​Subdivisions not 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 some weird social lab experiment. As if they were trying to determine how many strangers could live together in the middle of nowhere for how long and deal with a given load of rigid 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 to be left the hell alone. They didn't want to have to deal with any intrusive bureaucratic mandates. Naturally they did their best to ignore them in the Vista -- even if in the process it possibly allowed for unintended consequences to crop up like an infusion of perhaps less than law-abiding persons, attracted to the wayward place as a promising cheap "badlands" hideaway. Some might've even said the very word 'subdivision' handicapped developments from thriving for the word itself sounding 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 a slow-growing community in which each played a recognized role.

 

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, initially aspiring to perhaps be no more than a simple shared recreational land, a place where one could enjoy roughing it in nature a few weeks each year. Then, as related, when a few land-smitten owners got ambitious and moved on the land to grow it into an actual, by gosh, incipient community, with the developer's active support, the lack of any systematic residential growth plans had handicapped their most earnest (if shortsighted) efforts from the start. The approach seemed to be to play it by ear: "Hey, let's see what we can do here if enough of us manage to get on the same page." (And, again, the possible darker, less altruistic mindset of some might've been more like, "Hey, I'm going for it and, frankly, don't care what happens to the rest of the place.")

 

Of course, nowhere near enough ever got on that same page. It soon became obvious that a wildly diverse ownership with conflicting intentions for their parcels seemed to not only be reading different chapters, but sometimes entirely different books.

 

Vista's already trey iffy situation was made iffier still once various one-time residents started leasing out their homes after the blush of Vista living was off the rose. Such lessees as non-owners had zero say in how the place was run as far as board eligibility, even if in time one might've felt an interest and wanted to get involved to help the place along. That is, beyond joining the volunteer fire department, doing fundraisers for it or spouting one's two cents' worth at a monthly meeting (if even allowed to, being non-property owners).

 

And, again, the place's myriad problems were exacerbated by the 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 was nothing but a gone-sour investment they'd sell the second they got a halfway 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 had likewise become 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.

​

Why even bother?

The professional association manager hired by the volunteer board in time was relied on to take care of mundane everyday things like legal matters, routine billing, accounting and budgetary concerns. By then, things had been going wrong so long that many felt there was nothing meaningful anyone could do except just nurse along the wobbly operation 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 around. They'd reject as naive and unrealistic (if well-meant) the pipe dreams of those who wanted to straighten the place out.

​

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

 

A prime example to show widespread the lack of civic-minded spirit got: One day in the 1990's, dozens of orange plastic bagged phone books were 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 yet another of the 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 bothered to deal with it. The disbelieving writer (who didn't live in that part) held off, waywardly fascinated by such monumental indifference. (Finally, I gathered them up for recycling.)

 

No doubt, many grumbled to themselves how someone ought to clean them up, but, of course, never thought to be that someone. Disheartened and disgusted that the place was so untogether, they might've 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 little matter. The place really was like a rural condo, the one-person road management ostensibly also expected to keep the common grounds tidy -- not us. Earn your keep, ya slacker.

 

A more far-reaching example: In 1981, a majority of association members overwhelmingly defeated a proposal made by then-board president Eric Prescott. He had 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 place, then still more or less code-abiding, was growing fast,  with new residences popping up all the time. Even though it would’ve only involved a modest extra assessment for two years to fund -- the cost spread out among so many, and would've benefited myriad parcel holders over time, fostering a better sense of community for having a dedicated, relaxed place where residents and visitors could meet, get together, and compare notes, and would've almost certainly increased lot values -- a sea of terminally disillusioned absentee parcel holders angrily shot it down, keeping their blinders firmly in place. They'd chorused 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'd never 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, again, 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 some absentee owners who, despite all, still treasured the land. They felt nothing but kind regard for the place, admiring those who'd made the grand leap to backwoods living and holding wistful hopes its promising beginnings might yet someday be rekindled. Some no doubt still entertained hopes of maybe moving here and joining their number once it pulled itself together...or even as-is and hoping for the best. And a few others still enjoyed their periodic camping retreats on lots located furthest from the main traffic arteries and established residences, which were often found clustered along the few power lines and within a mile or two of the blacktop.

 

But such fond sentiments always faced strong headwinds of the all-is-futility, long-entrenched cynicism of other lot holders, those who felt hopelessly stuck with a sucker investment they'd been fool enough to fall for. And it seemed most owners -- jaded residents and disillusioned absentee owners alike -- could hold a hard-bitten contempt towards the fanciful Pollyanna notion that the place might yet turn itself around. Leastwise, not  if it meant prying one more penny from wallet or purse. To them, it felt obvious there was zero hope for the outlandish basket case of a failed subdivision to ever redeem itself.

 

Many who wished the place well, but not at their additional expense, thought that surely some portion of their annual assessment fee could go towards funding whatever civic improvements community-minded residents thought might benefit the place. But the budget was invariably stretched to the breaking point over the high cost of maintaining sixty-six miles of fragile roads. Plus, the board repossessed parcels of defaulting owners that couldn't be resold readily, and their annual county property taxes were absorbed by the association until finding a buyer in the super-soft market, which further ate into available funds. Then there were vandalized, damaged and stolen road signs that 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

In the 1980s, the association started shelling out the annual salary of the professional association manager. Things had gotten too complicated and time-consuming for volunteer board members to deal with alone. Most were not versed in legal matters enough to grasp the intricate procedures required to run the development according to Hoyle, especially once the state legislature in 1985 enacted the flurry of new regulations for California subdivisions that became 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 by working as a realty agent on the side, in itself perhaps no real issue, but then, in 2015, joined the flurry of realtors hustling to sell lots to the flood of obvious, would-be, anarchistic pot growers bent on taking over the place. He seemed indifferent to the chaos and disruption such sales would unleash on the laid back, serene lifestyle that the Vista, at its best, had enjoyed for decades by its few residents. 

 

And while some, maybe even most, volunteer board presidents, themselves residents, tried to keep the well-being of the residency in mind -- balanced with valid concerns of the sea of absentee parcel holders -- one would herself later play a vital part in the full-tilt realty effort to move parcels to the eventual inundation of rough and ready pot entrepreneurs. Her outfit would  send out letters to every single parcel owner, inviting them to sell, knowing how many had long felt stuck with unsellable lots and would pounce at the chance to finally unload the clunkers at a respectable profit. She had always held that 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", she once opined 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, just to make a buck -- the established residents were left to feel 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 all 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 the mishmash of widely varying dwellings. Maybe even relieved; it suited them fine. Some parties would use the place as a temporary perch, a transition spot, ready to move on if and when something better opened up.

 

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

 

Those who'd conformed to code requirements, or bought places that had, at least potentially had the peace of mind to enjoy them as forthright, law-abiding residents. But even those who hadn't and 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, of course, ignoring any and all laws and ordinances they didn't approve of.

 

Handy place to perch

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

 

The situation 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 them. The code-compliant among them could enjoy simple stand-alone country living, while the non-compliant could often get away with not conforming to code, suffering singed feathers at worst. Both paid the mandatory annual dues (usually) and as a popular pastime routinely demonized the property owners association board as the source of all evils. With a shortsightedness living in the place seemed to foster, it was the fly in the ointment interfering with any more carefree country living.

 

The more cynical felt 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?", ad infinitum. Unfounded rumors of corrupt board members dipping into the treasury were rife.

 

Though such gnarly energies weren't always evident, it could often feel 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 summertime-- a peaceful laid-back spirit could prevail over the land that, despite all, felt blessed with a rich tranquility. Polarized energies checkmated, grateful denizens relished the solitude living in such a secluded habitat provided.  

 

Such idyllic periods, alas, seldom seemed to last long.

​

 

Perennial joker in the deck during

the Intolerable Years:

the mid 1970's through the mid 1990's

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 instead feel more like oppressed serfs, living under the yoke of the overlords who'd met the county's strict legal residency requirements and were hell-bent trying to enforce their costly living standards by any means short of armed vigilantism. Sometimes they succeeded; sometimes they came off more like Barney Fife.

 

The joker, like a rude Jack-in-the-box, kept popping up, crimping the lives of countless non-complying dwellers during the Intolerable Years spanning between the mid 1970's and mid 1990's. As said, domains furthest away from the blacktop often had so few others living nearby that their inhabitants could easily imagine their digs being more 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 often assert itself to 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 bent into pretzels -- went on a mad drunk with the seeming absolute 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 a ruthless authority over the domain, or tried to; they were determined to heroically salvage what they could of their Shangri-la rather than stand by helplessly and watch it circling the drain.

​

In pursuing such desperate efforts, they made life hell for everyone; we were one hellacious subdivision.

​

Fast forward and board members, though still grumbling over the rampant non-compliance going on, ruining their property values and quality of life, seemed to gradually become more or less resigned to what appeared an unsolvable dilemma. Board meeting members and attendees, many mindful of the brief idyllic times of yore, at some point sank into a collective why-even-try, uber-depressed mindset.

 

Perhaps it wasn't surprising that even as the once iron authority started seriously rusting away, inertia yet prevailed. Residents often still somehow felt one couldn't do diddly-squat without first getting the seeming do-nothing 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 try helping the place along.

 

Beleaguered crew of the foundering HMS Vista

​One day at a meeting held in then-president Bonnie Jolly's living room, the writer had volunteered to become an unpaid custodian for the subdivision; I wanted to tackle the epidemic of road litter and windblown detritus that so often despoiled the endless miles of otherwise scenic wooded roadsides.  They apparently seemed to think it a good idea, for they promptly 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 would require, like supplying trash bags or possible reimbursements for 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 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 generally depressed over the sorry state of affairs, they could only muster enough energy to cover routine matters like road maintenance while coasting on automatic pilot. (I'd 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 had lost its teeth, began tackling things as they saw fit, on their own, not seeking any board's permission. Like setting aright a road sign that had been struck and was precariously listing or fallen, or repairing a stretch of road in front of one's place themselves rather than go through stupefyingly sluggish channels.

 

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

 

What rules?

Jumping back once again to those earlier, super-intolerant years... Despite a seemingly bonkers board, throwing its weight around 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 the heck 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, uptight world's standard rules and regulations -- and especially any busybody board of meddling "directors." ("Action!") It simply didn't register as something needed in their realm; it was too invasive, too arbitrary, too self-defeating to the very reason they moved here.

 

Nudist preserve?

At the risk of overstating a point (okay, that ship's sailed), 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. To actual dwellers they seldom held more than an easily tuned out phantom presence. Inhabitants came to view the thousand-plus vacant, undeveloped, seemingly forever-unsellable parcels practically as a de facto, permanent park commons. As a result, residents felt like stewards over not only their own inviolate mini fiefdom of two to three acres, but oftentimes the luxuriant buffer zones of dozens of empty parcels that absentee owners had been thoughtful enough to provide. It made one feel land-rich indeed. And so isolated -- nobody anywhere near to say boo -- that certain social norms might fade away.

​

The writer was one among a handful living in Vista's more remote reaches who for decades was surrounded by hundreds of such undeveloped, unfenced -- not even posted -- lots. One, if he or she had a mind to in nice weather, could stroll about such vast, uninhabited regions bare-ass naked, free to enjoy the rush of feeling an intimate oneness with the elements being free of unneeded clothing allowed. Oftentimes, not even a single vehicle would drive through over an entire week or more. Such a situation over time inspired more than a few of your less clothes-minded denizens of the Vista to luxuriate in the freedom of in nicest weather being naked as jays all day long -- both on their own lots and meandering about surrounding regions. One silver lining in the Vista being such a vast, failed subdivision was that it was a nudist paradise.​

​

Who's minding the place?

Some residents beyond the board members who were in contact with absentee owners might've vaguely sensed the latter's displeasure over how the place was doing. It was truly a disheartening situation. One that often allowed firewood-selling tree poachers to raid absentees' unfenced lots at will. Sometimes parcels harbored actual squatters, and it let off-roaders tear through absentee owners' usually unposted parcels at will with zero concern for it being someone's private property. Though perhaps having no one to blame but themselves for being dumb enough to buy into what proved such a colossal developmental misfire, it was easier to blame the residency, along with the mostly powerless board, who together gave the impression they didn't care diddly-squat about what was happening (and, indeed, some residents, only trying to make the best of a bad situation for a while, actually didn't -- some even participating in various lawless misdeeds themselves).

 

Whether or not one sensed this subtle yet pernicious force at work, the absentees' combined ire over the sorry state of affairs was part and parcel of the overload of corrosive influences at work. It vaguely gnawed at one's peace of mind -- if only on the unconscious level -- right along with the in-your-face, code compliant dwellers waging war on the non-compliant and the scarce-water situation. The huge absentee ownership -- which as a whole never mustered enough public-minded energy to help the place out of its dire straits by seeing fit to vote for a community center -- was definitely one of the many straws that, heaped together, would break the camel's back.

 

Vigilante episodes

inside an intractable tract

One day 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 -- found himself with new neighbors. They appeared intent on doing the exact same thing as him. Wanting to avoid increasing the possibility of bringing any 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 plants outdoors by then (plus maybe one or two indoors using grow lights), mostly for their own enjoyment, but maybe also to generate a bit of extra income. The place had a nice sunshiny climate for it (if not ideal soil) and was remote enough to pursue such cultivation without getting hassled if one kept their operation low-key.*

_________________________

 

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

 

California had of course legalized medical marijuana in 1996, the first in the nation. In the years preceding recreational pot legalization by voters in late 2016, changing the rules yet again, a few enterprising Vistan residents had pooled together scrip from the sea of registered, mostly-sham medical-marijuana 'patients' ("I can't sleep, Doc"..."Well, slip me a Franklin and your troubles are over!"), entitling them to grow six plants a year for each one. In effect, it had 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 by growing one plant more.

 

After 2016, the 99-plant figure reportedly became the tacitly agreed-on limit, barring filed complaints, to the overwhelmed Siskiyou County authorities -- regardless of whether one had scrip paperwork or not. The six-plant limit the State specified for private individuals growing on their own residential premises, applying to all except licensed commercial operations, was openly ignored by all the enterprising black-market growers pouring into the Vista and adjacent areas starting in 2015...along with, eventually, 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 they wanted; a county seemingly throwing up its hands and abandoning the place as a spectacularly 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 long graced the region, leaving behind unsightly stumps and slash piles on 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 enduring 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 error on his lot boundaries, he actually tried to close off the major through road running past his place, building a posted gate across it, despite it being ages too late to legally remedy the error. A devil-may-care neighbor, Billy Bracken, regularly used the road and didn't think twice on 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 routinely roared by his place twice a day and raised 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, intending to confront him, he proved even more furious: he shot at them. He missed, but was arrested and tried. On another occasion, a resident on Cardinal Road saw red on learning how his scuzzy 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; they 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 half hour later.

 

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

 

Obviously, the place's auspicious start during simpler times -- its relatively homogeneous, upbeat if convention-minded, law-abiding dwellers, first sharing a euphoric bonhomie in camping, then actually settling on the land -- had become ancient history, blasted to smithereens long ago, the quaint way of life of some misty bygone era.

 

Blame it on the mountain

One could maybe blame the energy of the mountain in part for Vista residents not working better together. As mentioned, its natural force field, or whatever energy one sensed it emanated, is thought by some to stimulate one's upper-body chakras. While initially revving the imagination, in time it could work to pull one meditatively inward. Bolstered by the development's founder who, as an enthusiastic fellow camper in its 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 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 "casual" living scenes taken off, people for a while 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 the code enforcement ax, bound and determined to keep alive the by-then mostly toothless hardline campaign against unsanctioned dwellings, their dwellers, and pretty much anyone who even 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, there emerged an air of pronounced civic indifference: We're doing our own thing, bugger off; you can't do anything about it. 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

In supreme irony, sometimes residents on 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 went on a rampage, flooding areas of the adjacent section 28's lowlands at Buck Horn Road or Rising Hill Road (depending on the sometime creek's changing course). After years of silt-laden or muddy floods washing away vulnerable roads and eroding parcels, the Association in the eighties sued the U.S. Forest Service for having allowed the course of the creek -- actually a seasonal snow-melt wash -- to be diverted towards the then-new subdivision by removing a dam built above state highway 97 by people in the area who'd owned 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 that are kept up to this day along Buck Horn and what's left of Rising Hill to protect the place from future floods. Between annual bulldozing efforts to repair the latest erosion from the previous year's water action and the creek sometimes cutting new courses through the dried silt  (or a massive mud flow causing the same) the waters have mostly been kept out of harm's way.*

______________

* 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 at last burst, land was flooded by water and mud flow on both sides of the berm, prompting a Code Red evacuation alert.

______________

 

Bored writer joins the board

In the early 2010s, after over thirty years feeling little fondness for the board -- at times being demonized by some of its members in return, short fuses being common all around  -- the writer actually 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 official, 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 conceivably go into dread state receivership as a failed subdivision and face monumentally unpleasant and costly consequences. As I was one of only a few who even sporadically attended monthly meetings, one evening in 2012 I got 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, it did seem to at least flirt with such an ignominious fate from time to time. It felt like no one gave three hoots in a holler what happened to the woebegone place. Certainly few appreciated how various residents were volunteering their time to serve on the board and meet the state's mandate to do what was needed to be done to keep alive some minimal level of functionality. For all their troubles, volunteers were routinely vilified as power-crazed busybodies, interfering with other residents' would-be tranquility. (My non-compliant neighbor acquaintances instantly became more guarded around me once 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 on serving, becoming overwhelmed, jaded, embittered and or discouraged in record time. Those who hung in could appear like charred remnants of their former selves; a few were like dogs with a bone at the monthly meetings, determined not to let go of the reins for fear no one else could or would do as an informed job. (One gent, who owned some eight parcels, always voted vehemently against ever increasing lot assessments, even with the budget hemorrhaging, but the obvious conflict of interest was apparently never thought to be something important enough to address.)

 

Indeed, from time to time the board seemed to attract would-be volunteers with some private agenda up their sleeves.  One appeared intent on sabotaging operations just to protect his own non-copacetic goings-on. At the least, some only sought the dubious prestige and sense of empowerment that being a member might confer without having to do any actual work.  

 

As the writer 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 three-minute window to vent his or her spleen. Or, more often,  was forced to endure soul-crushing boredom. And be made to do dirty work, if told by the manager to, say, sign stacks 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 be conceivably proud of. Spirits were often so subdued that we appeared to be in some clinical group depression. It was as if everyone felt the thankless grand futility of it all but plugged away anyhow out of a misguided sense of civic duty. With my replacement post on the board expiring at the next election after having served eighteen months, my name was put on the ballet without anyone ever asking me if I even wanted to run. (Predictably, I was burned out by then and declined to serve further, even though duly elected.)

​

Over time, the development now and then appeared to be maybe getting back on track (as much as any track existed) under the guidance of more capable, on-the-ball and altruistic-minded board members. They scrambled to get the place back up to speed once tackling remedial catch-up chores. Then it'd derail all over again due to the endless shuffle of new, sometimes less motivated and or knowledgeable board volunteers coming aboard the board. 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 things, they were usually burned out. And so the learning process began once again with other newbies from the ever-shrinking pool of willing resident volunteers in good standing. 

​

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 just seemed so ridiculously depressing, so needlessly downbeat, so absurdly all-is-futility-so-why-even-bother. Surely it couldn't take too much effort to reverse such a dispiriting downward spiral.

​

You'd've thunk.

 

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

 

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

 

Though various mindful visitors over time could often sense the land's at times pronounced serenity -- some overnighters reported having the best dreams of their lives here -- cynics (not without some 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 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 an elusive dream of idyllic country living and obviously having built in the wrong spot.

 

The way so many routinely slammed the place, one might've concluded 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.

​

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. The calendar date shared the birthday of 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."

​

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 share the same card, but each has a unique variation in 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."

 

The last surely fit the Vista to a T: a dreamland, its denizens often unable to manifest happy visions in waking reality.

 

Perfect storm

Somewhere along the way, the once openly shared, carefree vacation land had reached a critical tipping point. Once past this point of no return, its anarchistic-leaning residents became increasingly emboldened to do their own thing (lawful or not), while hundreds of absentee landholders filled with buyer remorse had little or no interest in the place except to cash out the clunker investment the first chance they got. Most would-be residents by than lost any inclination to build to code. One contractor who in later times actually appeared to have built a two-story house up to code on Catherine Road, minus well or electrical hookup, 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 with the added expense required to bring in a well, when the next door owner had to drill 700 feet, plus extending power lines, if deciding to sell for it being in such a squirrelly mishmash of a place.

 

Countless daunting factors holding the place back had been piling up over decades, combining with changing external realities, which taken together appeared on course to one day creating a perfect storm.

 

Circumstances were already letting any so inclined have a field day pursuing whatever dubious land uses they might conjure -- junkyards, dog kennels, 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 about things anyway. No matter if such dubious land uses upset the peace and quiet the code-compliant had dropped anchor here for and built up decades of sweat equity establishing homesteads, or had bought places from those who did and paid for them accordingly. The place, long ago given up as a lost cause by the county and even its own residents, was the poster child of a failed rural development.

 

Meanwhile, more and more denizens of the wayward realm were belting out rousing choruses of the old Cole Porter's tune, "Anything Goes". 

​

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 dysfunctional -- a quirky, cheap, low-key hideaway with a 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 thereby leaving the door wide open for yet greater misadventures.

 

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

​

 

________________________________________