What's In a Name?

     Many places and streets in PMC bear personal, as opposed to generic, names. You may ask "where did those names come from?" or "who were those people that these places were named for, or after?" I don't think I know ALL the sources for ALL the names, but here's what I know (or at least remember).
      The street names throughout PMC were chosen by the developer, Tenneco. Most of the names reflect the alpine or resort flavor that Tenneco was trying to sell. Obviously, they didn't have spell-check then, so there were (and are) some glaring errors: the signs for "Arctic Drive" were spelled "Artic" for many years. And of course "San Moritz" was spelled phonetically, instead of the correct "St. Moritz" (it's still that way!)
     Some main streets were given personal names, after Tenneco CEO's, or other VIP at the company. Thus we have Freeman Drive, Symonds Drive, and Askin Drive. Some of the lanes and access roads were given personal names, too, like Schroeder Place, (after Warren Schroeder, an early perennial Chairman of the POA Board), and Gotthard Place----I don't know WHERE this name came from, but knowing some of the antics that went on near there, it may not refer to a person.;--).
      Fern's Lake was named for Fern (Fernan) Olivier, who championed the cause of cleaning up what was known as the Lower Lake prior to his death. Lampkin Park was named for Larry Lampkin, one of the first team of salespeople who worked selling PMC property for Tenneco. Larry carried a longtime Pine Mountain tradition of serious partying a little too far, and expired at a young age at the Caravan Inn in Gorman.
      The streets in the Village all have names, too. Originally, the buildings in the Village all had addresses of either Mil Potrero Highway, or Askin Drive, but years ago, the KC Fire Department required that all streets and lanes and access roads in PMC had to have individual and distinctive names, so names were chosen. (If you don't like them, blame me). However, some building and business owners never got that memo, so some businesses still have Askin Drive or Mil Potrero addresses listed, even though the building is on Pine Valley Lane, etc.
     Prior to this change, many of the lanes and access roads throughout PMC had names that referred back to the street they connected to-- so you had Woodland Lane, Woodland Place, Woodland Court, etc. You can't blame the Fire Department for requiring a change.
      Symonds Drive had similar related names. Two of those were changed to "Ebony" and "Ivory". "Why such an odd choice?" you may ask. Someday I'll tell you. (I guess, in retrospect, it's not a lot "odder" than "Sand" and "Gravel" !
Part II    
  Then there's "Mil Potrero" Highway. I don't what's more difficult: spelling it, pronouncing it correctly, or trying to get someone on the phone to spell it correctly so you'll get your delivery on time (maybe!).
        I've seen many places that "Mil Potrero" translates to "thousand meadows (or pastures)" or whatever. It doesn't "translate" to anything, because it's not real Spanish. Correct Spanish would be "Mil Potreros" (plural) not "Potrero" (singular). But the "Mil" was really "Mill" from the "Mill Potrero"-- so named by the Sneddens-- early settlers of this area, who had a cattle ranch in Lockwood Valley, and used the meadow where PMC Golf Course is now to feed their stock in the summer, because it was cooler than the lower elevations. "Mill" referred to the sawmill that existed at the time (Sawmill Mountain took the name as well), and "Potrero" was taken from the Mexican vaqueros who used the word referring to a pasture-like meadow or field.
      Mount Pinos is from the Spanish for pine (pino), prounounced "pee-no", the plural being "pee-nos". There is no tilde above the "n" in Pinos. because there's none in pino. However, if pronounced correctly, it comes out "Mount Penis", so most people say "Mount Pie-nos" to avoid embarrassing explanations! To locals, using the words "Mount Piños" is always wrong.
     Mount Abel is also called "Cerro Noroeste" (another of those almost unpronounceable Spanish names). Abel is a lot easier to say, but like so many things around here, there's an underlying set of facts:

 "Cerro Noroeste, which means northwest hill in Spanish, lies several miles west of Mt. Pinos. It is far more than a hill, since it is nearly as high as Mt. Pinos. Contrary to its official name, it is often referred to as Mt. Abel after Stanley Abel, who was a Kern County supervisor instrumental in having the first road built to the top of Cerro Noroeste in the 1930 and also construction of Highway 33 between Ventura and Maricopa. As a consequence many locals began calling the peak Mt. Abel, maybe because it was easier to pronounce. Among other things Abel is remembered as a member of the Ku Klux Klan and also as the county official who attempted unsuccessfully to have John Steinbeck’s book The Grapes of Wrath banned from county libraries. The controversy over what Cerro Noroeste should be named was resolved in 1990 when the Board of Geographical Names decided in favor of Cerro Noroeste."

Harry Nelson

Apache Saddle Part II

     Once the seasonal license issues were overcome, the Apache Saddle (or just "The Saddle") became a full-fledged bar. Food in the restaurant was good or it wasn't, but the bar kept on. 
      Over the years, like many similar establishments, it acquired its cast of characters. The Tidwells, Chuck & Marge, the original owners, and their children Tommy and Patty Tidwell Shirley, ran the restaurant for the first few years, hiring staff to do all the work, and then hiring managers to manage the staff. Some of those managers were as colorful as their customers.
      One such manager was a guy named Bill Marsh. He started in the middle of summer one year, and his first big weekend was Labor Day (Oktoberfest). I warned him prior to the weekend that he was going to be really busy -- "human car wash" busy. I saw him on Labor Day Monday afternoon, and asked him how it went. "Man, this place is half-full of a$$holes", he declared. "Yeah, and it's only half-full," was my (tongue-in-cheek) answer.
     Since PMC was growing at a rapid pace in those early years, many of The Saddle's "characters" were in the construction business. Jerry Kiger, Bullet ('cause he moves so fast! ;-)  
Pee-Wee the Roofer, Cecil Chambers, Chuck Hartley, Lance Hartley, Dick Murphy, to name but a few, all helped build Pine Mountain Club from a resort into a community. Del Archer Construction started in Malibu building mansions, and then Del and his crew came to Pine Mountain Club and built some "mountain mansions". Del's crew all hung out at The Saddle after work and on weekends, and some are part of legend. Some of those stories I'll tell later, but I'll just list a few names now: Norm Jessel, Buck & BJ Sawyer, Black Bart (who won a Silver Medal at the Olympics), and of course, Del & Barb. 
       One of the best stories is as much legend as truth. I can't vouch for the story because I wasn't ever there (how'd that happen??). Her name shall be kept confidential, but she came to be known as "Bootsie". The name came from her occasional habit of (when well-inebriated, and in the company of an equally inebriated crowd of onlookers) dancing on the top of the bar in go-go boots... That's all --- just boots. If those wall could talk! -- and a lot of us old-timers are relieved they can't. (It wasn't really me and JW that used all the disco records as Frisbees off the upper deck that night, when most of them made it all the way over the golf course fence---those guys just looked like us!)

Apache Saddle, Part 1

     The third oldest building in the Village is the gambrel-shaped center portion of what is now Madd Bailey's Pub. In 1975, Dave Peters and Chuck Tidwell, both of Pine Mountain Real Estate, and Fred Westlund of Westlund Construction, decided to build a bar/restaurant an the commercial lot next to the Pine Mountain General Store. Who owned what or what portion I don't know, but ultimately full ownership of the property belonged to Dave Peters. 
    The viability of such a venture was unknown at the time, so to hedge their bets, the building was constructed in a gambrel shape, with a large ridge beam that could be attached to a crane, allowing the whole structure to be lifted up, and moved to a residential lot. That was Fred Westlund's theory, anyway. Luckily, it never had to be tested. 
     The business was give the name "Apache Saddle"-- a nice Western-sounding name. The name was taken from the area just west of Pine Mountain Club, where Mil Potrero Highway meets Cerro Noroeste Road. 

     A saddle is a dip or low point between two areas of higher ground. A saddle is not necessarily the lower ground between two hilltops; it may be simply a dip or break along a level ridge crest. If you are in a saddle, there is high ground in two opposite directions and lower ground in the other two directions. A saddle is normally represented as an hourglass.

     The original layout of the building was similar to the way it is now, except the addition on the east side wasn't there yet, nor the deck above. The dining room was upstairs along with the windowed bar, and downstairs was a sort of coffee-shop area with booths. In order to facilitate delivery of food to the dining room above, a dumb-waiter was installed in the kitchen that opened in the wall above. The kitchen staff would load the food on trays, and then, like an elevator, they would push a button and the food would rise to the floor above. Similarly, the dirty dishes could be sent below, descending magically to the kitchen below. In theory...
    In reality, if the load was too heavy, the dumb-waiter would just sit there, or if at the top, drop like a stone, crashing into the sink at the bottom. At least you don't have to wash broken dishes and glassware!
    Once opened, the Apache Saddle became the only place west of Lebec that sold hard liquor. The PMC Clubhouse had no bar at all at the time (more about that later), and the General Store only sold beer and wine. In fact, at first the Saddle only had a "seasonal" liquor license. If I recall correctly, 3 months a year they couldn't serve alcohol. After two or three years, it was upgraded to year round. During those "dry" months, we would drive on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights to Gorman, to the restaurant/bar at the Caravan Inn, to get a proper cocktail.
     Originally, the business was owned by the Tidwell family, and managed first by Tommy Tidwell, and then by his sister, Pat (Tidwell) Shirley. They (the Tidwells) didn't work there, their source of income was local real estate, but rather they employed local residents to cook, serve, bar-tend, etc. Later, they advertised for managers to run the entire place. Some of the most colorful characters ever to inhabit Pine Mountain Club first came here to work at the Apache Saddle. For a long time it seemed that the qualifications for working in the Apache Saddle kitchen were (among others): a pulse, mostly-sober (at least before noon), can find the stove/oven, knows the difference between raw chicken and frozen hamburger, etc. You didn't need to know how to order supplies--when an order came into the kitchen from the dining room, you just walked next door to the Pine Mt. General Store, got what you needed, and put it on the Saddle's account. Some very "interesting" dishes came out of that kitchen. 
     The original "ventilation" system for the kitchen consisted of a little exhaust fan like you would put in a normal home kitchen-- not nearly adequate for a commercial cook-top and a flat-top grille. Consequently, even in the cold months, the kitchen would get unbearably hot, even with the back door wide open to the cold. One day I walked by the open kitchen door and the "cook" was standing at the stove in his boxer shorts!
     All that aside, some very good food did emerge from the kitchen on occasion. Uly Paz,  a crazy, hot-tempered Filipino, made chicken adobo and duck a l'orange that were truly memorable. George Crane, who originally came from New York and New Jersey, cooked smoked pork chops, sauteed pasta, and prime rib to die for. But in reality, for those early years, neither the food nor the cocktails had to be that good, because there was virtually no competetion.
(to be continued...)
     


     
     

Sins of the Fathers

    When I started getting involved in the inner workings of Pine Mountain Club in the early 80's, it soon became clear that a few things were amiss. Not the administrative or political problems that plague most communities-- those are facts of life, especially in California. But Pine Mountain Club was barely in its teens, and some "cracks" were showing.
     Anyone who watches reality TV has seen, or is aware of, the "flip" programs: "Flip This House", etc. Well, Pine Mountain Club was a real estate "flip". Dart Industries and Georgia-Pacific started the trend in the '60's, buying tracts of land in or near "resort" areas, making necessary improvements, and then selling the properties at a tidy profit. Tenneco did not acquire the land that became Pine Mountain Club with the primary intention of developing it. Tenneco was an OIL company, and Kern Land Company was for sale in the 60's. Kern Land Company, which came to be as a grab for water rights in the late 1800's and early 1900's, owned a vast tract of land (more than 170,000 acres) that had once been a Spanish/Mexican land grant, and had subsequently belonged to General John C. Fremont, called Rancho San Emigdio. Tenneco primarily was after the OIL that lies beneath the grassy hills to the north of us; the water rights to the land, and the 3000+ acres nearly surrounded by national forest on the southern edge, were a bonus. Tenneco knew that the likelihood of extracting oil from this particular area (PMC) was nil, but you never know. (If you check your property documents (deed), you'll see that Tenneco reserved ALL the mineral rights after the first 100 feet to themselves, and ALL the water rights to Mil Potrero Mutual Water Company.)
     Tenneco managers left their mark on our community: Symonds was CEO; Askin and Freeman were VPs of Tenneco in the 60's/70's.
     Anyway, Tenneco, coming somewhat late to the game, decided to get into property development. Following the "flip" concept, the plan was to buy cheap (already done), invest the minimum amount to pass inspections and have "curb appeal", and then sell getting out with a tidy quick profit. Like any good flipper, they cut corners everywhere possible, and "worked around" any unforeseen obstacles. Case in point: the original plan submitted to Kern County called for underground utilities throughout the entire project. Once excavation began, it became clear that the terrain and the size and quantity of rock where the trenches for utilities would go made it extraordinarily expensive to put underground service everywhere (cutting into their profits). There's no proof that I know of, but it's been rumored that SC Edison, (then) PacBell, and Tenneco lobbied Kern County (maybe with cash), to forego the underground requirement, except in the area immediately around the Clubhouse--the original real estate sales office. (there's your curb appeal). All three companies benefited by significantly lowering their construction costs.
     Like an undertaker that gets to bury his mistakes, Tenneco cut lots of corners on drainage. Streets and lots cut across stream beds, and only the absolute minimum was done  to mitigate any possible damage in the future from water flow. Drain pipes and culverts worked fine for a few years, but when the development was turned over to PMCPOA, no plans or procedures were given to the maintenance department to keep the system working as designed, so gradually those systems clogged with silt or deteriorated. The Association inherited an expensive problem that still continues to give its managers headaches, and keeps its lawyers in billable hours.
     Those unforeseen hazards can have frightening consequences. A culvert and gutter up on the top of St. Bernard Drive backed up and partially washed out during an autumn rainstorm in 1989 or 1990. The rush of water flowed down the ravine for three-quarters of a mile or so, eventually ending up in a gully just above San Moritz Way. Tenneco had built the county-required catch basin to absorb and deflect just such a water flow, and to protect the homes on San Moritz Lane. But nobody knew that the catch basin needed to be cleaned out occasionally, and so it had become filled with silt and debris. The water overflowed the basin and started eroding the foundations of two of the homes below, wiping out most of their yards in the process. PMCPOA didn't cause the problem, Tenneco's poor design and lack of foresight did, but the Association (all of us) accepted the development from the Developer with all its flaws, so we were legally and financially responsible, and we paid-- attorneys, and engineers, and contractors.
     The electrical system in the clubhouse was barely adequate for the original small structure, and when the building was enlarged (several times), the system was just expanded, instead of being upgraded. I once got a call from the then General Manager, Mike Duffy, that the power in the Club bar area was out, and it was New Years Eve. I'm not an electrician, but he asked me to look at it anyway and see if it was something simple (is it ever??). I found one of the bar sinks had overflowed and gotten an outlet wet, causing the breaker to trip. I turned off all the breakers for that area so the water could be cleaned up. While the crew was working, I saw some of the equipment was still on. One of the crew said there was another breaker box. After some extensive checking, and getting a real electrician to come out on the holiday, he found that TWO panels were hooked to the same circuits, so turning one off didn't cut the power! You'd think after the fire a few years earlier (caused by a faulty circuit), that nearly destroyed the entire clubhouse, SOMEBODY would have hired a licensed electrician to properly install the wiring in the clubhouse. (Note: it should ALL be up to code, now. :-\ )

There's Always a First Time

      Our first experience with PMC was almost 40 years ago. We rode up to Pine Mountain from the San Fernando Valley with Mike Schmidt, who had previously told us all about it. He owned a lot that he planned to build a home on some day, and he thought we should take a look. Property in PMC was a good investment then (real estate almost ANYWHERE in California was a good investment in the early 1970's!).
     Mike had a Jeep CJ5, and it was a lot of fun (NOT!) riding on the old road from the freeway. When we got to the "Y", the turn-off onto Mil Potrero Highway was backed up with cars to about White Rock Road (it was spring, and there was a lot of snow on Mt. Pinos). Our first experience with snow bunnies (yippee!!). Mike took a "shortcut" through the trees around the roadblock and on to Mil Potrero (don't try this at home, kids).
     Pine Mountain was as beautiful as any description I had heard. The sky was blue, the air was crystal clear, and scented with something between pineapple and vanilla (one of the "up" sides of Jeffrey or "sugar" pines---they have their "down" sides, too.) And trees, LOTS of trees.
     We pulled in to Pine Mountain General Store, where we met Floyd Bolton. Floyd was an ex-LAPD who decided to trade the security of a pensioned job for the unknown future of an entrepreneur,  moving his wife Pat and young boys to a tiny no-stoplight town in what almost seemed like wilderness compared to the San Fernando Valley.
    At that time, the General Store was one of only three buildings in the Village (although it was commonly referred to as the "Commercial Center"; there were no signs). The other two structures were the Pine Mountain Real Estate office (a 3-room, one-story building where the Jennings Realty building, that was built over and around it) stands, and the Gold Coast Realty office, which consisted of the one-room front portion of what is now Montana Joey.

Chuck & Marge Tidwell next to Pine Mt. Real Estate Bldg.    

     We drove by the PMC clubhouse, about a quarter of the size it is now. There were just 4 houses on Beechwood Way, near the clubhouse, and the only near structure across Mil Potrero Highway was the KCFD fire station.
     We drove over to the Stables (it wasn't the Equestrian Center, then), turned around, and went up the hill on the street next to the corral. One of the only houses on the street, nestled in the pinons, belonged to Rick Young. It was early on a Saturday morning, but Rick was up working around the house. He invited us in, and asked if we would join him in a Bloody Mary. We did, and come to find out, Rick considered Bloody Mary mix to be a garnish! ;-).
     Thus fortified, we went to the Pine Mountain Real Estate office (above), and met the Tidwells-- Chuck and Marge. They, along with son Tommy, sold most of the property in PMC. The commission on real estate sales, homes or empty lots, was 10 percent then. Actually, the Tidwells got ten percent of most everything then. Dave Peters owned Pine Mountain Real Estate, but the Tidwells did most of the selling
     We met Fred Westlund, a local building contractor. He built many of the homes in PMC-- as many as 54 in one year! Fred never met a corny joke he wouldn't tell you. When you bought a lot from Pine Mountain Real Estate (not affiliated in any way with the current Pine Mountain Realty), the Tidwells got a 10 percent commission. They would recommend (strongly) that you have Westlund Construction build your home or cabin on that lot. They (the Tidwells)would get a ten percent commission from Westlund Construction on the construction contract. They would sometimes have to persuade Fred to cut his price to make the deal, but they still got their full commission. Thus, it happened that in one particular year Westlund Construction built over 50 homes and lost money!

The Long & Winding Road

     CSA 40 (County Service Area 40) has been a magical thing to the public works guys of Kern County. It accumulates funds steadily (inexorably, it seems), and when a tidy sum appears, they (Public Works) get to find new and novel ways to spend it. 
     When Mil Potrero Highway was built (by Tenneco, at their expense), Kern County Roads department wanted a project MUCH different than what we got. (The process, in abbreviated terms, works like this: the developer constructs the road to a pre-determined set of standards (grade (or steepness), width, radius of curves and banking of the roadway, and drainage, etc.) Once the road is built, it is accepted by and dedicated to the County, who assumes responsibility for the maintenance of the road.
     Since Tenneco was picking up the tab, the County plan called for a wide, well-shouldered, well-drained road, with a minimum number of tight curves, and without steep grades. The County plan placed the road in roughly the same path as the original dirt trail/road into PMC from the Mt. Pinos Highway-Cuddy Valley Road turn-off, through to the west end of the development, at Cedarwood Drive. This dirt road turned northwest from where the road is today across from the gate to the now-defunct CSO camp. It followed the creekbed down into San Emigdio Canyon, crossed the creek at the bottom, and headed back up the other canyon (Cloudburst), meeting Nesthorn Way where the gate is now. This route is much more direct, with little up and down stretches. The road could have been constructed to a more acceptable standard width, and would have been on the NORTH side of the canyon, allowing the sun to reach most of the pavement in winter, which would have eliminated many of the daytime black ice problems we have today. Also, the plan called for adequate drainage, using gutters and culverts, instead of directing the water to the middle of the roadway to be drained at the bottom of each hill.
      The kicker in this whole plan was that the road had to cross the main channel of the creek at the bottom of Cloudburst Canyon where it meets the main canyon. Depending on the design, one or two bridges would have had to be built across the creek, capable of withstanding a major flood. Engineering studies estimated the cost at upwards of $500,000 dollars. This is in 70's dollars, and that was a LOT of money then; actually more than the entire road eventually cost. So..........
        Tenneco "persuaded" the County Roads department to "accept" a different alignment of the road: one that followed a former fire road on the south, mostly above the floor of the canyon, and well above the creek. The road followed the contours of the land, with few cuts or filled gullies. It was steep (steeper than county standards), and narrower, too. The route was higher, and on the shady side of the canyon. Again, Tenneco claimed the road was for summer access to Pine Mountain Club, and winter conditions were irrelevant.
     The narrowness and grade of the road led to many problems once the need for winter access became apparent. The county didn't want to plow it, and once they were "persuaded" to, they fitted their plow trucks with rubber-edged plow blades, that left a layer of snow/ice on the roadway. This method saved the pavement, but had a "Zamboni" effect on the road surface, one the snow/ice re-froze. Luckily, in those first few years, not too many people traveled the road in winter, at least not so many that they ran into each other-- if you spun out, or got stuck, it wasn't likely that someone would come along and hit you, but it did happen occasionally. The biggest hazard was sliding OFF the road: into a culvert or a gully, or a tree, or down a steep hillside. The reputation of Mil Potrero Highway became so bad that the school district refused to send buses down the road when it was icy or snowing. 
     Soon, a cry went out for guard rails. If only the county would spend some of our abundant tax dollars here in PMC, and install life-saving guard rails! "Well, YES!" replied the county, "As soon as the funds are available, all the roads in Kern County will be put into tip-top shape. We have a list, and it is prioritized by usage (and a few other things) but it doesn't matter right now, because we have no funds, and don't really foresee having them anytime soon." "But, you (the property owners in PMC) could always form a District, and tax yourselves, and Kern County will gladly help you spend  the money." 
     A number of residents complained that the county was already collecting enough taxes to provide adequate roads that would be safe in all types of weather, and the county officials agreed (citing the priority list again) and said guardrails would be installed eventually, whenever funds became available (yeah, right!). There was another way..... CSA 40. It essentially was a District, and if enough property owners signed a petition, the Service Area could be used to pay for the construction and maintenance of a guardrail system. The debate became heated at times, whether to try to make the county live up to its perceived responsibilities, or to take the shorter more expensive route, and pay for the guardrails now, and get them right away. The petition was circulated, and enough property owners signed to make the project happen. No vote was necessary: the project was funded by a "fee", not a "tax". (Sound familiar???)
     I felt at the time, and still feel, that the cost per lot (about $30 per year, for something like 11 years) was reasonable to make the road safer, and that waiting for the county to come around was futile. In addition, IF Tenneco had built the more expensive road, WITH guardrails, etc., they would have had to pass the additional cost along to the initial buyers of the development, AND it would have increased property values somewhat, so we all would have paid for it anyway. (The so-called no-free-lunch theory).
      When the idea of a county-funded project was first proposed to Kern County Roads department, the good-ole boys there had all kinds of reasons why guardrails just weren't workable on a road like Mil Potrero. "The guardrails will impinge on the roadway that's already too narrow" (Not true: the rails are behind the berm which defines the edge of the shoulder.) "Guardrails will not allow the plows to push the snow off the road" (Not true: the plows push the snow to the rails, which then force the moving snow up and over.) These and many other "excuses" went totally away when PMC agreed to pick up the tab for the County to do the work!
       A sad sidebar to this story. At least two people would most likely still be alive if guardrails had been in place on Mil Potrero when they unfortunately were involved in crashes there. Myra Irwin was the passenger in a compact pickup that skidded on gravel at the top of the "S" curves just west of Ward Drive one sunny afternoon. The truck plunged over the edge and overturned. She was ejected and fatally injured. Robin Parker lost control of her small compact car near the Whitener Tree (probably on a frosty road) and was pinned in her car at the bottom of the embankment. She died from internal injuries before reaching the hospital. Both fatalities may have been avoided if the vehicles remained on the road. In all fairness, if either of the victims had been wearing seatbelts, they may have survived even without the guardrails. Unfortunately, the programs to enforce seatbelt use had not yet been started. 
     A memorial plaque is affixed to a large rock located in the turn-out at the bottom of the "S" curves, near San Moritz Drive.

CSA 40

     What the heck is CSA 40? If you own property in PMC, your tax bill has a line item for CSA 40. The CSA stands for county service area. 
     When Tenneco first proposed the Pine Mountain Club project to Kern County, there was some reluctance to approve such a large project. I say some reluctance, because almost 3000 lots with more than 2000 dwellings is a LOT of potential property taxes. County planners were worried that allowing all those dwellings to use septic tanks instead of off-site sewage treatment could lead to environmental concerns. After some "negotiation" (no accusations here, but Tenneco was flush with money, and county executives had acquired an affinity for it), it was decided that a "County Service Area" would be formed, to be funded by an annual fee on each lot, and the funds accrued would be used to build a sewage treatment plant within PMC when it became advantageous or necessary to do so.
     The CSA agreement also had a provision that septic tanks had to be pumped on a regular schedule, but this was not enforced for the first several years. prior to this provision, septic tanks were only pumped when they were failing. Several years ago, a Frazier Park businessman, whose main business was a restaurant and bar in Lebec, bought a couple of pumping rigs and went into the septic tank pumping business. Shortly thereafter, the county announced that septic tanks in CSA 40 would require inspection and pumping every two years, regardless of their effectiveness. Coincidence?? (Short answer: NO). 
    The "pumpage" from the septics had to be trucked to a dumpsite (pond) in the San Joaquin Valley, which added considerably to the expense. One day, while reading the Mountain Enterprise, I saw a Notice of Public Hearing before the Kern County Zoning Commission, about a proposed sewage settling pond project. The details of the hearing just gave map coordinates (latitude-longitude), but also said approximately 13 miles west of Frazier Park. I looked up the location on a USFS map, and it was approximately at the north ends of Nesthorn Way and Nadelhorn Way. I called the then GM of Pine Mountain Club, Mike Duffy, and told him to read the notice and see what he thought. Mike was also a civil engineer, so he knew right away what was up. 
       CSA 40 had been quietly collecting money for years, and now there was several hundred thousand dollars in it, just aching to be spent by Kern County public works department. The County proposed, instead of a sewage treatment plant, to build a "settling pond" where the pumping trucks would dump the raw sewage from local septic tanks, and then allow Mother Nature to work her magic in the open air. If you've ever been near a sewage plant and unfortunate to be down-wind, you know what that smells like! The project was sailing through the various levels of the County permit process, primarily because the project was fully funded (with OUR money). The last hurdle was the zoning commission. (the project required a zoning change to be in that particular location). 
     If you're familiar with the geography of PMC, the eastern boundary is roughly in the area known as San Emigdio Canyon. If you use the turn-out on Mil Potrero Hwy just west of Yellowstone Drive, and look north, the large canyon before you is San Emigdio Canyon. The canyon's southern end is actually two canyons, one leading east up to the CSO camp at the intersection of Mil Potrero and Cuddy Valley Road, and the other branches southwest, opening up at Nesthorn Way. Being familiar with this area, and having looked at the maps and charts that used to hang in the Pine Mountain Real Estate office, I knew that the site the County proposed to use for the sludge pond was actually NOT San Emigdio Canyon at all, but Cloudburst Canyon. Mike Duffy organized a delegation of PMC Board members and residents to attend the zoning commission hearing, and armed with the appropriate USFS map, convinced the commissioners that sewage probably didn't mix with Cloudburst!