On March 7, community members gathered at the trailhead of the long-awaited Ventura Hills Nature Preserve to celebrate the grand opening of the 1,645 acres of protected coastal hillsides, managed by the Ventura Land Trust.
The very next day, Ventura Land Trust executive director Melissa Baffa told SFGATE by phone Wednesday, the organization found out that two oil companies were suing it over public access to the preserve’s new trail system.
At issue are the easement rights to Hall Canyon Road, which cuts north-south through the hillsides from a residential neighborhood northeast of downtown Ventura to the vast Ventura Avenue Oil Field that runs along the northern edge of the preserve…