San Diego County Is a Washout in National Survey of Best Beaches

Bad news for local beaches, image-wise.

A coastal researcher at the University of Maryland has just released his list of the nation’s top 10 beaches.

San Diego County beaches got skunked.

The list is all Hawaii and Florida. From No. 1 (Kapalua Beach on Maui) to No. 10 (Baggs Cape, Fla.).

Local reaction is split.

“Sounds like he had a very limited travel budget for research,” sniffed Al Reese of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We’ll survive.

“We survived Rand-McNally and other attempts to rate Southern California below other places. A lot of it is simple jealousy.”

On the other hand, Kensington adman Gary Beals, head of the tongue-in-cheek San Diego Hell on Earth Club, is exultant.

He loves it when San Diego fails to make lists that might make people want to move here. He only wants San Diego on lists that discourage growth, like Highest Real Estate Prices.

Beals thinks the lack of local representation on the beach list may be the result of a rumor he’s spreading about our beaches being littered with tar balls:

“I like to think I’m helping.”

Actually, the explanation for the shutout may lie with the criteria used by researcher Stephen P. Leatherman: soft sand, warm water, mild breeze and scenic vistas.

Factors that would have given our beaches a boost were not considered: good surfing, large number of chain restaurants within walking distance, lots of boom boxes.

If, for example, points were given for Most People Who Look Like Refugees From Fellini’s “Satyricon,” then South Mission Beach would have made the list. For sure.

The same for Oceanside if Most Men With Tattoos had been important. Or Imperial Beach if Most Women With Tattoos had mattered.

Or Del Mar if lawsuits per square yard of sand had been counted.

See, you’ve got to know how these rating things are put together before you take them too seriously.

A Word Too Hot to Handle

Take your pick.

* Science vs. public relations.

People who think power lines emit something that can cause cancer refer to “electromagnetic radiation .” That’s a proper scientific name.

San Diego Gas & Electric, which might be forced to pay out millions of dollars in health claims if the cancer link is proven, refers to an “electronic magnetic field .”

That’s considered less menacing, less damaging to the corporate image.

* A chance to see the criminal justice system from a different angle?

Victor Henry Salgado, 53, of Escondido, who served on the county grand jury in 1977-78, is now charged with robbing three golf shops at gunpoint.

* Keynoter at the U.S. Conference of Mayors convention June 14-19 in San Diego: Democratic presidential hopeful Paul Tsongas.

* Property madness.

The Tijuana government has 150 employees assigned to what some say is a hopeless task: untangling and updating property records in that chaotic city.

Yet there’s method to it: Tijuana is increasing its property tax rate for the first time in three decades and needs every peso it can get.

Slow to Forget

Remember when felony charges were dismissed on a technicality against Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) for forging Ronald Reagan’s name to campaign hit pieces?

State Sen. William Craven of Oceanside reacted angrily to his fellow Republican’s dirty tricks: “An absolute gross violation.”

He sponsored a successful bill to make sure no one else gets away with what Lewis did.

Now, Lewis has been elected to the state Senate. And just gotten an office next door to Craven.

He’ll find Craven may have forgiven but he has not forgotten.

Prominently displayed in Craven’s office: a biting editorial cartoon of a pudgy Lewis sitting behind his desk writing himself a letter: “Dear John, I want to personally congratulate you for not being convicted . . . “

Lewis is signing the letter with Ronald Reagan’s signature.