Del Mar Sees Green Over Median Issue

A strip of greenery along the city’s main street mobilized citizens who donated money for its planting to demand that the City Council do something to prevent its death.

In an emotional 90-minute session Monday, council members defended themselves against charges from the citizenry that they had purposely turned off irrigation on the narrow highway strip along Camino Del Mar and planned to pave over the median as a cost-saving measure.

About $150,000 in community contributions was used to create the median designed by local landscape architect Jerry Fischer. In the three years since it was approved, the narrow green spot has deteriorated to an unsightly green-and-brown spot.

Councilman Scott Barnett spoke for the council when he said he was “damn mad” at being accused of trying to murder the publicly financed beautification project for budgetary reasons. He said that the median planting was “bad and getting worse” and council members took the only step possible to prevent “throwing good money after bad.”

Fischer blamed a city maintenance contractor for the demise of the landscaping and offered to conduct a test on part of the strip, which runs the entire length of the city, to show that most of the plantings could be brought back to health with the proper care.

The council, however, decided to wait awhile and listen to other opinions before taking any action. The members voted unanimously to postpone a decision for two weeks until city staff could have a chance to study proposals made Monday and to estimate the costs of attempting to revive the project.

Although the narrow landscaping strip occupies only about as much space as an average Del Mar front yard, it evidently occupies a spot in Del Mar residents’ hearts, City Manager Bob Nelson said.

“It sort of became an issue before we had time to address it,” Nelson said, explaining that the median plantings had been deteriorating for about two years because of the poor growing climate and destruction of the irrigation system by errant automobiles.

In a city budget workshop in June, the City Council members conceded that even the most hardy of the ground covers, plants, bushes and trees in the median had little chance of surviving. The council members voted to remove the living greenery to a less hostile environment and to shut off the water to the remainder. They also voted to spend $10,000 to study alternatives to the failed landscape plan.

Fischer began his petition drive shortly after the plants were abandoned. He turned in sheets with about 120 signatures to City Hall with an irate cover letter charging that the median “irrigation system can be repaired for less than you propose to spend on a further study” by another landscape architect, Roger DeWeese.

He also estimated that 60% of the median plantings put in after the 1982 citizen fund-raising campaign could be salvaged if the water was turned on.

Nelson responded that the irrigation system was in a sad state of repair and could not provide the water needed for the plants.

Two City Council members, Veronica (Ronnie) Delaney and Lew Hopkins, neither of whom was in office when the initial beautification project was undertaken, responded in an open letter to citizens, explaining that plant removal plans had been stymied by the recent rash of brush fires statewide. The fires had taken up the time of the California Conservation Corps and county workers who had been expected to dig up the plants.

So the watering system still functioning was turned on again and, the two council members said, any suggestions from the dissident group on how to restore the plants or to find a way to grow hardy replacements in the 10-inch-deep soil of the medians would be appreciated.

Delaney and Hopkins said the problems included street heat exposure to the plants, which resulted in “6 o’clock distress,” evident in the wilting of the plants; exposure to auto exhaust “within feet, or inches, of the plant”; the difficulty of growing healthy plants in soil only 8 to 10 inches deep, and the water more often running into streets as the median soil became more compacted.