Laguna Beach City Council Picks Poop Over Preservation!

NO LOVE FOR A SHACK, BABY, THAT'S WHERE IT'S AT

So here’s the story: There’s this empty, sealed-up house tucked into a corner of the otherwise empty lot on 4th Avenue and Coast Highway in South Laguna, see. People used to live in it, but not since the Nixon administration. All this time, it’s been empty, and nobody cared about it.

Then one day, someone decided they wanted to tear it down. This, of course, got preservationists’ knickers in a knot. “Save the sad little house we never cared about before!,” they cried. (Well, not in those exact words, but still).

Underneath the house—let's just call it a shack, which is what it is, a beige blob of nothingness—is a crumbling sewer tunnel and pipeline, which has been there practically as long as the shack has, and if the pipe doesn’t get fixed and renovated soon, it very well could burst, sending zillions of gallons of freshly-squeezed human poop out into the ocean. For the South Coast Water District to repair the two-mile-long pipe and tunnel—a project expected to take at least five years—they’ll need to build an access shaft, and they determined that the best, least-disruptive-to-residents-and-traffic point for that shaft is the land where that sad little insignificant shack now stands.

So the shack has to go.

The arguments for and against saving the shack went through the Heritage Committee and the Design Review Board (both of which had voted for preservation) before reaching the City Council Tuesday night, so this was a vote by the council to essentially overturn those decisions and get that tunnel and pipe fixed ASAP.

Mike Dunbar, Water District General Manager, stepped up to the plate and knocked one out of the park.

“The sewer pipeline and tunnel were built in 1954,” Dunbar said. “Over 1 million gallons of raw wastewater every day go through there. If the pipeline were to break, it would take 18 to 36 hours to replace it due to inadequate access. Right outside it is a federally protected marine wildlife zone, would be a catastrophic disaster.”

True that—one Aliso Creek is enough, thanks.

“So we need the entire site,” Dunbar continued. “If we don’t, we’ll have to park cars on the street and store materials longer and have more truck trips. We want the council to allow the Water District to remove all the structures.”

This means the shack, in case you're keeping score.

“This (shack) was constructed by unknown persons, at little expense, has no association with historical people, it’s not architecturally significant,” said Larry Nokes, essentially making the claim that the preservationists’ salvage efforts have cost the city money by having to hire historians and experts and assorted mucky-mucks to assess the shack’s alleged value.

Next up to bat were the preservationists … who whiffed. Also, we love baseball analogies.

Ann Christoph, a former city council member, argued that since the project will take at least five years to complete, wouldn’t it be nifty for the construction crews to have a nice place to take their lunch breaks in and use a real restroom instead of porta-potties?

For real, Ann? The workers will be up to their fannies in feces every day as it is, so we doubt a porta-pottie will scare them. Sweaty, poop-caked construction workers could care less about having plush digs in which to do their business—digs that would still have to be renovated, mind you, which would cost money no one wants to spend.

Carl Iverson, who’s on the Heritage Committee, also had an opposing POV.

“(The shack) contributes to the fabric of that neighborhood,” said Iverson. “It’s part of South Laguna. I’m concerned about these disappearing.”

You know, we were concerned a couple months back when the Coast Highway KFC disappeared, but you don’t see us taking it up with the council.

The voting outcome at this point was inevitable. The only thing that could save the shack, it seemed, was if a Kardashian were to come and spray-paint her name on the building so some preservationist wonk could then dub it “historic.” Which wasn’t gonna happen.

After the public commenting, councilmember Jane Egly’s claws came out.

“I can’t believe we are even here,” an exasperated Egly spouted. “A million gallons of sewage a day! We need to just go forward on this project as quickly as we can. We have a shack that has been there 30 to 40 years vacant, and nobody cared about it. I think the Heritage Committee was wrong and the Design Review Board was wrong. I don’t see any redeeming social value in that little cottage, that little shack, and no one else has in 30 to 40 years. Have I been clear?”

Rowr! But how do you really feel, Jane?

“I agree with Jane,” said a much calmer Mayor Toni Iseman, who envisioned a community garden on the site after the repair work is done.

Councilmember Verna Rollinger, however, was left sad-faced.

“I’m extremely disappointed,” said Rollinger. “There isn’t anyone sitting up here who doesn’t care deeply about what happens to the ocean or the neighborhoods. I appreciate the fact that the Heritage Committee and the Design Review Board would  go the extra mile to preserve this one little cottage, because it is important, and when this project is over and the cottage is gone,  it could have been something very special, and it could’ve been used to the betterment of this project,  and in Laguna Beach, we can do both. I’m really sorry we’re not choosing to do both.”

The vote was 4-1 to bring on the bulldozers and get the pipeline project rolling. So let's all chant ... The people! Want protection! From problematic poop!

EUCALYPTUS APOCALYPSE!

The council voted 4-1 (Verna Rollinger dissented) to snuff out five eucalyptus trees in Bluebird Canyon. Seems the offending fauna are too close to some SoCal Edison power lines, which is, of course, a fire hazard. This being Laguna Beach, a few would-be Loraxes spoke out for the trees, pleading that they shouldn’t be removed because they’re home to myriad wildlife and birds of prey. One speaker said that a better solution would be to put the utility lines underground—a nice idea, but a bit too simplistic, not to mention pricey. By the time that bit ‘o wishful thinking would ever see the light, the trees would be dead of old age. Unless they decide to go on a murderous rampage like those Newport Beach eucs did.

ADDENDUM!

• Bruce the Gadfly talked about the need for more affordable dining choices in Laguna Beach—hear, hear!—though we don’t think that some of the suggestions he received in return, like the fine-dining joints that offer $10 lunch specials for the great unwashed, was exactly what ‘ol Bruce had in mind. We’re thinking more fast-casual places like Wahoos, por favor. Bruce also suggested the city sponsor a sand castle contest like other beach burgs do, to which we say … why not? Except they’re called sand sculpture contests these days …
• Mayor Iseman had the idea to move future Tastes of Laguna to the spring, so the Chamber of Commerce can stage an Oktoberfest. Fine—but how about also moving the Taste someplace else, since its current parking garage locale doesn’t exactly scream delicious haute cuisine?
• To the complete shock of absolutely no one, Ann Quilter was appointed to the Emergency/Disaster Preparedness Committee. What hasn’t Laguna Beach’s own citizen superhero been appointed to?