NOTEBOOK -- steve marble

For Frank and Fran Robinson, these are the good old days.

The Newport Beach couple, who fought an upstream battle to preserve the

Upper Newport Bay, are now the darlings of the establishment.

The Robinsons’ long-playing effort to keep the Back Bay out ofthe hands

of developers has now gone mainstream, a cult movement that’s somehow

cracked the Top 40.

Politicians embrace them, movers and shakers speak fondly of their good

work, their names cascade painlessly through stories recounting the good

that has transpired at the ecological preserve.

They are “Millennium Moments” on the pages of the Daily Pilot. They stand

-- in terms of newsprint, at least -- no bigger and no smaller than Don

Bren, George Argyros and Henry Segerstrom -- the royal court of local

development.

And now an exhibit hall at the county’s new interpretive center on a

western bank of the bay will be named in their honor.

It is an ironic bit of good news for the Robinsons, who were dismissed as

over-the-edge tree-huggers in the early days.

“Radical kooks.” That’s how Tom Fuentes, then an aide to county

Supervisor Ronald Caspers, described the Robinsons and their ilk.

“Misguided ... an ill-advised minority.” That from Dick Stevens,

then-president of the Newport Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce.

Robert Badham, then the assemblyman who represented Newport Beach, also

took his shots at the Robinsons and predicted that, “the question is not

whether or not the bay should be developed, but who should develop it.”

Back in the 1960s and ‘70s, long before many of us had even moved to

Orange County, the Back Bay was supposed to have a different kind of

future.

A marina.

The Irvine Co., which was trying to wrestle the muddy bay fromthe state

in a complex land swap deal, had plans to build a water ski basin in the

top reaches of the bay with a marine stadium and a rowing course nearby.

There were to be boat basins, docks, fueling stations and commercial

strips along the banks.

The Robinsons might never have taken on the fight had the development

company not posted a “no trespassing” sign at little-used North Star

beach, a somewhat unremarkable stretch of beach just north of Dover

Shores.

Fran Robinson had trudged down to the beach one morning with her daughter

when she ran into the sign.

“I knew it was public land. I got mad,” she told a reporterback in 1969.

“I had never heard of a public beach being closed to the public.”

They organized a loosely gathered group known as Friends of Newport Bay.

The Robinsons were leaders of the group, though nobody ever recalls a

formal election or anything of that sort. It was a cause and they had

given it a kick-start. Good enough for anyone who belonged.

For years, the highly controversial land swap kicked around in the

courts, Sacramento committee rooms and county offices. Was it legal for

the state to give away public land? Was it even constitutional for a

swampy yet picturesque spread of water to be turned into a moneymaking

marina owned by a private company?

The fight didn’t end quickly. And it didn’t end quietly. Articles from

that time show that it bogged down in moves, countermoves,

recommendations, court rulings and finally abandonment.

The marina plans were eventually scrapped, the land remained inthe hands

of the state and the bay was set aside as an ecological reserve. Birds

use it. So do those who pushed off in kayaks and canoes. And tour groups

crawl along the flanks of the preserve, taking in the raw and gnarled

beauty of the estuary, a hauntingly wild terrain when contrasted with

nearby Fashion Island or -- just below the Coast Highway bridge -- the

bustle of Newport Harbor.

The fight to preserve the bay, the Robinsons might tell you, has never

really been fully won. There was the fight to win control of three tiny

islands back in the ‘80s. There was the effort to have the bay dredged,

lest it turn into a meadow. And there was the fight to keep a neighboring

water district from pumping treated waste water into the bay.

Still, it is fitting after all these years that one of the fewman-made

things along the Upper Bay will bear the name of Frank and Fran Robinson,

just a stone’s throw from the beach where the Irvine Co. begged off this

fight by putting up that “no trespassing” sign.

Fuentes, he of the “environmental kooks” quote and now a leading voice of

the county’s Republican Party, is among those who has come to see the

Robinsons in a different light.

“I have a keen love and affection for Frank and Fran that hasevolved over

the years. They were very courageous in challenging big business,

opposing a huge corporation,” Fuentes now says. “I can’t think of anyone

who has come to know them who would want to do anything less than give

them, well, a big hug.”

I doubt the Newport Beach couple were ever in the market for a”thank

you.” But that’s a pretty good one.

* STEVE MARBLE is the managing editor of Times Community News. He can be

reached at o7 Steve.Marble@latimes.comf7 .