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Politics & Government

No Toxic Air to Protest Lehigh Saturday; Judge Sets Limits

Dispute over whether road into Lehigh is public or private plays out in courts.

The citizen watchdog group No Toxic Air is marching in protest on Lehigh Southwest Cement outside Cupertino Saturday morning, although plans to venture inside company gates were sidelined by a judge’s order Thursday morning.

Why the group would want to cross over into private property for a protest puts a legal dispute between No Toxic Air and Lehigh at center stage, with focus on a county road built in 1893 that was seemingly taken over by past quarry owners in 1935, although no can seem to remember exactly when, why or how.

No Toxic Air contends that the road leading into Lehigh’s Permanante facility at 24001 Stevens Creek Blvd. is a public road, and is contesting a that declared the road private.

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The group against both the Supervisors and Lehigh last month, asking a judge to throw out the vote on the basis that they used improper information in their deliberations.

If the road were to be declared public, it could mean Lehigh would have to apply for new conditional use permits for mining conducted within 1,000 feet of a public thoroughfare.

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“Because it’s a public road the public has the right to use it,” said Barry Chang on Thursday while awaiting a judge’s decision about the march. Chang is a founder of No Toxic Air and a Cupertino City Council member.

At the request of an attorney for Lehigh, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Peter H. Kirwan issued an order against the group from marching past the gates. He agreed to set a future hearing on the issue of whether or not the road is public.

Chang said the group would move ahead with its protest on Saturday, staying just outside of the gates. Members are meeting at 9:30 a.m. at the corner of Stevens Creek Boulevard and California Oak Way. Chang is encouraging people to bring signs demanding better pollution control, a public road into the site, among other No Toxic Air issues.

Lost to memories and public records is how what was once known as Permanente Road became private sometime in 1935. Quarry owners around that time erected a gate across the road that led to the site. According to current county planners, there is no known formal declaration making the road private in county records.

At a public hearing at the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Feb. 8 at which Lehigh was granted vested rights to mine on large portions of its property, one of the decisions was to declare the road private, despite strong objections from opponents.

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