A Laguna Canyon icon dies

Barbara Diamond

Lida Lenney, a leader in the battle to save Laguna Canyon from

development, died Saturday at her Laguna Beach home. She was 71.

“She was the icon of our canyon,” said Eleanor Henry, who

participated in the “Walk” led by Lenney to publicize the people’s

determination to save the canyon from the construction of thousands

of homes.

The Walk was held Nov. 11, 1989. The 15th anniversary is coming

up.

“My thoughts of Lida go back to her vision and her perseverance,”

Laguna Canyon Foundation Executive Director Mary Fegraus said. “They

don’t always go hand in hand.”

But they were qualities that Lenney had in abundance and she

focused them on open space acquisition and preservation beyond James

Dilley’s wildest dreams.

She dreamed it, and made it happen, but she never took the credit,

according to staunch canyon preservation ally Michael Phillips.

“That always went to ‘the people,’” he said.

The Walk was just one step on the road to success in Lenney’s

canyon crusade.

She founded the Laguna Canyon Conservancy in 1988, while serving

her first term on the City Council.

“Lida invited anyone who was interested in preserving the canyon

to come to a meeting at City Hall -- and to everyone’s surprise the

place was packed,” conservancy President Carolyn Wood said.

Lenney also led a group of picketers to the home of Donald Bren,

whose company owned thousands of acres in the open space around

Laguna and the city of Irvine and had entitlements to build on them.

“What I admired about Lida was that she believed her vision was a

possibility,” retiring City Clerk Verna Rollinger said.

“When we picketed Don Bren’s house, she was the only one in the

crowd that believed that he would turn around. The rest of us all

went with her because she believed so strongly.

“In the end, she was right.”

What the city, Leisure World residents, state and county didn’t

buy, Bren donated as open space in perpetuity.

Lenney’s vision brought the City Council on board in the battle to

preserve the canyon, according to Fegraus.

And the citizens followed, voting -- when bond measures were at

best iffy -- overwhelmingly to tax themselves to pay for the Irvine

Co. acreage, approved for residential and commercial construction.

“None of this would have happened without Lida,” Wood said.

Lenney loved Laguna Coast Wilderness Park, the child born of her

vision and her perseverance. She feared only that other people would

love it too well, forgetting they must treasure the park as well as

enjoy it.

“We must not love it to death,” Lenney often said.

When it came time to name the park, she dug in her heels.

A lot of names were submitted. One was Tres Arroyos -- for the

three canyons included in the city’s purchase.

“There were a lot of canyon names tossed around,” Fegraus said.

“But Lida had to have Laguna’s name in it.”

She persevered and eventually convinced reluctant county

representatives that the name would include Laguna or it would it

might never get named.

Lenney had the confidence in herself that comes from teaching

elementary school students.

She taught at Top of the World and Thurston Middle School. In the

latter part of her career she served the teachers as union

representative before retiring.

During much of her career in education, she was a single parent.

She married the late George Lenney in 1984.

Lenney was elected to the City Council in 1986In mid-term Lenney

ran for Congress on the Democratic ticket against Christopher Cox,

gathering 29.8 percent of the vote.

“She got clobbered, but she ran because she thought it was the

right thing to do,” Phillips said.

Lenney served twice as mayor, the second time from December 1992

to December 1993. The fire in October 1993 was a nadir in her

political career and her life.

She retired from the council in 1994.

Lenney was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2001, but stayed

as active as possible.

Last year, she began collecting memories from people about the

Walk to publish in a history book; In July, she visited Alaska on her

own and drove herself to a “Ladies Who Lunch” get-together Oct. 19th.

Lenney was hospitalized Oct. 27, diagnosed with an acute form of

leukemia. The prognosis was terminal, but without a specific date, a

family member said.

“I am glad for her sake it was a fast slope, rather than a slow

one,” Rollinger said.

Lenney had eaten a dinner that night of steak and champagne that

she had requested. She died the next day, in the company of her

family.

A resident of Laguna since 1971, Lenney was born in New Jersey

March 20, 1933. She was educated at Trenton State Teachers College

and earned her master’s degree in social ecology at UC Irvine, taking

a sabbatical from the Laguna Beach Unified School District.

Lenney is survived by daughter Lisa McEvoy and son, Chris

Campbell; son-in-law, Peter McEvoy and daughter-in-law Sonia

Campbell; grandsons, Skylar, Nohlan, Liam, Ian and Dillon; and her

siblings, Ralph Nichols, Alice Bellante and twins, Kathy Bodle and

Ken Pennacchini.

Services were held Wednesday at Pacific View Mortuary in Corona

del Mar.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Lenney’s memory to

any environmental organization of the donor’s choice.

“We need to have some recognizable piece of the canyon named for

her,” Councilwoman Toni Iseman. “Laguna needs never to forget her.

She followed her heart and made so many things that looked impossible

happen.”