‘Surf City’ Plan Ebbs as Council Votes for Delay

“Surf City” may sound bodacious to the beach crowd, but some dudes on the City Council say the image might be totally bogus.

After lengthy debate Monday night, the council voted 4 to 3 to delay action on a package of ideas that would have marketed Huntington Beach as “Surf City.”

“I don’t think Surf City would show all the aspects of our city,” said Councilman Don MacAllister.

Mayor Peter M. Green and Councilwomen Grace Winchell and Linda Moulton-Patterson said they liked the concept. But they were voted down by MacAllister and Councilmen Jim Silva, Jack Kelly and Earle Robitaille, who said they wanted more details before approving Surf City as Huntington Beach’s official moniker.

The delay was criticized by surfer Bruce Silverman, who said the council was more interested in the “yuppiefication” of Huntington Beach.

“The City Council has shown blatant disregard for surfers,” Silverman said, adding that the city is more concerned about “yuppie” development than in preserving the casual, surfer lifestyle once associated with downtown Huntington Beach.

Silverman said he would not be surprised if the City Council decided to change the city’s downtown statue, which shows a surfer riding a surfboard on a big wave. The change, Silverman said, would instead show “a yuppie getting into a BMW.”

At issue in the debate Monday night was a marketing plan presented by Ron Hagan, the city’s director of community services.

Hagan urged the council to copyright the term Surf City and to use it as Huntington Beach’s marketing theme. He showed some nationally distributed magazines to the council, noting that the magazine articles referred to Huntington Beach as Surf City.

The community already obtains valuable national publicity through the Surf City image and should capitalize on it, Hagan said.

But MacAllister said he was not convinced. “My concern is that we’re going to overpromote the attitude of Surf City to the point that we’re going to lose a lot of our other identity,” MacAllister said.

“ ‘Surf City U.S.A.’ is a kind of a statement which takes too many people back to the moods of the ‘60s. . . . People coming here for a visit from Montana or Iowa--do you think they want to come to a place called Surf City U.S.A.?”

Mayor Green, however, said he liked the Surf City image. “If we’re going to market for tourism, this is something that catches the imagination,” Green said. “I’m rather enthusiastic about it.”

But after more debate among the council members, the majority agreed with MacAllister and voted for a 30-day postponement in considering the Surf City marketing plan.