Tracking of Cranston No Easy Job

There I was, cursing silently, squeezed in the back seat of a four-wheel-drive following a similar vehicle carrying Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) through the rugged terrain of Laguna Canyon.

Cranston’s Jeep was picking up speed, hurdling over ditches and racing up hills. It was all my driver could do to keep up.

It was a windy Friday afternoon three months ago. Cranston had suddenly announced plans to come to Laguna Beach and tour Laguna Canyon.

No one was quite sure why. Laguna Canyon was certainly a hot issue locally because of widespread opposition to Irvine Co. plans to build a massive housing development there. But no one had asked for Cranston’s help in resolving the dispute and many found it strange that a U.S. senator would make a special trip to Laguna Beach just to see the proposed site of an obscure housing development.

Cranston, however, had been getting a lot of bad press concerning his role in the Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal. What better way to give his tarnished image a boost, some city officials remarked, than by showing constituents that issues close to home were dear to his heart?

One Laguna Beach city official put it more bluntly. “This visit comes to you courtesy of Lincoln Savings & Loan,” he said. Yet Cranston aides insisted the purpose of the visit was to get a firsthand look at the Laguna Laurel project area because the senator might lobby for federal funds to buy the canyon and save it from development. Cranston had proposed a bill 10 years earlier that would have made the Irvine Coast a national park, aides said, proof of his genuine interest in the area.

Few were convinced. But a week later, Cranston arrived in town. There was a brief press conference, then Irvine Co. officials brought around two Jeeps to drive us all to the Laguna Laurel project area, which is only accessible by dirt roads.

I went to climb into the Jeep in which Cranston was riding and was met by a surly Irvine Co. official who told me the press van was in the back.

“You don’t understand,” I said, struggling to maintain my composure. “That’s just like asking the press to ride in the baggage compartment on Air Force One.”

Another reporter rushed to my defense, saying it would be a violation of open-meeting laws if the press were not allowed to ride in Cranston’s Jeep.

Tough luck. We could either ride in the press Jeep or not at all.

Besides, Irvine Co. officials said, it wouldn’t be so bad. Cranston’s Jeep would pull over along the way to give reporters the opportunity to ask all the questions they wanted.

So, reluctantly, two other reporters and I piled into the second Jeep. Our driver followed the first vehicle, which turned off windy Laguna Canyon Road and bounded ahead along a bumpy dirt road.

It wasn’t long before I realized something was wrong.

“When are they going to stop?” I asked, feeling my blood begin to boil.

“Soon,” snapped an Irvine Co. official.

But after 20 minutes, it was clear that the Jeep with the VIPs had no intention of stopping. Instead, it picked up speed. Our driver honked his horn for them to stop. They ignored it.

When we finally came to a near stop, I opened my door and bolted, heading straight for Cranston’s Jeep. I stuck my face through the passenger window where the senator was securely buckled, trapped as I had been just moments before, and shot him a flurry of questions.

Several aides rushed to his rescue. The group finally agreed to get out and hold a two-minute question-and-answer session. But it wasn’t long before a Cranston aide was barking that we had to get back because the senator was running late for his next engagement.

After a whirlwind tour of a part of the canyon that did not include any of the areas where the controversial homes are supposed to be built, Cranston and his aides headed off to their next appearance.

“Wait a minute,” I asked then-Councilwoman Lida Lenney. “He didn’t even look at the part where they’re talking about building the homes.”

“Pretty incredible, isn’t it?” Lenney said.

Not surprisingly, three months later, no one from the city has heard a peep from Cranston’s office about getting federal money to buy the canyon.