Feinstein to seek funds

Seeing for herself the devastation wrought by the June 1 landslide

gave Sen. Dianne Feinstein a new perspective on the monumental task

the city faces.

Feinstein visited the site Tuesday. Already in support of an

appeal of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s denial of

financial assistance to the city, Feinstein promised to look into

additional sources of funding.

“I am ready to get an amount in some appropriations bill,” said

Feinstein, a member of the Senate’s powerful Appropriations

Committee. “It breaks my heart to see this. If I had not been here

and seen this, I wouldn’t have gone into this other track [seeking

new sources of funding].”

Feinstein also said the federal Department Of Transportation might

be tapped for certain matters, such as repairs to Flamingo Road.

“If the city goes ahead with its sales-tax increase, this could be

a federal, state and local partnership,” Feinstein said.

“Try to get $5 million from the state,” she urged City Manager Ken

Frank, “and I will try to get the rest.”

A special election is scheduled for Dec. 13 to ask voters to

increase the sales tax by half a cent, which would raise $6 million

to fund projects delayed or shelved due to the costs of repairs to

infrastructure damaged by the slide and establish a disaster fund.

The special tax will expire in six years, and no funds from the

increase will be used to rebuild homes.

Feinstein was the first national political figure to visit the

site since then-Rep. Christopher Cox came to Laguna in June.

“I am so glad you came,” Jill Lockhart, 35, whose home was

destroyed in the slide, told the senator. “The governor never came. I

voted for him and my husband voted for him, but he proved everyone

who didn’t vote for him [to be] right.”

Lockhart told Feinstein that she escaped from her sliding home

with her two sons, Trey, 4, and Tyson, 2, by scurrying down the hill

that was crashing around her. The Lockharts have been living in a

donated El Morro mobile home.

“We are so lucky to live in such a great town,” Lockhart said. “I

don’t know of any other city that would come together like Laguna.”

Feinstein said the slide placed an inordinate burden on a small

community like Laguna.

“The question is, how can we do what needs to be done?” Feinstein

said.

Both Feinstein and Cox wrote letters in June recommending that the

slide be included in FEMA declarations of disasters because of the

unusually heavy winter storms.

The application was denied without explanation.

Feinstein, who also visited Laguna the morning after fire swept

the town in 1993, said she found FEMA’s decision unfathomable.

“I am perplexed why FEMA has declined to provide public and

individual assistance to Laguna Beach that it so clearly deserves,”

Feinstein wrote in letter dated Oct. 3 to Homeland Security Secretary

Michael Chertoff.

Feinstein said state and city documents presented compelling

information that links the slides to the storms President Bush had

declared disasters. The information included substantiating data from

independent geological firms, the United States Geological Survey,

the California Coastal Commission and the California Geological

Survey.

She said FEMA officials should view the site to better understand

the magnitude of a disaster that no television or news photographs

can convey.

“I will go to bat for you, but I can’t promise anything,”

Feinstein told city officials Tuesday. “I can’t force FEMA to do

anything. I had more influence in another administration than this

one.”

Feinstein’s presence buoyed Lockhart.

“Just the fact that she came showed us we have support,” Lockhart

said.

Mayor Elizabeth PearsonSchneider, who accompanied Feinstein on the

tour of the site, said the senator had been supportive from the

moment she heard about the slide.

“She sent her staff here the day after the landslide and called

and gave me her home phone number,” Pearson-Schneider said.

The June 1 landslide affected about seven acres of Bluebird

Canyon. In addition to damaging or destroying more than 20 homes, the

slide caused about 500 feet of Flamingo Road to shift about 70 feet

south of the original alignment. Sewer, water, gas, electricity and

telephone services were disrupted, and residents of 345 homes in

Bluebird Canyon were forced to evacuate.

City officials anticipate spending between $15 million and $18

million to stabilize the hill and drainage in the short run. In the

long run, they hope to restore the infrastructure and the water

course that drains the canyon, now buried by 50 or 60 feet of

dislodged dirt.

“Whatever funding [Feinstein] can tap into, I want to tap into,”

said Community Recovery Coordinator Bob Burnham. “This is expensive.”

Temporary fixes are underway to protect the area from further

slides this winter. Permanent repairs will be completed next year.