LAGUNA BEACH : Woman Takes Stand Against Bulldozer

The bright yellow bulldozer was tearing up clumps of bushes and trees in a dry creek bed as Laguna Canyon resident and activist Marielle Leeds just happened to pass by.

Angry over the sight, Leeds did not hesitate to move into action. She stood in front of the earthmover and ordered her mother, Bess, to alert the media.

“I screamed at him (the bulldozer operator) and told him that was enough,” said Leeds, who said she knew there were no permits to grade the 10-acre parcel at Laguna Canyon and El Toro roads.

“I know what is supposed to go on around here,” Leeds said. “He was scooping up dirt, wrecking the environment. This (site) is a real critical point here. It is in the middle of the (Laguna) greenbelt.”

Although Leeds feared that the bulldozer was a sign that the landowner, the Laguna Hills-based Rossmoor Liquidating Trust, was planning to build illegally, City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said that was not the case.

Frank said a company representative came to City Hall last month and asked if the company needed a permit to clear the land of unwanted vegetation.

“I told him that the answer was no,” said Frank, who all but forgot about the conversation until Leeds alerted him Tuesday morning.

In the course of the brush clearing, however, the operator had dug into the dirt in several places and filled in a portion of a major creek bed that moves rain water from the canyon to the ocean.

“We assumed that they would use a weed eater or some other method to clear the site,” Frank said. “If you bring in a bulldozer, you are grading the land.”

Arriving at the scene, Frank and another city employee surveyed the site and issued a “stop work order.”

Bulldozer operator Leonard Schwendeman was ordered to clear the creek bed of soil and a city building inspector was stationed at the site to ensure Schwendeman complied.

Officials from Rossmoor were unavailable for comment. A secretary at the company’s headquarters said that top officials were out of the office for the day.

Schwendeman said he was shocked that his activities caused such a commotion, adding that he assumed all permits were in order before he was sent to do the job.

He said it should have been obvious that he was not grading land in the environmentally sensitive canyon.

“We were not actually grading,” he said. “We would have put in red stakes all around. We’re just taking the brush out.”

Schwendeman said he had no idea what Leeds was screaming about as she stood in front of the wide metal blade and stuck out her arm.

“She scared me,” Schwendeman said.