‘It’s crazy up here.’ Millerton Lake residents fed up with crime, fires, drugs, trash
David Peck could feel his heart thumping as he approached a car parked in a dark turnout near his home overlooking Millerton Lake. One whose driver ignored the overnight “No Stopping” and “No Parking” signs.
Among those like Peck who live along Sky Harbour Road, this particular turnout is one of several notorious for attracting an after-hours party crowd. People who drive to their neighborhood from Fresno and Clovis to consume alcohol, take drugs and fornicate while often leaving behind evidentiary trash. And that’s the standard fare. This summer alone, residents have encountered drunks passed out in the street after driving their cars over the embankment, trespassers blatantly casing their homes and bozos causing wildfires by launching illegal fireworks into parched hillsides.
Sky Harbour Road residents have long and loudly complained — to their elected county and state representatives, to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department and to the California Department of Parks & Recreation that operates a day-use site at the end of the cul-de-sac. The pandemic has only exacerbated their predicament.
Frustrated by the lack of action (and in the case of state parks, response), a group of them formed a private citizens’ patrol over the Fourth of July weekend. Carrying flashlights, a bullhorn and smart phones to take pictures of license plates, they monitored the entire 6-mile stretch from Table Mountain Casino to the South Finegold Picnic Area.
Which explains how Peck found himself shining a 12,000-lumen flashlight into the window of a car parked in a turnout known by locals as “Condom Court.” Only to be surprised by a young couple, both obviously under the influence of alcohol, springing out of the bushes.
“My heart was pumping,” the insurance broker said. “Even the most innocuous person could be the one that shoots. You never know.”
“It was scary to go out there by ourselves, but some of us felt like we didn’t have any choice,” added Dawn Irving, a nurse who manages the neighborhood’s private Facebook page.
Billed as “the last lakefront property in California” when developed in the 1960s, Millerton Lake Estates contains 45 homes on Sky Harbour Road and a handful of adjacent streets. About half are occupied by retirees. (“Most of us aren’t rich,” Irving said. “A lot of people up here are old and living off fixed incomes.”)
Due to the area’s remoteness and an overlap of governmental jurisdictions, solutions to the neighborhood’s issues require interagency cooperation. Crime is the responsibility of the Fresno County sheriff. Road incidents fall under the purview of the California Highway Patrol. State parks is responsible for the picnic area and trails that ascend Pincushion Mountain, both magnets for daytime visitors.
Problems extend beyond picnic area, trails
Doreen and Mike Carter have lived on Sky Harbour Road since 2005. The couple has two thick binders stuffed with petitions to elected officials and state bureaucrats, photographs of illegal fireworks and trash, newspaper clippings and notes from more than two dozen meetings.
“We need patrolling,” Doreen Carter said. “We need enforcement.”
Years ago, the problems were concentrated at the South Finegold Picnic Area, where the San Joaquin River flows into Millerton Lake. Visitors are asked to pay a day-use fee, currently $12. Few do, which often leads to long lines of parked cars (some illegally) on both sides of the roadway on weekends and holidays.
Once the hikers, mountain bikers and picnickers depart, a rougher party crowd starts showing up. Many seek out remote turnouts with views of Millerton Lake. Others aren’t the least bit shy of parking in front of people’s homes, seemingly oblivious to the trash they leave behind and the thumping noise from their car stereos.
Mail theft is a common problem throughout Fresno and Clovis. On Sky Harbour Road, the community mailbox has been broken into so many times the post office won’t deliver there anymore. Since Christmas Eve, residents have collected their mail in Friant.
Wildfires are the latest (and perhaps scariest) threat. Cal Fire has responded to four incidents in the area in the last two months. The largest were the 63-acre Gold Fire, which ignited June 9 at the South Finegold Picnic Area, and the Sky Fire that began 11 days later and burned 26 acres and threatened several homes. Investigators determined illegal fireworks caused the Sky Fire.
Meeting canceled due to perceived hostilities
“It’s crazy up here and we need help,” said Peck, who moved from Fresno’s Copper River two years ago with the thought he was moving away from city life and its problems.
California Assemblyman Jim Patterson and multiple staffers have worked on solving the neighborhood’s issues since 2019, after court documents revealed the hit-and-run driver that killed Clovis Unified administrator Gavin Gladding had been drinking at Sky Harbour Road hours before the fatal collision.
In response to the latest elevated threats, Patterson scheduled a July 10 meeting between residents, county sheriffs and officials, CHP, Cal Fire and state parks that all the stakeholders had agreed to attend. It was canceled, three days before, by Patterson himself. For curious reasons.
“We became aware of state parks’ outright hostility to the residents, and I concluded there was not going to be any conclusions or any help,” Patterson said. “State parks was going to show up and be hostile. The residents should not have to face that.”
Naturally I contacted California’s Department of Parks & Recreation for its side of the story. Why would state parks have any hostility toward residents of Sky Harbour Road? But just like in April 2020, a parks spokesman refused to make anyone with any authority at Millerton Lake State Recreation Area available for interviews.
“As for your question about (the July 10) meeting,” the response read, “the department cannot speculate on the reason for the cancellation as the meeting was not canceled by State Parks.”
Of course not.
State parks ‘has utterly no sympathy’
Patterson tells me he knows how it feels to repeatedly get stonewalled by such an uncaring bureaucracy.
“They have utterly no sympathy for the residents who live near the entrance to that park,” Patterson said. “I’m a sitting member of the California Legislature and I get treated like I’m part of the nuisance.”
For years, Patterson has asked state parks to at least staff the South Finegold Picnic Area full-time. (That hasn’t happened despite an onsite area with full hookups and residents willing to provide a trailer.) What they’ve gotten is more parking enforcement — the department spokesman says 393 citations have been issued inside the gate and 49 on Sky Harbour Road since June 2020 — and improved maintenance of the picnic area and restrooms.
Residents contend it isn’t enough — and won’t solve the problems in their neighborhood that rise up once the sun goes down. The best solution to those, many say, is to install a tollbooth or automated gate on Sky Harbour Road near the Table Mountain Rancheria and restrict off-hours access to residents. Other suggestions that could make a dent include the installation of street lights and security cameras at notorious turnouts and more frequent sobriety checkpoints.
While converting a public road into a private right of way isn’t unprecedented, Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig said he does not consider closing Sky Harbour even part of the day “a viable alternative.”
“I’m not aware of any public roads out there that are only open to the public at certain hours,” Magsig said. “Parks, yes. But roads are different.”
Magsig believes most of the neighborhood’s problems are caused by a few scofflaws.
“I just wish people would respect the rules a little bit,” he said. “There’s a lot of frustrated residents, and at the root of all this is people not being responsible or respectful.”
Fresno sheriff supports citizen patrol
Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims is aware of the situation and wishes she could do more. However, the “geography of policing responsibilities” (as she put it) makes that difficult. The deputy assigned to Sky Harbour Road patrols a sprawling area that extends from Millerton Lake east to the top of the Highway 168 “four lane” and all the way south past Watts Valley.
“When you’ve got an area that’s really remote like that, six miles in and six miles out, when he or she gets a call from somewhere else on their beat it’s going to take a while to provide service to their other areas of responsibility,” Mims said.
When I informed Mims of residents forming a private patrol over Fourth of July weekend, I thought she’d be concerned due to the inherent risk.
Instead, Mims voiced her approval — and offered up training, radios and official placards for their vehicles.
“I’m very supportive of citizens’ patrols,” she said. “There’s a way to do it and do it safely in partnership with us. I think it’s a great idea.”
Sky Harbour Road residents are already taking online sign ups on for their private patrol while awaiting to hear back from Mims on her offer.
“I wish we didn’t have to take this upon ourselves, but we’re suffering up here,” said Irving, the Facebook page administrator.
