Group Seeks to Bring Nixon Papers Home

In an all-out effort to show that San Clemente citizens want the Richard M. Nixon presidential archives, the city’s Chamber of Commerce has organized a telephone effort to muster residents to the Aug. 5 council meeting on a controversial 253-acre development that includes the library.

Meanwhile, frustrated by San Clemente’s lengthy approval process, members of the Richard Nixon Presidential Archives Foundation have explored locating the library in Yorba Linda on city land next to an existing landmark--the one-acre homesite where the former president was born.

But former Nixon Administration Cabinet member Robert Finch said Monday that the July 17 talks were exploratory and, “obviously, we’re still hoping against hope the thing will resolve in San Clemente.”

Yorba Linda City Manager Arthur C. Simonian said Monday that he met last month with library foundation leaders who wanted “to explore the possibility of locating here based on the problems in San Clemente.”

He and two Yorba Linda council members met with Nixon representatives, including John Taylor, Nixon’s personal assistant, and Finch, now a Pasadena attorney and a library foundation member.

According to Simonian and Finch, they discussed whether to expand the birthplace site by adding to it six acres from a neighboring school and neighboring properties to “make a combination park/birthplace site” totaling about nine acres. Coincidentally, the City of Yorba Linda has been negotiating to acquire the site of the Richard Nixon Elementary School, which has been declared surplus property by the Yorba Linda School District because of declining enrollment, Simonian said.

Yorba Linda was one of the finalists several years ago when San Clemente, UC Irvine and other cities and institutions were vying to be selected as the site for the Nixon archives.

Simonian stressed that “no definitive position was made to locate in Yorba Linda.” Asked if the archives would be a boon to Yorba Linda, Simonian said, “I think it would be a step toward the preservation of history.”

Library officials have two or three alternative sites to San Clemente, Finch said, including a business complex in Carlsbad in northern San Diego County whose owner is willing to donate land near a lagoon for the library.

Finch said foundation leaders began looking seriously at other sites after learning recently there were “geological difficulties” with the San Clemente site and that “a substantial amount of money has to be spent shoring up the bluffs.”

The Richard Nixon Presidential Archives Foundation received approval in March, 1984, from San Clemente to build the archives on a 16.7-acre site on the bluffs 100 feet above the ocean.

Awaiting Full Approval

But library officials chose to wait to build the library until the full 253-acre development in which it sits is approved. That project, called the Marblehead Coastal Plan, in addition to the library, would include three hotels, 1,290 homes and a commercial complex on land near Avenida Pico in San Clemente. The developer, the Lusk Co. of Irvine, has said it cannot afford to make $5 million to $7 million in site improvements for the library until the entire Marblehead project is approved.

San Clemente planners have called the development environmentally sensitive because it is on one of the larger pieces of undeveloped oceanfront property remaining in Southern California. Its weed-strewn bluffs overlook Cotton Point, the promontory where former President Nixon had his Western White House from 1969 to 1974.

San Clemente’s Planning Commission on July 16 unanimously approved Phase 1 of the development of the entire Marblehead project but imposed nine conditions on approval, including a requirement that an independent geologist prepare “a detailed geotechnical analysis” before massive grading of the 100-foot-high bluffs would be approved by the city. Other city Planning Commission and council votes will be required even if the project is approved by the City Council in August; a second phase--detail work such as the height of buildings, parking and drainage of buildings--must receive city scrutiny in separate votes over the next year.

But library officials have said the vote on the overall plan this August will be the key to showing whether San Clemente wanted the library.

Lobbying Effort Planned

Concerned about that vote, San Clemente Chamber of Commerce leaders are mounting a lobbying effort.

On the two days before the Aug. 5 special council session that will be devoted entirely to the Marblehead Coastal plan, at least 20 chamber volunteers will call their friends and neighbors around the city to urge them to attend, chamber President Connie Clevenger said.

The chamber’s “phone bank” effort follows a similar effort before a July 14 Planning Commission meeting that led to an impromptu postcard poll in which 1,300 residents sent postcards to the chamber saying they wanted the library, Chamber executive director Mimi Collier said. In addition, 250 residents turned out for that meeting, Collier said.