Battle for the California Desert: Why is the Government Driving Folks off Their Land?

The Antelope Valley is a vast patch of desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, and a segment of the few rugged individualists who live out there increasingly are finding themselves the targets of armed raids from local code enforcement agents, who've assembled into task forces called Nuisance Abatement Teams (NATs).

The plight of the Valley's desert dwellers made regional headlines when county officials ordered the destruction of Phonehenge: a towering, colorful castle constructed out of telephone poles by retired phone technician Kim Fahey. Fahey was imprisoned and charged with several misdemeanors.

But Fahey is just one of many who've been targeted by the NATs, which were assembled at the request of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich in 2006. LA Weekly reporter Mars Melnicoff wrote an in-depth article in which she exposed the county's tactic of badgering residents with minor, but costly, code violations until they face little choice but to vacate the land altogether.

"They're picking on the the people who are the most defenseless and have the least resources," says Melnicoff.

Reason.tv collaborated with Melnicoff to talk with some of the NAT's targets, such as retired veteran Joey Gallo, who might face homelessness if he's forced to leave his house, and local pastor Oscar Castaneda, who says he's already given up the fight and is in the process of moving off the land he and his wife have lived on for 22 years. And, while Antonovich declined an interview, we did catch up with him at a public meeting in order to ask the big question at the center of all this: Why the sudden enforcement of these codes against people living in the middle of the desert, who seemingly are affecting no one?

Writer-Producers: Zach Weissmueller and Tim Cavanaugh. Associate Producer: Mars Melnicoff. Camera: Alex Manning and Weissmueller; edited by Weissmueller.

Approximately 9:48.

Music by Audionautix.com.

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[circusboy90210]

what a man has on his land is nobody's concern , not even his neighbors. nobody has the right to not like what they see on another persons land.

[MayorOfTown]

California, and to a greater extent big-government, disgusts me

[HSMVP]

AGENDA 21

[Ddewin Aether]

Good sir, you are an Idiot.

[Mtmelendez]

Actually, its been almost 2 years since this vid was posted. Reason, we need an update!

[Jim Hoover]

Right wingers? LA County is about as left as left gets!

[mautare emlio]

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[dronex1000]

You pulled that thought out of my hat as I wanted to sate the same and then as I gazed down I saw your statement. Even here in Europe they wanna forbid certain seeds etc. There is certainly an agenda in the bigger less populated countries to build concentrated high density ereas and get the people away from the land. Well I don't have to explain you.

[fatherof8kids]

Sounds like agenda 21 to me.

[yamashitatreasures]

THEY Want to develop something in the antelope valley -- secretly buying land

[r29]

so its been a year, what happened to them? 

[deprogramr]

okay I could see some cases where a community could have a problem with a home and ask the owner to fix it, but this stuff seems like totalitarian nightmares!