FEMA provides 1 piece of puzzle

Federal agency reverses decision, offers funds to help pay for costs of June landslide; sales tax hike still needed, city says.It pays to know the right people.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein announced Monday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would provide financial assistance to Laguna Beach to help repair damage wrought by a landslide in June. The decision reversed an earlier FEMA ruling that the disaster was not eligible for funding.

“This is terrific news,” Feinstein said. “I was delighted to learn of FEMA’s decision.”

City officials were relieved by the news and grateful to Feinstein’s intervention on Laguna’s behalf.

Officials said the federal funding will not eliminate the need for a proposed half-cent sales tax increase, Measure A, which voters will be asked to decide on Dec. 13.

“FEMA’s decision takes some of the pressure off, but we are not out of the woods,” Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider said. “We have to pass Measure A to cover our costs and to develop the emergency disaster contingency fund to protect our town against future calamities.”

Feinstein came to Laguna in October at the invitation of Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider and the City Council. She left committed to helping the city raise funds to repair Bluebird Canyon.

“I want to thank Dianne Feinstein for responding to my desperate phone call for help and for visiting the site so she could see first-hand what the issue was,” Pearson-Schneider said. “I would also like to express my appreciations to her staff for working so hard behind the scenes.”

Federal and state assistance is expected to pay for about one-third of the total cost of repairs to the city infrastructure.

“I think we will get three to five million,” City Manager Ken Frank said. “That will pay for almost all of the initial emergency response, such as overtime pay for police officers and firefighters and, on the other end, for the paving of Flamingo Road. It will not cover stabilization to prevent the hill from falling down.”

Frank has estimated the total costs of the damage to public facilities at $15 million, not including the severely damaged or destroyed homes, which are not covered by the FEMA money.

The city has allocated about $7 million for emergency projects to prevent flooding and future land movement in Bluebird Canyon and will spend up to another $8 million to permanently restore Flamingo Road and other public facilities, Frank said.

The governor’s Office of Emergency Services applied for the federal assistance soon after the landslide, based on judgments by the U.S. Geological Survey, the California Coastal Commission, the California Geological Survey and two reputable private geotechnical firms that the slide was caused by accumulated rain from record winter storms, which had already been declared federal disasters. Inclusion in the disaster declarations would have made the landslide eligible for FEMA funds.

The initial application was denied. State officials appealed the denial in September, stressing geotechnical findings that placed the slippage about 100 feet below the surface.

“I would like to commend the city of Laguna Beach and California’s Office of Emergency Services for its hard work to present persuasive and comprehensive evidence,” Feinstein said.

The state was notified Nov. 10 that the appeal was approved and that the Bluebird Canyon landslide and slope failure could be attributed to the cumulative rains of February 2005.

“I wasn’t particularly surprised by the decision, because I felt we had a just cause,” Frank said. “Nevertheless, I am relieved.”

The announcement came just about a month after Feinstein visited the disaster site on Oct. 11. She was the first major political figure to personally examine the damage since then-Rep. Christopher Cox came to Laguna in June.

Even before she came to town, Feinstein wrote letters urging FEMA to extend its winter storm disaster to include the landslide. The first letter was written with Cox on June 20, less than three weeks after the slide. The second letter was written Oct. 3 to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, supporting the city and state appeal of the FEMA rejection.

Feinstein, a San Franciscan who is no stranger to disasters -- she visited Laguna the morning after the fire swept the town in 1993 -- said during her recent visit that she found FEMA’s initial decision unfathomable.

Making repairs, she said, should be a federal, state and local partnership.

With FEMA’s change of heart, the city’s share is now estimated at about $10 million.

A special election is scheduled for Dec. 13 to ask Laguna voters to increase the sales tax by one-half cent, which would raise $6 million to fund programs and projects that will be delayed or shelved due to the costs of the mandated repairs to the city infrastructure damaged by the slide and establish a disaster fund for future needs. The special tax will expire in six years, and no funds from the increase will be used to rebuild homes.

The June 1 landslide affected about seven acres of Bluebird Canyon. In addition to more than 20 damaged or destroyed homes, about 500 feet of Flamingo Road slid approximately 70 feet south of the original alignment. Sewer, water, gas, electricity and telephone services were damaged or disrupted, and residents of 345 homes in Bluebird Canyon were forced to evacuate.