4 Years and $24 Million Later, There Is Still No Nixon Library in San Clemente

Four years after supporters of former President Richard M. Nixon decided to build his official presidential library in San Clemente, the oceanview site is covered with weeds and no one can say when construction will begin.

Development of the Nixon library has stalled as city officials, negotiating privately with the Lusk Co. of Newport Beach, have weighed and so far objected to Lusk’s plans for a 253-acre complex that also would include three hotels, 1,500 homes and a commercial center.

Impatient to build the library, officials of the Richard Nixon Presidential Archives Foundation this week threatened to pick another site.

If the city and Lusk do not agree soon, “we will move,” warned John C. Whitaker, executive director of the foundation in Washington.

Foundation directors have raised $24 million of the $25 million needed for construction and want to break ground soon on the 16.7-acre parcel that Lusk has set aside for the library, Whitaker said.

Other Sites Considered

Echoing that concern, San Clemente banker Anthony R. DiGiovanni, chairman of the local Nixon library committee, announced that at least two groups “outside the San Clemente area” have submitted formal site proposals to the foundation and are now “eagerly vying” for the library. If it is to be built in San Clemente, “the city and the developer must get their heads together” and approve the Lusk project by July 1 at the latest, DiGiovanni said.

City leaders, Councilman Brian Rice among them, say they want the library very much but will not compromise San Clemente’s environmental standards to get it.

“We are very interested in the library,” Rice said. “It would be an asset to the community. And for Mr. Nixon’s sake, we would like to get on with it. However, we do not feel we would like to sell out any portion of the town for the library.” Loss of the Nixon library would be a serious blow to city leaders who believe that the library would bring prestige--and thousands of tourists--to their quiet oceanfront town of 34,000.

It would also be a personal loss for the council, said City Manager James B. Hendrickson. “This is a very, very big deal to the city,” he said. “It’s always been a 5-0 vote on the library. That’s one of the few 5-0 votes we have.”

President Nixon literally put San Clemente on the map in 1969 when he bought a tile-roofed estate called La Casa Pacifica and made it his Western White House. Before then, Hendrickson said, “there were maps of California that used to show San Juan Capistrano and Oceanside and nothing in between.”

After Nixon resigned in 1974 during the Watergate scandal, some of the excitement in San Clemente died too. But residents have remained fond of the Nixons, Hendrickson said. And some of the old spirit revived in April, 1983, when the city scored a coup: With competition from Whittier, Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine, Lusk’s cliffside site was the one selected for the library.

Some residents still wonder whether the Nixon library “is a jewel or a lump of coal for San Clemente,” as one city official mused recently.

Major Attraction?

But council members and the San Clemente Chamber of Commerce say they have no doubt that an 80,000-square-foot library containing a Nixon museum and millions of presidential documents and tapes would be a major attraction. Councilman William Mecham, for instance, cited one study estimating that the library could bring the city from $1 million to $2 million each year.

Late Wednesday night, Mecham told the council that the Lusk project finally had taken a step forward: After 18 months of private negotiations with the city, Lusk had decided to submit its Marblehead Coastal Specific Plan for formal public review. City officials predict that it could reach the Planning Commission by mid-May or June, although it could take as long as six months to be reviewed completely.

But if public hearings are about to begin, there still is no agreement between Lusk and the city on the project.

Guideline Violations

According to Hendrickson, Lusk’s proposal violates San Clemente’s planning guidelines in several ways: Instead of preserving the natural beauty of bluffs and interior canyons, it would scale the property’s 100-foot oceanfront cliffs down to 60 feet, fill in three canyons and grade soils over the entire site.

In addition, San Clemente officials believe a project of this size requires at least 76 acres of public park space. Lusk says it has offered 80 acres, but city officials calculate the total at only 43 acres. Some of the “parkland” is located between subdivisions and not accessible to the public, Hendrickson said.

Two other issues are creating uncertainties for the library. One involves the California Coastal Commission, which must consider Lusk’s project if San Clemente approves it.

Commission approval of the plan as it is now is not likely, commission and city planning officials said. “I think we’d have major problems with it,” said Chris Kroll, a commission analyst. Commission policy is to preserve canyons and coastal bluffs, not cut and fill them, he said. In addition, Kroll noted, the site is home for an endangered plant, Blockman’s dudleya, that should be protected.

Another concern is the Nixon archives itself. Nixon’s lawyers still have not reached agreement with the National Archives in Washington for the release of presidential papers and tapes, said archives spokeswoman Jill Brett.

Private Operation Considered

Private citizens have financed and built each of the nation’s eight presidential libraries, then turned their operation over to federal archivists, Brett said. But Nixon officials, concerned that the National Archives is releasing too many “sensitive” papers, are considering running a private library, with private archivists controlling access to the Nixon files.

Brett said the National Archives has no plans to release the Nixon papers to a private institution that might be run as “a personal monument” rather than as a serious research institution. Whitaker, however, said he is optimistic that the Nixon papers eventually will be released.

“Common sense tells me Congress would not allow a budget of $750,000 a year to keep these papers cooped up in a warehouse in Alexandria, Va. Eventually, those papers will be freed and brought to the library,” he said.

The most pressing issues, however, are environmental, Whitaker and city officials say. For the Marblehead coastal property, formerly known as the Reeves Ranch, is one of the largest remaining parcels of undeveloped oceanfront land in Southern California.

“It’s a real gem,” said James S. Holloway, San Clemente community development director. The city’s job, he said, is to protect that land and its three canyons, including a small one near the ocean that is studded with pine trees. “The staff has got to basically speak for the trees,” he said.

During a recent visit to the Marblehead Coastal land, Holloway nudged his car off a dirt road and onto the weed-choked bluff near the library site to point out the view. Although the day was misty, the headlands of Dana Point were still visible to the north. Ahead, the gray ocean glistened. And to the south, a promontory known as Cotton Point, site of the former Western White House.

Costs a Factor

Holloway indicated a strip of oceanfront land just north of the library site. “This is where I’d like a blufftop park,” he said, “but this is where they’d like to grade.” Actually, Lusk has offered six blufftop acres for a park, but city planners want at least 18. Lusk Executive Vice President Don Stefenson said his firm cannot afford that. Already Lusk plans to spend more than $5 million just to build a four-lane highway to the library, install utilities and grade the site, Stefenson said.

“I never say never,” he said, “but it would appear to me we’re getting to the point with the amount of developable acreage that is left, if we were to change this significantly, the project goes from a feasible to an infeasible project.”

Ironically, for all the debate, the library foundation received city approvals to develop the library site alone in April, 1984. City officials said the earlier plan sped through the approval process, with the council accepting deep grading of the canyons, to assure that the library would be built.

But foundation officials then decided to wait on the library until Lusk’s full Marblehead Coastal plan was approved. Library consultant R.J. Meade said the library would have a better chance of securing approval from the state Coastal Commission if it is processed with the entire plan. Also, Lusk is not willing to pay for the library site improvements until plans for the whole project are approved.

Actions Defended

Because the library was approved, its officials bristle at the suggestion that they are to blame for its lack of progress now. Said Holloway: “This city approved the library site 2 1/2 years ago. So the city isn’t stopping the library. If it wanted to go ahead, it could go ahead tomorrow. . . . But of course that doesn’t mean the rest of the development gets carte blanche.”

As the debate on Lusk’s project continues, some San Clemente residents have begun an informal lobbying for the library. City Manager Hendrickson said he has been barraged with phone calls. Banker DiGiovanni, a former San Clemente mayor, admits he has been part of that lobby.

“It is a small town,” he said. “You see the councilmen at church or the library or the local bar and the subject (of the library) may come up.”

Even if the pressure is on, city officials say no quick solution is in sight. “I gave up my crystal ball a long time ago,” Councilman Mecham said.

Still, Hendrickson says he does not believe the Nixon library proposal will go away. “It’s just a feeling or a hope or a prayer. . . . But the City Council, to a man, would like the library.”