You have my explanation about the "thousand shots a day".  You just don't like my answer.  If you want to pursue the newspaper for "getting it wrong", go ahead.   You seem to (sic) pretty good at that.  How about an apology for calling me a liar in exchange for an apology for calling you a coward? 

You don't manufacture truth by making bargains with a falsehood.   How could I pursue the newspaper for getting it wrong if you won't admit--point blank--that they got it wrong, that they misquoted you?     Did they misquote you or not?    Do you hear a thousand rounds "a day" or not?      Your little brother took your complaints seriously.    You don't hear uncontrolled gun fire over here anymore.    Why not just state that and have done with it?

You take issue with my reference to the use of the words "stealth" or "guise".  How about this:  the Royal Rangers did an "end run" around the prohibition against shooting ranges.

I respect the Royal Rangers and what they are trying to do up there on the mountain, and I believe they have been more than forthcoming.     There is nothing "end run" about submitting plans to a public forum.     On the contrary, when you use "stealth" or "end-run" you stop just short of calling them liars.    I know why this is done.   If the applicant can be characterized as an untrustworthy villain, nothing they ever put on paper will be trusted and pretty soon you have the sort of general hysteria you helped inspire against our project, complete with audience members who vowed to lie about our compliance efforts and even accused us of skinning baby bears and dropping them on the highway.      Are you proud of that neighborhood coalition, Dennis?      When you fail to admit what you know to be the case--that we don't fire thousands of rounds per day, not even dozens of rounds per day--you fuel that hysteria.   One neighbor called me this week and thanked me for quieting down my overnight guests.      I can work with that, because at least I know someone is making an attempt to watch our progress.     If you can't bring yourself to admit that we have taken your requests seriously, you create justifiable contempt for your complaints both by us and by enforcing agencies.    "We can't please him--why even try?"    

As far as being "dismissive and corrosive" towards one's neighbors,  that seems to describe your style in dismissing the concerns of us, your neighbors, and anyone else in Oak Glen that happens to oppose your theme park . Yes theme park!     Just because Disneyland has some orange trees don't make it a farm.  Knott's Berry Farm actually was a berry farm.  It was the kids that eventually brought in the rides.  Who knows what is in store for Riley's Farm?  You scoff at the notion of rides, but just down the road your supporter (and I don't think it is abusive, simply a fact worth stating) offers toy train rides, inflatable bouncy whatevers, and western shootouts.  Is that why so many people are wary of your project?  I think it was Leroy Hansberger who bestowed Yogi Bear park on Oak Glen.  Was that a theme park? 

I simply ask you and your disciples to look at what we proposed.     Are there any roller-coasters?    Are there any "towers of terror?"    Are there any boat rides on a track or submerged fiber-glass hippopotami?     Are there any animatronic minutemen?    Are there any miniaturized barns called "Rascal Ranch?"      More than 95% of what we are proposing is cultivated soil--new apple orchards, corn fields, flower fields, and raspberry patches.    We propose a New England meeting house, a potter and weaver's shop, a few bunk houses and a country inn.      To call this a "theme park," is to call the Wildlands Conservancy Jurassic Park.    It is insulting to your family--and to the vast majority of our customer-guests:   educators, many of them with advanced degrees.       

Do you think some of the neighbors you so corrosively dismiss might have some of these models in mind when thinking about you?  You cite the neighbor just above Oak Tree village who moved in after the park was there and is now complaining about noise.  Does it occur to you that we moved in before the noise?  You cite our square dances, by the way, as a parallel to your shooting tours.  But you moved in after they started. 

I agree that you created the noise and I agreed to live with it, and was happy in fact to live with it because I saw myself in essentially the same business.     I can remember Devon hay-riding teenagers around the farm late at night, hearing their out-in-the-country zeal, and it never occurred to me to complain about it.      During apple season, when the cars were parked so tightly around my house I had trouble opening the door, I thought, truthfully, "this is great!"       You had no complaints from me.    I must say, however, that I was very surprised, and hurt, to see that the courtesy didn't extend in the other direction.      

Funny, no one ever complained to code enforcement about the dances.  Now you're the one doing them.  But they don't seem to be the problem, Jim.  Nor does milking cows or planting potatoes.  Could it just be that those kinds of things are sustainable in a farm atmosphere? We didn't oppose your C.U.P. over the teaching of history and you know it.  Nor did we seek to shut down the farm tours.  You just had to link them, inextricably, with battles and that forced the issue.  Could it be that gunfire just gripes the ---- out of people?   O.K., so you have cut back the musket volleys and are not firing live rounds - at least for now.  So far, so good.  Keep it that way and we might all be able to live and let live.  I'm glad to know that we won't have 1200 overnight campers.

There is a sort of melting-clock hyper-surrealism in this response, Dennis, because in the very same letter that you compare us to a theme park you also insist that you have never tried to shut down our farm tours.    Everything in our CUP application--the only thing standing between us and shutting down those farm tours--is proposed in service of those historical tours and you have formally asked the county, in writing, to reject it.    You also fail to acknowledge that I have consistently--from day one--said that gunfire must be controlled and limited.     I have always indicated my willingness to control gunfire, but I will not eliminate it entirely, as you have uniformly demanded.       We offered you 20 shots per day, down from 80 shots per day, and that wasn't good enough.      We pulled our tours away from your borders and that wasn't good enough.    We reduced our powder loads from 120 grains to 65 grains and that wasn't good enough.     We paid for a $3700 noise study that confirmed your busses (and ours) were more impacting than a few musket blasts, and that wasn't good enough.   Finally, the six shot standard seems to be something that you are willing to consider.   I hope this means some sort of progress is taking place.     The number of overnight guests--144 bunk house visitors plus the 8 country inn rooms--has been clearly published on the C.U.P. exhibit for two years.     We have never asked for 1200 overnight guests.     

You need to quit using "old data" too, Jim.  We haven't  done our bar-b-que for years.  Nor has Tim fired a shot.  But you keep bringing those up to reinforce your  hypocrite scenario.  In fact, we have consistently reduced the scope of our business as the years have gone by.  But the bottom line is this:  The land use designation for our mutual properties calls for seasonal, agriculture and residential uses only. 

Regardless of the seasonal nature, it doesn't allow for your general stores, amphitheaters, u-press cider, school tours or pick-your-own fruit either.    The fact that so much of that exists in Oak Glen was a testament to the old standard:   "don't complain;  live and let live."     If you bring bus loads of school children onto your property, or Devon does the same thing, and then you ask us to seek conditional use permits--holding yourself above the law on that front--you can naturally see why the county was forced to act against you and a few others who were in the same boat.     With respect to food sales, we were merely referring to your sales literature offering lunches, caramel apples, pie slices and whole pies, all at the same time you signed a petition citing a false claim, that we featured a "restaurant inside a home."       As I believe you know, our commercial kitchen was and is fully permitted and there is no connection between the living quarters and the downstairs banquet facility.    

But why you would be pre-selling school groups on apple pie and lunch, without your own health permit, and simultaneously sign a food service complaint against us is very hard for me to comprehend, frankly.

We are seasonal, you are not.  You have to get a C.U.P. and we do not.

We'll see.    Believe me, we will watch your land use review very closely.    Perhaps, in a less hostile environment, we could even help.     The point is that you will need to submit to the same land use scrutiny we have endured.     The days when you were advocating to your little brothers "ask forgiveness, not permission" are over.   

Just how much activity will be allowed within that seasonal use designation remains to be seen:   Dennis Hansberger in a public meeting in April, 2005, announced that your C.U.P. would set the standards  for all of Oak Glen.  I know one thing for certain.  Apples are our most profitable item and the biggest percentage of our overall profit.  Can you say the same?

I will confess you are the king of u-pick and a better marketer of apples than I am.    I have planted a lot of new trees and I love the lore of the apple.   I hope to get approval for hard cideries within our banquet facilities someday and I would support that right for you as well.    I believe we both agree, however, that paying Southern California property taxes in a year with very little crop is something like taking a vow of poverty, along with a suicide pact, at the same time.     I really don't want to have tree-shakers and automatic sorters and Washington style climate control systems here, nor do you; nor does the public.    We will always be an "apple & country lore" destination and we need to begin honoring those who have been innovative when it comes to making this land pay for itself.    I am proud of my contribution in that respect.   

Now to the real whopper - the myth that Ray and Bea Riley purchased the farm for the benefit of the whole family.  The consensus in our family was that it was Scott who clinched the deal by running away at Christmas time when dad refused to sign the purchase agreement.  Ever since, the mantra has been "What can we do to make Scott happy.  It was dad who said to Devon that Scott had lost interest in everything he tried to do and would soon lose interest in the farm.  That proved to be true.  The only thing that  Scott seemed to enjoy was "sticking a musket in someone's hand."   Devon and Shelli wound up running the store that Scott started and was supposed to be the real financial engine of the farm.  At any rate, both mom and dad made it clear from the start that I had my own farm already and the sooner I left, the better.  As to me being the guru of the compound, I simply accepted the fact that dad didn't have the money then to subdivide the farm and to have forced his hand would have resulted in his selling it off.  You were the one who threw a tantrum because you didn't get your hunk.  You left to sulk for a few years, then came back with a vengeance.  Now you have it all.  How ironic.  But at the time, I thought the partnership between Devon and Scott was a satisfactory compromise - they would work the farm on behalf of both sides of the family and  dad would get a lease payment to help pay the taxes and upkeep.  At some time in the future when the land was paid off it could be divided into separate home site and business areas.  You were the first test case of that theory.  Where to put Jim's home and tavern?  It soon became clear that the lease and corporation would not be honored by Ray, Bea and Scott.  So Devon was the next to go.  Now Jesse is gone.  How long before Susan and Ryan are gone? 

Dennis, this is a sad commentary on your "woe-is-me" complex.   There's nothing I can do about this perception you have of yourself and the family, except that you made it a self-fulfilling prophecy.    You appeared, on some level, to need this independence.   Wallowing in this rejection excused you from the hard work of seeking the "balance," for example, you reject in the community plan standard, the balance everyone needs to seek between competing interests.    You couldn't quite reconcile yourself to the notion of sharing the farm with your siblings and rather than work out a plan, you reached for total control in a way that I think even you knew would fail, so that you could be slapped back, so that you could wallow in the unfairness of it all.   As to my having a tantrum, you are 100% correct.    I'm comfortable enough with myself, Dennis, that I can admit when I'm wrong, when I'm impatient.      You should try it sometime.     Walk out on the porch and say it out loud:  "I was wrong.   Take me back."  

As to sibling fights and quarrels, from what I hear from Susan your family fights sound like real donnybrooks..  So much for me being the cause of rivalry.  You all are doing just fine without me.  Regarding the disinheritance,  you stated long and loudly that it was the result of my calling "the government" over Scott's mountain man live shoot.  Probably at the root of it all is the fact that I was the first to leave the Mormon church and have always been blamed for Susan's and your defection as well.  I think the shooting incident was just the little nudge that was required  to reduce the size of the  pie and rid the family of an apostate son.  So be it. 

We've had our share of fights, to be certain, but we always come back to the table.   Ryan and I are actually talking about joining forces, having a common S Corporation and Scott is talking about taking a minority interest in this operating company over here and my taking a minority interest over there at Mile High.     We fight, but we work together, because we know the meaning of compromise.     I hear you tried to get both Mike and Susan to deep-six our application at the planning commission the other day, by writing letters against the family.    Mike told me you only call him when you need him for an ally against the rest of the family.    Susan said the same thing.    Why are you doing this, Dennis?

But one paragraph in your last response really tells the whole story, Jim.  You describe me as a Donald Trump apprentice and in one sentence dismiss my  part in the family's Oak Glen legacy this way:  "You aren't seriously claiming ownership, and profit, on the basis of your acting, essentially, as dad's clerk, are you?"   In the next breath you ask me to revere  Ray and Bea Riley for bestowing the farm for the benefit of all.  Perhaps you would like me  to offer a toast, as  Bob Cratchit, to the founder of the feast?   Perhaps I should be grateful for my situation, sir.  I also thought of old Mr. Potter describing George Bailey as a measly little spider.  The fact is, you hold us in contempt, Jim

Your problem, Denny, is that you run to extremes.   You aren't Bob Cratchit and I'm not old man Potter.     Neither are you Howard Hughs or Donald Trump.   Your father agreed to pay $186,000 dollars a year for a farm, for ten years, during his retirement, so that you could, essentially, play banjo and pay a lease of about $20,000.    Your ingratitude for that gift is beyond belief, and it still stuns the rest of the family.     You not only wanted a beneficial lease, you wanted hierarchical control of the entire operation.    When Dad justifiably defended the interest of the rest of his children, you called him a tyrant.     If you think this is Bob Cratchit treatment, you are not living in the real world.

We are clerks, servants of the manor, so to speak.  The real "birthright" belongs to you and Scott, "to the manor born" sons,  and we lesser -born need to learn to keep our place. We (my sons, wife and I) were acceptable to the family as "fetchers of wood and haulers of water."  But how arrogant of us to ask for an equal place at the table.  How arrogant for Devon to have been given a business monopoly that excluded Lord Jim! 

You do admit, then, that Devon was asking for--even if rejected--a "business monopoly" among the Riley family children?      I rest my case.     The notion that this request should be considered beyond critique speaks volumes about your sense of entitlement.    (Devon learned irrigation from Blackie Wilshire, so Ray Riley should give him the entire farm--at the expense of his other children?)   You were the one that wanted a king's crown for your son, and the rest of us were to be content with a cottage in the country and the favor of Devon's good will--in your own words!

Well now the rightful order has been restored.  The only problem is that the peasants still live at  the foot of the hill and are not very respectful of their betters.  That's really what it's about, isn't it?  We have been utterly disenfranchised in the Ray Riley clan but you still want our gratitude and respect.  You want to sit down and have a beer together just like in old times.  Every time my erstwhile mother sees me she holds out her hand as though to say, "kiss the hand and show everyone how much respect I am due."  It would be more honest if she just gave me the finger.  You can't have it both ways.  You can't hug someone and slap them in the face. 

Your mother still loves you and prays for you every night, but not because of the farm struggle, but because she longs for the well-being of your soul.   You have given yourself over to hatred and bitterness, and she knows it.     One simple "I was wrong, Mom" would ease her burden, and you have the power to do it.    Will you?   

We really do want to be left alone.  We are two different families.  You have won, Jim You have the farm to yourself.  But that doesn't seem to be enough.  We signed the petition in self defense as a means of holding on to some of our privacy.  You would not consent to any compromise, nor were you able to enforce any moderation of the shooting.

Now this is a lie, and I think you know it.    You have failed to recognize my efforts at compromise.    I have compromised so much, in fact, that my staff, my family, and my attorney are beginning to think I'm a coward.   (You think I'm a coward, and they think I'm a coward.   I can't win.)

Sharon and I are moving to Colorado and will seek to rebuild our lives there.    But you are relentless, Jim, in demanding complete submission from your opponents.   I have engaged you in this cyber duel as a last resort.  I have tried breaking off contact with you.  But you assail us through your agents at the county and by your endless diatribe on the web.  I thought after the planning commission's ruling that you would back off.  But the very next day you were back at it, crowing to your supporters that you had prevailed over the pack of deceitful enemies.  You should always leave your defeated foe some dignity.  You didn't even acknowledge the six shot limit.    As I said in the beginning of this duel, you don't know when to quit.  I thought the newspapers have done a reasonably good job of covering the story.  But you are now attacking them, as well. 

Dennis, take a deep breath.    The newspapers have portrayed us as nothing but a nuisance because you have appealed to their worst instincts.      You are responsible for this mess, not us.     You circulated a petition, along with your son, demanding that code enforcement return us to nothing but a series of country homes and, perhaps, if we're lucky, a u-pick orchard.    You knew that action would put us all out of business and you did it anyway.    You drew the first blood in this battle and now you are suing for peace.       Fine.    Let's have peace.     Why don't you initiate a meeting with some of the folks in the neighborhood?     I'm always willing to talk.   What is this now, but talk?     

I would strongly advise you to back off, Jim.  The appeal process is in others hands now,  not mine or Devon's.  You can either cool the daily diatribes or pour on the gas.  Everyone has their limits though.   I have retreated as far as time and distance will allow me.  I'll admit that I am no match for you in this war of words. So here's my proposal:  I will concede victory to you in this duel if you agree to drop the diatribe.  Except for the piece in the Press Enterprise I want to be through with reading and writing about this mess.  Let us go to Colorado in peace.  You can carry on the fight with whoever you want, but leave me and my family out of it.  The fight is out of our hands now anyway.  You and I will both have to fight the county in our own ways.  I want to preserve the value of my property and you want your project approved.  I expect you will have your parting shot, Jim.  That's only fair.  But after that, let's make an end to it.

Fine.   I'm willing to end it, but you must admit, Dennis, that I have made compromises in your direction. Healing might begin if you admitted that.   It was grossly unfair of you to portray us to the community as scoff-laws and fire bugs, and you can't quite fix this by just saying, "I'm leaving."   Your continued reference to us as a "theme park," your refusal to distance yourself, conclusively, from the "thousand rounds a day" quote, your refusal to recognize the ongoing compromises we have made all continue to make our battle more and more difficult.      We are trying to do right by the community and I believe it is only fair of you to recognize that effort--especially if you are leaving us.     Contrary to your assertion, the code enforcement war you started may end up shutting down more than just us--it may cripple all of Oak Glen.    You need to be both a strong voice for year round agritourism and you need to apologize for failing to recognize our agreement to operate by standards.    That would go a long way towards promoting progress in this community.

I think I see some light at the end of the tunnel.  I had not planned a further round but it appears we may be getting close to clarifying some long standing issues.  That is important, not only for us, but for the many readers of your website.  So, let's keep at it. 

First, a word about lies and news reporters:  Calling a man is a liar is to use a fighting word. 

Dennis, what you really need to do is read--and think--about the words on my website, before you draw conclusions.    I repeat them:

If the Alpenhorn News is quoting him correctly,  there is just no polite way to put it:  he's telling a lie.

Read those words carefully.   IF you were correctly quoted, that would, of course, be a lie.    Do you agree?    Yes, or no?    Do you hear "thousands" a day?      Answer those questions, forthrightly, and you and I have no problem.

In the historical period you teach, such a charge usually led to a literal duel.  You have charged me with lying on more than one occasion, and your most recent reply has done it again.  Your casual use of the word  is more in keeping with our modern age than the one your are endeavoring to inculcate in your students. 

For someone who begins a dialogue by calling me a coward, you certainly are very touchy-touchy about the term liar, but there was nothing casual at all about the way I used the term.     I have tried to get you to clarify your position in this exchange and you respond with a long and serpentine reference to the single event you can recall with anything close to 1000 rounds.  You respond that "perhaps" the reporter conflated your remarks?    "Perhaps?"   A simple, "you're right, Jim;  I don't hear thousands of rounds per day" would suffice.    Your failure to respond directly speaks volumes about your investment in this demagoguery.

Why, though, would I be willing to conclude that you're not above misleading the public?      Take a look at this quote from the September 18, 2005 edition of the San Bernardino Sun:

"We want to maintain the rural tranquility,' Dennis Riley said. "I don't think we have an obligation to become a shooting gallery for the teeming population down below.'

Or consider this reference to you in the Press Enterprise earlier this month on April 3:

"We didn't mind having these things two or three times a year," Dennis Riley said. "It's not sustainable on a daily basis."

Did these reporters get it wrong, too?    Did you really call us a "shooting gallery" as late as last fall?      If you ask a reasonable person how many rounds could be heard from a shooting gallery, Dennis, what do you think they would say?   Thousands?   Tens of thousands?   Do you have a propaganda investment in maintaining that perception?  

When you refer to the major re-enactments in the next quote ('these things two or three times a year") and then conclude they are not sustainable "on a daily basis," what perception do you think you are cultivating?     It's very simple:  you are creating the impression that we hold a major "thousand round" re-enactment every day.      

Please just admit, Dennis, that you have carelessly fostered an impression of out of control shooting to suit your needs.    You have failed to acknowledge my efforts at compromise, and you have not lived, nor have you ever lived, next to a "shooting gallery."     As a fellow Oak Glen property owner told me this morning, (he lives right above you), "I still haven't heard one of these shots yet."

We have a point of order, however, in this duel.    In your last letter, you wrote:

I expect you will have your parting shot, Jim.  That's only fair.  But after that, let's make an end to it.

I wrote my "parting shot" and, now, you write:

let's keep at it

The Royal Rangers project includes a live fire range. Our project does not. The Royal Rangers project has included--depending on which side you believe--between 600 and 1400 overnight guests. Our project has 144 overnight camper guests and 8 room inn capacity. The Royal Ranger project has a much higher concentration of residents surrounding it. Ours has residents only on the northern side--two of which are in the school tour business themselves. To call these projects IDENTICAL is to either be ignorant of the facts or to be engaged in willful misrepresentation of the truth.