SDSU no longer a good neighbor

I have lived in the Willow Glen/Santa Margarita Watershed for 28 years. For the first two decades the residents had an excellent relationship with San Diego State University, stewards of the Santa Margarita Ecological Preserve.

About eight years ago the policy changed and we were denied any access to the preserve, shutting us off from the trail system.

This weekend the university took it upon itself to move its large trailer out of the valley. With no notice to residents – oral or written – access and egress for the families in the rural area completely stopped for over seven hours while they coaxed the cumbersome beast out of the valley.

We live in a steep river canyon. If there had been a fire or medical emergency, the results would have been tragic.

The paved sections of our road are now coated with oil and the trailer movers took it upon themselves to bring in a small dozer to undercut the side slopes, all without a permit, of course. But I guess if you are a government agency, you can pretty much do anything you want to.

As it turned out, my wife had to hike out of the valley, at one point actually sliding down a portion of the hundred-foot cliff. One of the onsite biologists sat in his car and watched when I rescued her.

The behavior of the university is far from neighborly, definitely irresponsible and borders on the despotic.

Robert Sommers