Free Mesa Vernell Lundberg!  

Prisoner of oil and money

Urgent plea for help:  Mesa is 83, of sound mind and not too bad off physically for her age.  But she is being held against her will in a nursing home in Santa Barbara and suffers neglect and violations of her rights. 

She wants to live in her own house again, and has repeatedly made this clear to a trial judge who has no compassion or sensible rationale for his decisions.  Her son Jan has launched an appeal whose oral arguments were heard May 12, 2004 in Ventura at the California State Court of Appeal.  

At that trial he did not knowónor did his opposing counsel disclose to the courtóthat Mesa's house had been sold days before.  However, there is hope such tactics to prevent her return to her home in Arcata can be thwarted.  We shall soon know how justice works.  Meanwhile, to keep up the fight, we ask for your support.  First, some background on this elder abuse/medical fraud case:

One of Mesa's problems is that she owned the "bible of the oil industry."  The price has been elder abuse.  For example, she is needlessly in a hospice although she is not terminal, and she's being deprived of rehabilitative care.  (She suffered strokes years ago, and has recovered, but not enough to escape hostile conservatorship as yet.)  She has been fleeced as a legal captive, so profitably that her freedom is denied, and she is now far from rich.  She only has her house left, which her opportunistic handlers intend to sell so they can line their pockets further.  Whereas she had been targeted for oil money, she now is also targeted by oil money:

Mesa Lundberg, right, June 27 2003, barred from freedom

Best known for being married to Dan Lundberg, the late "oil guru," Mesa was an attorney who was an organic gardener in the 1950s and sailed her family to Greece from Los Angeles.  When Dan retired, the family business, Lundberg Survey, was being run by their son Jan.  But after Dan died in 1986, Jan moved on to the east coast and his sister Trilby Lundberg took over.  Then Trilby took all Mesa's stock in the family business worth tens of millions of dollars, for 1/200th the market value, and became chairperson.

In 1995 Trilbyó to avoid "unlawful detainer" action that Mesa was forced to file against her daughteróforced Mesa into conservatorship using perjury.  Mesa has thus lost almost everything she had to lawyers, conservators and wasteful care.  She just wants to live in peace, but is a prisoner in what state investigators are looking into for medical and financial fraud and violation of rights.  For example, the Santa Barbara nursing home is a hospice, but Mesa is not terminally ill.  The care costs over $6,000 a month.  She has been hospitalized due to negligence more than once, but bounces back.

Ifó no, WHEN Mesa again lives in her own home (long since bought and paid for) here in Arcata, Humboldt County, she would save money and again have family care.  She had been wrongly taken from her Arcata home in 2000, helpless at the time, in a previous action that has been investigated.  The County of Humboldt in its Court Investigator's report last summer said Mesa should return immediately to her home to live.

However, a judge ordered her to keep residing against her will in the present institution and have her home sold to pay for the exorbitant fees.  (The Humboldt Court Investigator's reaction was "Money talks.")  These orders are under appeal.  But Mesa Lundberg needs more legal help which is not gratis.  Three thousand dollars are urgently needed.  A loan to her son Jan Lundberg or a donation to Sustainable Energy Institute (tax-deductible) would help keep Mesa's hopes alive.  

Mesa's wishes are  to leave "$anta Barbara," which she states for the record she does not like.  She wants to enjoy her own organic garden again, but her wishes are ignored and disrespected; Trilby testified last summer that her mother was too "demented" to decide her residence.  

A main resource for Mesa and her team is a Legal Nurse Consultant/RN, named Barbara Shults who is an animal rights activist in Humboldt.  Barbara lived in Mesa's  home as designated care manager, and has identified several missteps by Mesa's handlers.  Barbara testified on home-care's advantages for longevity.  Without Barbara and her support, Mesa's chances for justice would be considerably less.

In April 2003 Mesa objected to her own money being used to fight the appeal, and in her declaration she stated clearly that she wants the appeal to win so she can live in her own home.  However, she was once again not allowed to speak in court, and lost again.  When her house was again ordered sold in April 2004, the petition granted by the judge was "Notwithstanding Appeal."  Does this  make you wonder what our justice system is supposed to be about when an appeal can be circumvented?  The Court of Appeal is about to decide.  No matter which way it goes, Mesa must not be forgotten, left there to die pennilessóthe house sale's proceeds would last about two years due to the expensive fees being charged for her "care."

If Mesa's wishes come true, she can once again host this office at  her roomy house and again help edit Sustainable Energy Institute papers.  She will live longer and freely visit family members and her friends who are in Humboldt.  She is currently denied free access, even worse than what the judge was misled to approve, and so her lawyer in Santa Barbara had to go to court over seeing his client freely.  He could not do the appeal because he said his firm cannot afford the judge's ruling to limit attorney fees to 80%.  His partner at Allen & Kimbell reported that Mesa will live long and become destitute under her present situation.

To help Mesa, and to help us publicize this situation so that this form of elder abuse does not happen so easily to others, please email her son Jan Lundberg or call him at 1-215-243-3144.  To make a secure-online donation by credit card, please click here.  Sufficient donations will allow Jan to receive enough back-pay in his nonprofit job to let him pay the appellate firm.  To read previous stories on this saga, check out the Culture Change Letter #13.  Thank you for considering this urgent plea.  

The nursing home's client is in effect the Conservator, Mary Lou Parks.  They refused to let Mesa go to a nearby Lundberg family member's home on Thanksgiving for dinner.  The Conservator and doctor like to say how well she is doing, but then say she needs 24 hour nursing.  Whenever visited, Mesa is reasonably well, alert, sitting in front of the TV, lonely and bored... and depressed that she is getting poorer by the minute.  In October of 2001 she said to her handlers that she wanted to go back home and live with her son Jan, so to stifle her she was put on happy pills permanently and his visits were restricted thenceforth when the judge was kept in the dark about opposition to the restrictions.  Even grandchildren who are not on the restricted list have their visits interfered with.  Mesa Lundberg's dignity counts for nothing when there is money involved and influence felt from a major oil lackey.

Mesa Vernell Lundberg, early 2002

Mesa's granddaughter Vernell "Spring" Lundberg is a chip off the old family block, suing law enforcement agencies for the pepper-spray torture of her and other nonviolent teenage girls who engaged in sit-in protests to save ancient redwoods.  The two Vernells have major court cases that can influence human-rights law for generations.  Mesa is very proud of her granddaughter, who has helped manage "The Pepper-Spray Case" with pro-bono lawyers including the legendary Tony Serra.  Mesa has not benefited from as much media coverage as yet, but that could change.  

At Culture Change we are concerned about the deteriorating state of the American family and the effects of materialism on elders, children, and the planet.  Ask yourself, can Mesa's form of elder abuse happen to you or your parent?  Will a family's legacy be secure or fragmented, the name disgraced because of inheritance-manipulation games and legalistic maneuvers?  

Mesa is a soft-spoken lady who would rather suffer at the hands of others than to raise hell and confront directly.  Her energy is limited, but she has many stories to tell all day long of her family farm life as a child, if any relatives visit the nursing home which is not frequent.  Mesa endured petroleum-pesticide poisoning on her world cruise, and had to recover from stroke, so she is somewhat passive in character, to go with a sweet disposition.  She has thus been taken advantage of, as is known to the courts, but her return to her own home has been stymied because of others' personal intervention.  One doubts that oil industry and business-news people easily stomach what has been done to Dan Lundberg's widow.  Mesa said a few weeks ago for a video, "I wish I had not been thought of as having any money."  Let  her go!  

For past stories on Mesa, read about her house and the eviction, and a magazine article on her family.

Letter from a reader of this webpage, Aug. 18, 2003:
Just to let you know that I quit my job to care for my 88 year old mother. I will have to die before I put her in a urine soaked holding pen until she dies. She has non Hodgkins lymphoma and is all but deaf but she is independent and will stay that way until she chooses to give up and lay down. Ms. Lundberg is the only person who has a right to decide where she lives period.

Online national radio show on elder issues is available on your computer if you have speakers or headphones: hear Jan Lundberg speak on Elder Exploitation and his mother's plight.  Coping With Caregiving show from Aug. 23, 2003 is archived (click on link and see that date and select Segment 4).

Culture Change mailing address: P.O. Box 4347 , Arcata , California 95518 USA
  Telephone 1-215-243-3144 (and fax)
Web: http://www.culturechange.org
E-Mail info@culturechange.org

Culture Change was founded by Sustainable Energy Institute (formerly Fossil Fuels Policy Action), a nonprofit organization.