Flood-Channel Plan Stirs Lakeside Wave

Gene Nooner, the brains behind a new plan for a flood channel in the Moreno Valley area of Lakeside, likes to describe the bitter fights over flood control there as a feud between modern-day Hatfields and McCoys, the two sides separated by the dry San Vicente Creek bed.

But now, eight years after devastating rapids ruined homes and livelihoods, any full inventory of the battle forces would list, in addition to the acerbic neighbors, Moreno Valley’s informal equivalent of a chamber of commerce. Nooner also wants to bring San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors into the fray Sept. 7, when he unveils his plan for them.

In 1980, as in a smaller flood two years before, Nooner was one of the lucky ones. When the dam at the base of San Vicente Reservoir overflowed and the rain poured off the hills on Moreno Valley’s eastern boundary, the waters shooting down the creek bed in Nooner’s back yard at up to 45 m.p.h. took only his rabbits and their hutches.

Newly Formed Island

Nooner’s house, off California 67 near Santa Maria Avenue, wasn’t flooded because he lives on the slightly higher western bank of the creek, and he wasn’t among the hundreds of people who were stranded for weeks on the other side with only a plywood footbridge to their newly formed island.

Soon after the 1980 flood, homeowners, led by the eastern-bank victims, came up with a plan for an earthen flood channel along the creek. Each of the 61 property owners along the creek on both sides were to give up some of their land, and construction would be paid for by the valuable sand to be removed.

Eleven of the 61 refused to go along: Some of the holdouts wanted money for their land, some said a dirt channel wouldn’t do the job, and some--including Nooner--were leery of lawsuits if the channel directed the water onto someone else’s land.

The plan collapsed amid all the acrimony, and that’s where things stood until this summer, when Nooner, who lives off odd jobs and his Social Security, started putting together his proposal.

“It just came to me,” he said. “It’s strictly a business proposition, and it seems like the only solution.

“I have an acre and a half, and they want a third of my land for the channel. But the channel wouldn’t help me very much--I live on the west side. If they want some of my land, they should make the rest of it more valuable by giving it industrial zoning.”

Petition Circulated

Nooner took around a petition to the 61 creek dwellers and more than 150 other nearby homeowners, asking them whether they would give up their land or support a larger, riprap flood channel designed by the county in exchange for changing their zoning from residential and agricultural to commercial.

His tally: 94 in favor--including 55 of the 61 who would be required to dedicate land to the 158-foot-wide project--43 opposed and 88 neutral.

The only problem, besides the new round of holdouts objecting to the loss of their land or the rural quality of life, is that Moreno Valley is in the middle of a three-year moratorium on zoning changes, which took effect after the last community plan update was enacted.

That’s why Nooner is taking his case to the county, where he will ask the Board of Supervisors to waive the rezoning moratorium and use its powers of condemnation, if necessary, to acquire the creek-bed land.

As in the ill-fated plan of the early 1980s, Nooner’s $500,000 channel would pay for itself with sand.

David Solomon, a deputy engineer for the county, has already designed the project, which he described as “on semi-hold” pending action by the supervisors or, farther down the road, an idea that gets even more support from the valley’s creek dwellers.

Staff Review Likely

County officials, for their part, said they have used eminent domain to obtain property for similar projects and have waived the moratorium in other areas. Bob Stuart, a field officer for Supervisor George Bailey, whose district includes the area, said the board will almost certainly refer Nooner’s proposal to its staff for further study.

Meanwhile, the local debate is as fierce as ever.

“I’m basically against it,” said Marilyn Dougherty, a schoolteacher on the western side who would lose a third of her property for the 2-mile channel that would run south from the reservoir to the San Diego River.

“I don’t believe flooding is a big problem here. The 1980 flood was a unique combination of circumstances. And I don’t like the idea of making it an industrial area.

“We’ll be fighting every step of the way,” she said. “If they take my property, if they don’t give me an equal amount of land in its place, we’ll have to move.”

On the other side of the creek, where damage from the 1980 flood was heaviest, several homeowners said they want a channel--but not at the price of rezoning.

‘There’s a Definite Need’

“There’s a definite need for a flood channel,” said Earl McCranie, a sheet-metal journeyman who said his house was the third one damaged when the waters started to rise. “I’ve worked to get one in here since 1980. But an M-54 rezone (the medium industrial designation) is too heavy out here. It would allow a lot of really bad industry, and there are a lot of retired people living here. They should just donate the land.”

Harold Swanson, president of the eastern bank’s homeowners association, says he is neutral on Nooner’s proposal but said bluntly that the rezoning would be illegal.

“They’re trying to force the issue this way. I hate to use the word blackmail, “ he said.

Swanson pointed out that many of the proponents of the new plan also supported the old channel project, when they weren’t going to get anything in return.

Local businessmen who are violating the current residential zoning rules are the main force behind Nooner’s plan, Swanson argued.

“We’re opposed to illegal operations,” he said. “People are sneaking in there, and now they are attempting to justify what they’re doing. It’s absolutely the main motivation.”

Accusations Feared

In fact, every one of the half a dozen members of Nooner’s San Vicente Creek Flood Control Rezone Committee, according to Nooner, owns a business. Some people in this community of 350 families consider the group the valley’s equivalent of a chamber of commerce.

“That’s where the money comes from,” Nooner said.

Committee members have given him an electric typewriter and a $3,000 copying machine. “It’s not necessary for everyone in the valley to know who these people are. There will be a lot of accusations.”

Gordon Shackelford is a San Diego State University physics professor in the Lakeside Community Planning Group, which earlier this month defeated a motion to endorse Nooner’s plan. “The community plan, the zoning structure of an area, is periodically updated, and it takes a year to review everything. The county discourages changes between updates. My first impression is, why didn’t they show up with the idea at the update?” Shackelford said.

“The change from rural residential to general-impact industrial (zoning) is very large. There is a feeling that there really are a number of owners who had nothing to do with the flooding who want their property value raised or who are involved in substantial violations” of the current zoning regulations, he said.

Grandfather Clause

Several of the businessmen said they are exempt from zoning rules because of a grandfather clause in the community plan allowing existing companies to stay.

Wyatt Allen, a member of Nooner’s group who owns a construction company next to the creek, at first said his company was exempted by the clause, then said that was only “partially true.”

“We’re bigger now than we were before. We’re a full corporation,” Allen said.

“I can’t park my truck here now” since Nooner began pushing his proposal, he said. “There have been a lot of people causing trouble in the valley, attacking people verbally.”

Cliff Poffenbarger, a Nooner supporter who described his roofing business as “a one-horse operation,” blamed government for not creating more business zones.

“This county should be responsible for making adequate zoning available. You look around downtown, and almost every business has violations. If you look around here, at the way people live, there are very few farms. There are trucks parked almost everywhere here.

“I’ve been looking for an M-54 zone for two years, and if I can’t get it here, I’ll have to move to San Marcos. I don’t like to be involved in this type of thing,” Poffenbarger said of the move to link the channel with rezoning.

“But we’re going to have businesses, and the flood channel just happens to be needed, too, so that’s just another plus.

“This is government for the people, by the people,” he said. “If a large majority of people are in support of something, and there’s a policy blocking it, they should allow it. For whatever reason the support is.”