Taking on ACT V

Barbara Diamond

City officials hauled out the big guns Tuesday to drum up support for

the relocation of the maintenance yard, but some of them misfired.

The City Council voted unanimously to send a delegation to

represent the city at a California Coastal Commission appeal hearing

July 15 of the project, on which the council is split 3 to 2 with a

majority favoring it. The council also voted to spend up to $25,000

for a facilitator to work with the commission if the project is not

approved at the hearing, but a proposal to give city employees a paid

day off to go to the hearing was shot down.

A public tour of the maintenance yard hosted by Mayor Cheryl

Kinsman and Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson before the council meeting

also backfired. Most of the 45 people who attended clearly opposed

the relocation and took dead aim at the presentation made by

Assistant City Manager John Pietig, stoic under fire from critics of

the project.

Project allies mostly just listened.

“He made an excellent presentation,” said Martha Lydick, president

of the Laguna Beach Taxpayers Assn., which supports the relocation.

The proposal to pay employees to attend the hearing never got to a

vote.

“It gives the appearance of coercion,” said Councilman Steve

Dicterow, who favors the relocation.

Pearson, also an advocate for the relocation, said if the city

didn’t pay for employees to go to the hearing she would find donors

to pay for them.

“It’s a way to show the staff what the city has tried to do to

rectify their deplorable conditions,” City Manager Ken Frank said.

Folks in the audience said if they went on their own time and

their own dime, the employees could do the same.

Kinsman, Pearson, Frank and Pietig will represent the council

majority at the commission hearing. The commission staff has

recommended denial of the appeal, with conditions.

“All of the conditions are reasonable and acceptable,” Pietig

said.

Councilman Wayne Baglin will speak at the hearing for the council

minority, which includes Councilwoman Toni Iseman, who sits on the

commission and appealed the project.

Official estimates put the cost of relocating the yard at $5

million. Iseman estimates it will be closer to $10 million.

Half of the funds for relocation will come from the sale of city

property on Olive Street used as the city nursery and equipment

storage, $900,000 from the Orange County Transportation Authority and

the rest from the city’s Capital Improvement Fund and general purpose

revenues, according to a city handout.

“I can’t think of a better project to spend money on than this,”

Chamber of Commerce President Ken Delino said. “On behalf of our 530

members and 280 businesses, I say go ahead. Spend the money.”

Delino supports more parking in the Downtown area to attract

tourists who will spend money here, but Village Laguna President

Ginger Osborne said moving the corporation yard is not the best way

to achieve the goal.

“It is better to have peripheral parking and keep the cars out of

Downtown,” Osborne said. “Personally, I don’t think the [Coastal]

Commission understood how much visitor parking we will lose.”

The figures vary. By city calculations, 400 vehicles can be packed

into ACT V, but that is not a permitted use. If the 400 vehicles were

permitted and the lot was filled to capacity for the 65-day festival

season, 26,000 parking spaces would be used. Parking 190 vehicles at

ACT V during festival season and 190 vehicles near Downtown every day

of the year would generate 81,700 spaces.

Iseman disagrees with what she called “Ken Frank math.”

“We will have a net loss of parking,” she said. “And once we spend

the money [on relocation], where will we get the money to build the

parking garage the Village Entrance deserves. Shame on us.”

The relocation site is at the heart of the opposition. One of the

reasons Iseman first ran for council was her opposition to the yard’s

move to ACT V.

Decades ago, residents were promised that no other development

would take place on city property on the ocean side of Laguna Canyon

Road if they did not fight the construction of an art school (now the

Laguna College of Art and Design).

The ACT V parcel in unincorporated county territory was previously

owned by the Irvine Co., which had approval for development. Many

environmentalists celebrated when the city purchased the parcel,

believing the threat was moot.

Adherents of the project are equally passionate.

A task force created by the council came to the conclusion that

the only way to make room for a Village Entrance that did the city

proud would be to move the maintenance yard out of the way. Five

alternate sites were studied and rejected. Plans were drawn, money

was spent, work was begun -- and then stopped when the council

abruptly changed direction. A county coastal-development permit was

allowed to lapse, and no steps were taken to annex the area into

Laguna.

Kinsman never gave up hope of reviving the project. The election

of Pearson in 2002 provided the third vote needed to proceed and the

project was resubmitted to the county, which approved it in December.

Iseman appealed it to the California Coastal Commission in January.

If the commission denies the appeal, the maintenance yard will be

vacated and slurry-sealed for parking until funding for the Village

Entrance is available, which could be 10 years down the road.

Pearson said a park and parking on the site might be doable

sooner.

“I am concerned that this issue will divide the town,” said

Kinsman, who participated with Pearson on the Village Entrance Task

Force when both were members of the Planning Commission. “Why are we

fighting? This is paradise, except for our poor employees in the

corporation yard.”

Her view is that the corporation yard is the issue. Project foes

believe ACT V is the issue.

The issue Tuesday was how to present the city’s case to the

Coastal Commission, a goal apparently lost in the rhetoric.

“This [agenda item] is not dealing with the relocation,” Dicterow

said. “That has been decided. We are dealing with how to deal with

the Coastal Commission.”

The hearing will be held at the Westin Hotel in Costa Mesa at an

undetermined time as of press time. The meeting is scheduled to start

at 9 a.m. with a lunch break. The appeal is 19th on the agenda.

If the commission accepts the recommendation of its staff and

denies the appeal, city staff will attempt to finalize plans and meet

commission conditions so a construction bid can be awarded in

October. Construction would begin in January.

* BARBARA DIAMOND is a reporter for the Laguna Beach Coastline

Pilot. She may be reached at (949) 494-4321.