Henley Sued Over Land Use
Author: Jeffery Jolson-Colburn
Publication: Entertainment Newswire
Date: April 29, 1993
Abstract: Henley discusses a lawsuit with his neighbors over some land in Santa Monica.
Singer Don Henley, known for his environmental crusades to protect scenic areas like Walden Woods in Massachusetts, is now in an ecological battle in his own backyard.
Henley's Santa Monica Mountains neighbor filed a conspiracy and civil-rights violation suit Monday in an effort to get permission to build in a spot Henley has been fighting to protect for ecological reasons.
Henley, along with the Santa Monica Conservancy, has so far blocked the construction, but the neighbor, Richard Seigel,
countered with a suit charging Henley, another neighbor, Harry Fox, and Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky with violation of civil rights,
emotional distress, conspiracy and fraud."This lawsuit says to me that we are doing a good job of protecting endangered wildlife habitats and open space in the Santa Monica Mountains," Henley said from Washington, D.C. "When one stands up for sound land use principles, there is usually someone who wants to sue." Henley, who has been working for years to protect the wildlife and public spaces in Santa Monica, termed the suit "frivolous."
The 25-page suit downplays ecological factors and says Henley and Fox used their clout to create such environmental issues as an "animal corridor" that blocked the proposed construction. The filing calls Henley's various local political contributions "bribes" to help prevent building and initiate the government's acquisition of the land on conservation grounds. The suit says, "Henley secretly paid the Santa Monica Conservancy money to use its influence to defeat the Seigels' building plans and to initiate the acquisition of the Seigels' property."
Henley said the area contained one of the last watering areas for local fauna, a fossil site used by students and an important gully that animals use to cross under the highway.
