Truth Fairy’s Canyon Crusade Turns Into a Federal Case

I expected the Truth Fairy to be disconsolate, having been sued and all, but she was remarkably evenhanded. And why not, it was a typically lovely summer day, and where does being unhappy get you?

“I think they aren’t thinking with their hearts anymore,” the Truth Fairy said. “I think they’re thinking with their wallets. I would really like to touch them somehow. They know I’m trying to do that, too.”

There’s sort of an inherent mismatch, you would assume, between the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency thats want to build a highway across Laguna Canyon and the Truth Fairy, a 51-year-old Laguna Beach environmental activist. The agency has money and influence and friends in high places and she has, well . . . let her tell it.

“I’m the free spirit that is really for animals and nature. They’re part of me and I’m part of that canyon. I’ve been protecting the canyon since about 1970.”

The quickie background:

To relieve pressure on I-5 in South County, the TCA wants to get going on the long-planned San Joaquin Hills tollway, a project that is anathema to many environmentalists. A bevy of environmental groups sued the agency in state court, while the Truth Fairy struck out on her own and sued the agency as an individual. For her independence, she’s the lone individual along with four citizen groups that the TCA, in turn, sued earlier this month.

And when the process server handed her the papers at her booth at the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach, she “bing-ed” him with her magic wand and sent him back with a nice note to the TCA’s lawyer.

“It’s like the mother and her cubs,” the Truth Fairy said during our talk in the midafternoon as she took a break from her job at a Newport Beach mortgage lender. “I already know that Laguna Canyon will remain undeveloped, because I believe it so much. I know all these other people are just trying to develop it, but there’s something sacred about that land.”

The Truth Fairy is a working fairy. At a rally in the canyon earlier this year, she was seen anointing many in attendance with her magic wand. For the occasion, she dressed in a prom dress and hot-pink tennis shoes. She usually wears a tiara.

Other environmentalists sued by TCA announced their outrage, saying that such an action by a governmental agency would have a “chilling effect” on citizen protest. I asked the Truth Fairy if she were similarly upset.

“They are violating my constitutional rights. I am being put upon. Now I’ve got to go into federal court and convince someone that what they’re doing isn’t right.”

The TCA said it filed the federal suit to speed up the approval process for the projects. It also said the defendants had planned to sue them in federal court but were waiting so as to further delay the tollway project.

The Truth Fairy begged to differ. “I never threatened to sue them in federal court. That’s their big thing--they had to keep me from suing them. I hadn’t made up my mind whether I was going to sue them or not. I probably wasn’t, but maybe I would. I think they’re desperate because they want to sneak this corridor through as quickly as possible. Now, time is of the essence for them because people are seeing what a rotten project it is, and they want to hurry up and grade for the project.”

In such a bare-knuckles environmental fight, there’s room for the refreshing theatricality of the Truth Fairy. I asked her, however, if she thinks she’s taken seriously.

“I am being taken seriously. I ain’t called the Truth Fairy for nothing. I’m flattered that they think I’m standing in their way enough to want to get me out of their way. I’m not afraid of them hurting me at all. I’m absolutely fearless.”

She said her environmental interests are mostly instinctual but that she has also studied the law. She prepared her own legal papers when she joined in the suit against the project in state court and said she knows the environmental impact report “backward and forward.”

I asked if she enjoyed the fracas or wished it would disappear.

“I wish it would go away. I would take my wand, and if I had one wish, it would be, bing, ‘Laguna Be Saved.’ ”

How do you think the other side sees you, I asked the Truth Fairy.

“I don’t think they enjoy it, but I think they might have read a fairy tale when they were kids and maybe I can relate to them deep, deep down inside.”

And if you lose? How can this be fun with the stakes so high?

“My stakes aren’t high. I’m dealing with the priceless. They’re the ones putting the price tag on things. Hey, if I lose, I think of the animals as losing. If I lose, I’ll never drive through Laguna Canyon again if it gets developed. It’s blasphemy that they’re doing that. Why don’t they go to develop in the Rose Garden? Why don’t they take down the Eiffel Tower and construct a new building there?”

It was time for the Truth Fairy, who in her earthly life goes by Elizabeth Leeds, to leave.

But this time, she had the question.

“Do you think I should I wear my Truth Fairy costume to court?”

Answering her own question, she said, “No, I don’t think so. Maybe on Arsenio.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.