Mailbag: Saving estuary means no skate park there
The Aliso Estuary, a crucial and rare coastal wetland, is set to be restored through a $300,000 grant awarded to the Laguna Ocean Foundation by the California Coastal Conservancy.
California’s coastal estuaries are central as nurseries for our ocean fisheries. Healthy wetlands filter toxic herbicides, pesticides, excess fertilizers and other contaminates before they can pollute recreational beaches and essential fish habitats, like local tide pools and kelp forests.
Pond turtles and migrating birds rely upon wetlands for food and shelter. Native wetlands are a transition from land to sea and enhance the overall beauty of Laguna’s shoreline.
Recently, the South Laguna Civic Assn. contributed $1,000 to help with start-up costs for the Aliso Estuary Restoration Feasibility Study by the ocean foundation. Other groups and individuals, as well as the city, should add funds and energy to this landmark initiative.
Urban planners rely on criteria for “highest and best use” when evaluating development plans. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service long ago designated the Aliso estuary — the only site in Orange County — for tidewater goby restoration.
The tidewater goby is a key indicator of a healthy watershed and coastal waters. Southern steelhead trout require the estuary for growth and smoltification, a transition process from a freshwater habitat for juvenile fish to life in seawater. Now is the time to make this vision a reality.
Although the highest and best use for this neglected lagoon is full restoration, consider the demographics of client groups competing for the location. Some local interests are promoting degrading this coastal wetland site by paving it for a skateboard park. It would be better to locate this activity where the real concentration of skateboarders in Laguna Beach are actually located.
Poor planning and fragmented governance only encourages unrealistic projects and community discord. City leaders must be wise enough to weigh long-term benefits like a fully restored Aliso estuary against the limited interests of frustrated single-interest groups and the Recreation Committee.
Diverting problems like a skateboard park to South Laguna undermines a tremendous regional effort spanning many decades to restore our rare, essential wetlands.
Let’s stand up and speak up now to bring the lagoon back to Laguna.
Mike Beanan
Laguna Beach
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Charm House Tour shows beauty of canyon
“What, me docent?” That was my thought a few years ago when I responded to “gentle persuasion” and agreed to serve as a docent for the Laguna Beach Charm House Tour. And I have to admit that I was surprised to discover that people — Lagunans and out-of-towners alike — would pay good money to “voy” at other people’s homes, albeit for an extremely good cause.
After my first experience as a docent, at “Xanadu,” a 1920s cottage in Bluebird Canyon, I “got it.” The Charm House Tour showcases the best of Laguna, not real estate but real lives.
This year’s tour, featuring the Canyon Acres neighborhood, was particularly poignant because of the devastation wrought by the ’93 fire and the “can-do” spirit of the residents in rebuilding out of the ashes. The lovely gardens, the art, artifacts and memorabilia make these homes so characteristically Laguna Beach.
In the house where I was posted, aptly nicknamed Stairway to Heaven for its outdoor stepped garden and indoor spiral staircase, homeowner Stephanie Nelson was on hand throughout the afternoon to welcome visitors, answer questions — we docents have a limited fund of information, after all — and share reminiscences.
“Every picture tells a story,” as they say. A black-and-white photo taken in 1975 by Laguna artist and photographer Doug Miller shows Stephanie and husband Mike twirling to bluegrass music at a festival in Idyllwild. The couple had just met, and the photographer just happened to be there. The original photo hung in the Nelsons’ home but was destroyed in the fire. By luck, the photographer had the negative, and the photo now hangs in their rebuilt home.
It was a privilege to be invited into the homes in this unique, colorful and oh-so-Laguna neighborhood — a village-within-a-village in our community. The residents of Canyon Acres were willing to allow strangers to troop through their homes because they care deeply about their neighborhood and way of life.
Having known loss, they are mindful of the preciousness and fragility of what they have, and they are determined to preserve it not only from natural depredations but those of human making. Let’s work together to save the canyon.
Priscilla Lloyd
Laguna Beach
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Live-streaming school board meetings isn’t political
I’ve never seen Laguna Beach school board member William Landsiedel as passionate about any issue as he was in his failed bid to stop the board’s approval May 12 of a live stream of our school board meetings. The great thing about Landsiedel is that he always reveals his true colors.
He claims that empowering parents who can’t make meetings to watch their school board from home is political. But it is his opposition to increased accountability going into an election year that is politically self-serving.
Similarly, he claims public access to video archives will promote grandstanding for the cameras, but it was Landsiedel who engaged in grandstanding by claiming his opposition to increased transparency is about limiting spending to classroom needs.
His voting record includes hundreds of thousands of dollars on questionable one-year non-classroom costs, while the one-time cost of a basic video system like our City Council uses is spread out over decades.
Landsiedel argued there was no community support for video streaming meetings online for the public, but candidates who made live meeting podcasts and video archives top issues in their campaigns garnered more than 6,000 votes in 2014. No wonder Landsiedel is worried about increased scrutiny as he decides whether to seek re-election.
Landsiedel voted to create a top-heavy central school district staff in 2013, including inflationary salary increases to hire several senior district administrators who were let go. It was a few parents who attended the meeting who blew the whistle and stopped waste and abuse in that case.
Landsiedel went along because no one was watching. He wasted more with one vote for non-teaching staff who had to be dismissed, and who would never see the inside of a classroom, than the cost of a simple video system.
The cost in public relations consultants, bad hires, reversal of actions after public outcry, is far greater than the cost of a new communications system to reach the community. We can afford it and it is the right thing to do for a community that cares about its schools.
Who does Landsiedel think he is fooling?
Howard Hills
Laguna Beach