Your Honor,
We wanted to inform you that Caltrans violated your orders to work with the plaintiff Lydia Blumberg during the three week time period, an equitable agreement concerning her property. Instead, they removed over ninety percent of Ms. Blumberg's property without her consent, including many valuable items which were either smashed or thrown away.
Ms. Blumberg's intent was to communicate to Caltrans employees which belongings were of highest value to her, and to make it a priority to safely move those items to her new place of residence. Some of these objects have a significant artistic or personal meaning to Ms. Blumberg, above and beyond what she might use to make money, and to survive. In her capacity as a peripatetic curator and restorationist, Ms. Blumberg has re-appropriated from the waste stream, one-of-a-kind fine art objects, and it is the loss of these items that is particularly distressing for her. Original fine art is in a different category of value than the other items recovered from the waste stream, because fine art appreciates in value over time, whereas virtually all other items depreciate in value over time. Her job involves walking and riding a cargo trike for miles a day, lifting and carrying and pulling loads of recovered items back to her compound where they can be sorted by hand, repurposed, restored, rehabilitated and traded or sold, thus providing a significant service to society. Fine art, antique books and fine handcrafted items store cultural memory that lasts for generations. The value of her work was destroyed by the actions of Caltrans. And the theft or destruction of these items by Caltrans puts them back into the waste stream, and thus into landfill, the oceans or incinerators, which is therefore a state caused harm to the environment and a culturally significant loss to society. Caltrans' actions also reverse the personal healing that Ms. Blumberg receives due to the fact that by redeeming these broken and discarded objects, she is healing parts of herself that have een wounded and traumatized.
The plaintiff has been more than willing to work out an agreement with Caltrans whereby she can save those items that still have value, give Caltrans the area of land they want, and take what she wishes to keep to a place where the items can be safely stored. But Caltrans made no agreements with her until the day their workers arrived, when they used their superior numbers (70 workers) to take most of her property away without her consent.
Before we filed our TRO's, and received your orders, Caltrans workers had already come into Ms. Blumberg's space and begun to take her belongings and destroy her perimeter fence, including 400 feet of welded wire fence and support posts, without her consent. The workers then proceeded to remove without her consent hundreds of mineralogical and petroglyphic items, collected from the region by the plaintiff, as well as a portfolio of original one-of-a-kind charcoal drawings from multiple artists, which were in her boat next to her residence. She repeatedly told workers that the items in the boat were pre-sorted and had a higher value to her, but there was no effort on their part to make and keep an agreement with regards to these items.
In another instance, the police asked her to place items she wanted to keep in a pile, which she did. But Caltrans did not respect that agreement and removed and discarded or smashed all of those items with a forklift.
Other items Caltrans took without Ms. Blumberg's consent:
A custom one-of-a-kind welded copper hanging light fixture 5' x 2'
A set of antique dictionary/encyclopedias, eight volumes, from 1896.
One original oil painting
A 5' x 2' lacquered antique Japanese table.
Caltrans also took diamond jewelry that was a gift from her grandmother and intended for her daughter.
In addition, Caltrans took:
300 feet of extension cords
Washer/dryer, windows, sink, bathroom fixtures, and skin/sheet metal from a mobile home
Intact chassis and wheels of fifth wheel (semi burnt) , skin and sheet metal.
2 table band saws, several plyers, hammers, saw blades, several circular saws
4 antique cabinets, 7 antique trunks
At this time they also cut down Kellie's fence, and Louis' fence without their consent. Workers then removed or destroyed most or all of their belongings that were in their yards without their consent.
Caltrans made no good faith effort to come to an accord with her or the residents of the tiny homes, to stay in compliance with a process that would enable us to make safe our most valuable items.
It appears that Caltrans' intention all along was the eviction of every resident of their community from Wood Street, regardless of how compliant we were with Caltrans' schedule, or Caltrans' wish to have us move out from under the freeway, to adjacent sunlit areas. On April 7, 2022 Caltrans announced that because of the death of one of our residents in a recent fire, that all the residents including myself "have to go". So instead of just experiencing the traumatic loss of important property, the plaintiff is also faced with experiencing the state caused harms of displacement from Wood Street.
So we wish to convey to your honor all of the state caused harms that Ms. Blumberg would experience if displaced from the Wood Street community against her will. Because of the great size of Wood Street, and the longer time period that residents have lived there, residents have been able to create certain amenities and benefits that expand the scope of state caused harms, should forcible displacement from their community and land occur.
For example, within the Wood Street community, Ms. Blumberg has greater than usual access to cooperative community, which is both precious and difficult to create. At Wood Street she has high quality access to the waste stream, which includes items of value to own or sell. At Wood Street she has unprecented access to the press and media, which have given her community favorable coverage locally and worldwide. Wood Street affords residents access to sufficient space for the development of common areas to have meetings and to assemble for music concerts, open mics and parties, which enhances their status with regards to the rest of society, as well as improving their reputation with decision makers. Wood Street also provides her community with greater access to decision makers and powerful stakeholders, like representatives from the City and Caltrans and the Governor. Living at Wood Street affords her premium access to charitable distribution of food, clothing, medical supplies and social services. At Wood Street she has access to a legacy of uniquely successful activism and self-governance. In addition, Wood Street is the birthplace of the commons land trust which will give all members in good standing the chance to be stewards of the land, whereby they can be safe from eviction. Wood Street gives her access to the soil and the Earth itself, for the purposes of food growing and soil regeneration. The loss of any of these benefits because of Caltrans' actions represents instances of state caused harm to the plaintiff.
The additional time that an injunction against Caltrans would provide is necessary in order for the plaintiff and other residents to do further investigation into the actual origination of the fires at Wood Street. Since fire is the sole pretext for Caltrans to evict her and others from their homes, it is vitally important that they be relieved of any blame or defamation for the fires they did not cause. In addition, we want you to be informed of the efforts she and other residents have made to partiicipate in various forms of fire abatement, and in the removal of trash and flammable items from their area.
We ask that her TRO be converted to an injunction to provide the time to determine the full cost to the plaintiff of Caltrans' actions, in terms of lost property and emotional distress, and to continue our efforts to determine accurately the true source of the fires, and improve our fire abatement resources.
Thank you for your consideration.
Theo Cedar Jones, on behalf of Lydia Blumberg and the residents of the Wood Street Community.