to grow six plants a year for each one. In effect, it legally allowed them to grow up to 99 plants, thereby ostensibly supplying sixteen 'patients' while still technically keeping in compliance with state law and not triggering possible unwelcome federal interest for growing  more.

 

After 2016, the 99-plant figure reportedly became the tacitly agreed-on limit, barring filed complaints, to overwhelmed Siskiyou County authorities, regardless of whether one had scrip paperwork or not. The later twelve-plant limit the State specified for private individuals growing on their own residential premises for their own use, applying to all except licensed commercial operators, was openly ignored by the ambitious unregulated growers who poured into the Vista and adjacent areas starting in 2015...along with, soon enough, the 99-plant limit.

_______________________

 

Between a critical handful of the more defiant ignoring any and all rules and regulations interfering with doing whatever the heck one wanted; a county seemingly throwing up its hands and abandoning the place as a hopeless mess, actually deleting its residency-code enforcer post for several critical years; and radically changing times in general -- between these, respect for the rule of law in the Vista got on some mighty shaky ground.

 

A few more examples will show how shaky.

 

As mentioned, some less than civic-minded entrepreneurial residents (as well as invading outsiders) routinely poached trees on empty lots and adjacent forestry land to cut up and sell for firewood. They felled scores of standing snags, sometimes even living trees, including some of the few tall pines that had long graced the region, leaving behind unsightly stumps and slash piles on the once relatively pristine parcels. A forestry department rep once showed the writer a regional map in his office with a rash of what must have been over a thousand tiny red dots, each dot representing an illegal cut.

 

Another party set up a huge dog-rescue kennel on an unimproved, mostly treeless parcel in section 21; neighbors up to half mile away suffered having to endure the endless barking of dozens of unhappily caged residents often left baking in the sun for over a year, until the operation was finally shut down.

 

Bolder souls took the law into their own hands. When a resident towards the top of White Drive discovered that the surveyor had long ago made an adverse error on his lot boundaries, he actually tried to close off the major through road running past his place. He erected a posted gate across it, despite it being ages too late to legally remedy the error. A young devil-may-care neighbor, Billy Bracken, regularly used the road; he didn't think twice when encountering the sudden barrier: He backed up his bad-boy truck, gunned the engine and smashed through the gate; end of problem.

 

Yet another neighbor, on McClarty Road, furious over how certain parties would routinely roar by his place twice a day, making a racket and raising clouds of dust just to tick him off, one evening furtively dug a slanted trench across the road. That night they sped by as usual, promptly lost control, and ran into a tree. As they staggered back, shaken and furious, to confront him, he proved to be even more furious: He shot at them. Fortunately he missed. He got arrested and was tried. On another occasion a resident on Cardinal Road saw red on learning a scuzzy new neighbor had tried hitting on his young teen daughter. Along with a wrecking crew he rounded up, he descended on the culprit's land late one night when they knew he was on vacation in county lockup and vandalized and looted the place to a fare-thee-well. And when a Black man briefly occupied a vacant stone cottage (yet again on McLarty) and was discovered one night by its absentee owner, the latter held a shotgun on him until the sheriff deputy arrived a full half hour later. (I later saw the owner the day after a Black man was voted into the White House; he held a look of shocked disbelief and deep loathing.)

 

Multiply the writer's knowledge of the goings in his own section times seven for the other sections, with doubtless similar histories of edgy incidents erupting over time, and there was indeed trouble in River City. 

​

Obviously, the place's auspicious start during simpler times -- its relatively homogeneous and upbeat, if convention-minded, law-abiding dwellers first experiencing euphoric bonhomie camping together, then actually settling the land -- was ancient history. It got blasted to smithereens long ago, the quaint way of life of a misty bygone era  long gone with the wind.

 

Blame it on the mountain

One could maybe blame the energy of the mountain at least in part for Vista residents not working any better together. As mentioned, its natural force field, or whatever energy one sensed it emanated, was thought by some to stimulate one's upper-body energy chakras. While initially revving the imagination, in time it could work to pull one meditatively inward. Bolstered by the development's founder who, as enthusiastic fellow camper in the first years, championed the freedom to do whatever one wanted on their parcels (within the bounds of the law and existing norms of propriety, of course), the mountain's influence might've indeed worked, bolstered by the belief that property rights were sacred, to make one feel their lot was akin to Superman's impregnable Fortress of Solitude.

​

Long after the honeymoon camping period and the early homesteading years had faded into memory and more casual living scenes became entrenched, people for a while had actually competed to get voted onto the board. Some no doubt hoped to mellow the place, willing to turn a blind eye to the unenforceable county ordinances so long as residents were otherwise peaceable, hoping to make the best of a bad situation. Others, bearing no such live-and-let-live inclinations, kept grinding their code enforcement ax, bound and determined to keep alive the by-then increasingly toothless hardline campaign against unsanctioned dwellings, their dwellers, and anyone who looked at them cross-eyed.

 

That relative community-active period passed soon enough. Fast-forward a decade and the place was so overwhelmed with openly non-compliant, what's-it-to-you? dwellers, that there emerged an air of pronounced civic indifference: We're doing our own thing, bugger off; no one can do anything about it way out here, anyhow. The ungovernable atmosphere, aggravated by and reflecting the 1990's spiking national crime rate, was punctuated by the helpless wails of long-suffering compliant residents: “What’s happening to this place?”

 

Lost in a fog, we were a ship at sea without sail or rudder, aimlessly adrift. "Water, water, everywhere / nor any drop to drink." 

 

Rambunctious Whitney Creek

Speaking of water... In rich irony, sometimes the residents of the water-parched lands had to scramble to keep water out. Snow melt could pour in from next door's seasonally-running Whitney Creek if it decided to go on a rampage, flooding areas of the adjacent section 28's lowlands at Buck Horn Road or Rising Hill Road (depending on the part-time creek's changing course). After years of silt-laden or muddy floods washing away vulnerable roads and eroding private parcels, the Association in the eighties sued the U.S. Forest Service. They'd allowed the course of the creek -- actually a seasonal snow-melt wash -- to be diverted directly towards the then-new subdivision by removing a dam built above State Highway 97 by parties in the area who would own what later became Lake Shastina and no longer had need of it --  or wanted to deal with reversing the diversion themselves. (Then-emerging Lake Shastina obviously hadn't wanted to, either.)

​

Our association won the suit and the quarter-million dollar settlement went to fund creating the massive earthen berms kept up to this day along Buck Horn and what's left of Rising Hill to protect the place from future flooding. Between annual bulldozing efforts to repair the latest erosion from the previous year's water action and the creek sometimes cutting new courses through dried silt  (or a massive mud flow causing the same) the waters have mostly been kept out of harm's way.*

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* But not always. In August 2022, part of the Buck Horn Road berm was again breached by water and mud flows. After prolonged record 100 degree weather generated extraordinary amounts of snow and glacier melt, possibly built up in an ice dam up mountain that suddenly burst, land was flooded by water and mud flow on both sides of the berm, prompting a Code Red evacuation alert.

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Bored writer joins the board

In the early 2010s, after over thirty years feeling little fondness indeed for the board -- at times being demonized by some of its members in return, short fuses being common all around  -- the writer went and joined it. At the time, volunteering for the board had hit an all-time low. It was hard-pressed to fill more than three of its five seats, three being the minimum needed for a legal quorum to conduct essential business like approving road maintenance outlays.

 

They obviously weren't too picky about who volunteered just so long as one was a code-compliant resident or an absentee owner in good standing. If not rallying, the place could've conceivably gone into dread state receivership as a failed subdivision and faced monumentally unpleasant and costly consequences. As I was one of only a few who even sporadically attended the monthly meetings, one evening in 2012 I got myself roped into serving on it as secretary by then-president and fellow longtime resident Pam Simpson before I knew what was happening.

 

While it turned out the development's actually defaulting never posed an imminent threat, at times it did seem to at least flirt with such an ignominious fate. It felt like no one gave three hoots in a holler what happened to the poor misbegotten place. Certainly few appreciated how various residents volunteered their time to serve as members and meet the state's mandate to do what was needed to keep alive at least a semblance of functionality. For all their troubles, volunteers were routinely vilified as power-crazed busybodies mindlessly interfering with other residents' would-be tranquility. (My non-compliant neighbor acquaintances became a tad wary around me after I joined, as if I'd maybe gone over to the dark side.)

 

With so many members -- resident and absentee alike -- routinely damning the board, or at least being supremely indifferent to it, all but its more determined and thick-skinned members soon burned out serving on it; they became overwhelmed, jaded, embittered and or discouraged. Those who hung in could appear like charred remnants of their former selves. Some were like dogs with a bone, determined not to let go of the reins for fear no one else could or would do an informed job. One gent who owned some eight parcels always strongly voted against ever increasing lot assessments, even if the budget was hemorrhaging; the obvious conflict of interest was apparently never thought important enough to address.

 

Indeed, from time to time the board seemed to attract would-be volunteers with private agendas up their sleeves.  One, before his tenure was aborted after creating a violent incident with the road manager, had appeared intent on sabotaging operations just to protect his own non-copacetic goings on. At the least, some seemed only to be seeking the dubious prestige and sense of empowerment being a member might confer on one without having to do any actual work.  

 

As I soon learned first-hand, the board's pressure-cooker meetings could easily undermine one's peace of mind. One had to be in full psychic armor, ready for battle if, say, an outraged resident or visiting owner attended, sitting there glaring like a ticking time bomb until given the allotted three-minute window to vent his or her spleen. Or, more often,  one was forced to endure soul-crushing boredom. And be made to do the dirty work if told by the manager to, say, sign a stack of legal foreclosure papers on property owners who'd either given up on the place, were in dire financial straits, or both.

 

One struggled to rise above the sea of paperwork and dry formal meeting procedure suffered in the cramped, cold-fluorescent lit fire station backroom if hoping to ever accomplish anything one might conceivably be proud of. Spirits were often so subdued, it could feel as if we were in some sort of clinical group depression. As if everyone felt the thankless grand futility of it all, but plugged away anyhow out of a misguided sense of civic duty. After serving eighteen months, my replacement post on the board expired at the next election. My name was put on the ballet without anyone ever asking me if I wanted to run. (Predictably, I was burned out by then and so declined to serve further, though duly elected.)

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Over time, the development would now and then appear to be maybe getting back on track (as much as any track existed) under the guidance of the more capable, on-the-ball, open-minded board members. They scrambled to get the place up to speed again after having tackled remedial catch-up chores. Then it'd derail all over again with the endless shuffle of new, sometimes less motivated and or knowledgeable volunteers coming on board. For there was always a lot of slow on-the-job orientation and a steep learning curve. By the time new volunteers got a tenuous handle on procedure and pressing issues, they were usually burned out. And so the learning process began again with other newbies from an ever-shrinking pool of willing resident volunteers in good standing. 

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All is futile...

born under a dark star?

No doubt like countless well-meaning board members before and after me, I'd hoped to somehow help turn the place around. The situation seemed so ridiculously depressing, so needlessly downbeat, so absurdly all-is-futility-so-why-even-bother, that surely it couldn't take too much effort to reverse the dispiriting downward spiral.

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You'd've thunk.

 

But of course, I struck out just like everyone else. While some of my newsletter features and editorial write-ups had seemed appreciated, it was too little too late to make a bit of difference. The beleaguered ship Vista had by then not only left the dock but sailed halfway around the world and was hopelessly floundering in unknown waters. The die was cast, the dismal course set. Barring an unlikely miracle, it was wishful thinking to think that concerned board members could ever pull the place out of the quagmire it was so inextricably stuck in.

 

We were dinosaurs floundering in a tar pit, lamenting our sad fate.

 

Though various mindful visitors over time often sensed the land's at times pronounced serenity -- some overnight visitors reported having the best dreams of their lives here -- cynics, not without reason, came to dismiss the troubled realm out of hand: “No water, no trees, nothing but desert and rattlesnakes; it's a friggin' wasteland, I tell ya.” To them, it was just a sketchy de facto substandard rural bedroom community; a hideout for hard-drinking loners, small-time growers and spaced-out nature freaks; maybe a few respectable, hardworking residents hoping to play out the elusive dream of idyllic country living and obviously having picked the wrong spot and so learning to become philosophers.

 

The way so many routinely slammed the place, one might've concluded that it was born under a dark star, a wicked witch’s cauldron boiling over with gnarly contentious forces, any effort to avoid its sorrowful fate sheer folly.

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Resistance was futile.

 

A bit of esoterica:

Vista's astrology and cardology

Those familiar with astrology might appreciate knowing the celestial forces at work the day the place legally came into being: November 3, 1965. This calendar date shared a birthday with TV's Rosanne Barr, football's Collin Kaepernick and actor Charles Bronson. Some might say the resulting early Scorpio, brooding, super-wound energies imprinted on the development at its birth guaranteed the place would always be a tad on the intense side.

 

Lightening the mix, Mars and Venus were loosely conjunct in nature-loving Sagittarius, along with having a compassionate dreamy Pisces moon. But then, Jupiter was retrograde, potentially causing a struggle to find a meaningful direction to take. Saturn was also retrograde, and, according to Vedic astrologer Nidhi Trivedi, this placement tends "to instill a serious attitude towards life, emphasizing discipline and responsibility. The placement can lead to a strict or overly demanding nature, resulting in challenges related to authority and self-worth."

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Then, related, there's cardology, or the study of planetary influences forming a unique DNA signature for each day of the year, symbolized by the corresponding playing card's identity (some days sharing the same card but each having a unique meaning). The Vista's 4 of diamonds birthday, according to the book Cards of Destiny, by Sharon Jeffers, created an "innate restlessness, possible dissatisfaction with what one was doing," and could make one "...a dreamer who doesn't always allow dreams to become reality."

 

That last surely fit the Vista to a T. It was a dreamland, its denizens often unable to manifest happy visions in waking state.

 

Perfect storm

Somewhere along the way, the once openly shared, carefree vacation land had reached a critical tipping point. Past this point of no return, anarchistic-leaning residents got more and more emboldened to do their own thing, lawful or not, while hundreds of absentee landholders, filled with buyer remorse, had little or no interest whatsoever in the dratted place except to cash out the first chance they might get.

 

Most would-be residents had lost any inclination to ever build to code. One contractor who in later times appeared to have built a two-story house to code, on Catherine Road, minus well and electrical hookup and possibly a septic system, deprived the county of conferring its official blessing. Why bother? The county had dropped its residential code enforcer position and a fully code-legal place wouldn't fetch enough return to justify the added expense of a deep well and extended power lines if intending to sell for being in such a squirrelly mishmash of a place.

 

Countless daunting factors holding the place back, piling up over the decades, were combining with changing external realities, and it appeared to be well on course to one day experience the perfect storm.

 

Circumstances already let any so inclined have a field day pursuing whatever dubious land uses they might conjure -- junkyards, dog kennels, probably meth labs -- for being on such remote, private dirt roads, tucked away from all but the prying eyes of a few nosy neighbors who seemed powerless to do anything anyway. No matter if such dubious land uses upset the peace and quiet the code-compliant dropped anchor here for and built up decades of sweat equity establishing homesteads, or bought places from those who had and paid accordingly. The subdivision, long ago being given up as a lost cause by the county and even most of its own residents, was undoubtedly the poster child of a failed rural subdivision.

 

Meanwhile, more and more denizens of the terminally wayward realm belted out rousing choruses of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes." 

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Without any better harmonizing force, one with at least a semblance of pro-active community concern and respect for reasonable rule of law, a disorderly spirit was gaining an outsize influence. It seemed the majority of less-vested residency were so used to the place being so intractably dysfunctional -- a quirky, cheap, low-key hideaway with powerless board and unresponsive county authorities -- that they couldn't be bothered to read the writing on the wall. Or read it and felt nothing could be done.

 

The place was leaving the door wide open for yet even greater misadventures to visit.

 

One didn't need the omniscience of 20-20 hindsight to realize that by the early teens two things had become crystal clear: (1) The Vista was a rudderless ship vulnerable to drifting into perilous straits, and (2) its hinterland residents either didn't give a flying leap, or felt helpless to do anything to try preserving the (despite all) sometimes relatively tranquil rural lifestyle that was by then fully taken for granted. 

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