LAGUNA BEACH : Tollway Agency Halts Meetings With City

Tollway agency members have halted meetings with city officials on ways to reduce the road’s impact on Laguna Canyon because of the city’s continuing opposition to the project, an agency spokesman said.

Mike Stockstill said members of the Transportation Corridor Agencies objected to the actions of Laguna Beach Mayor Lida Lenney, a strong critic of the 17.5-mile San Joaquin Hills tollway, which would link Newport Beach to San Juan Capistrano.

Lenney’s decision to speak against the roadway at an anti-tollway rally at UC Irvine two weeks ago “had an impact on the board’s decision” to discontinue meetings with the city officials, Stockstill said.

Frustrated Laguna Beach City Council members say they will write a letter to the agency saying they don’t want to be excluded from discussions.

“They’re still mad at us,” Councilwoman Ann Christoph said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Long opposed to the project, Laguna Beach has previously refused to join the agency. More recently, however, as road proponents have gained ground by securing permits and financing, the city has made overtures to the group.

In recent weeks, council members joined two agency committees examining the look and size of the toll-road interchange in Laguna Canyon.

Still, Laguna Beach officials have made it clear they are simply making the best of what they consider a bad situation by trying to lessen the road’s environmental impact on the canyon.

Stockstill said the agency board decided that the city’s--and particularly Lenney’s--continuing “very vocal and very public” opposition to the project was “incompatible” with the city’s involvement on the committees.

Lenney said she did not err by speaking at the rally because she represents residents who oppose the roadway, which she called “an environmental and fiscal disaster.”

“To me there is not a dichotomy in opposing the toll road in a public meeting and sitting at a table and negotiating what the interchange at Laguna Canyon Road would be like,” she said. “I can do both in good faith.”

Costa Mesa Mayor Sandra L. Genis, who also spoke at the rally, called the agency’s actions “petty.”

“Even though I think they’ve had their differences (with Laguna Beach) in the past, it makes sense to continue talking to see if they could come up with something everybody could be happy with,” she said. “If what you’re doing is really that great, you don’t need to bully people into it. It’s something you could do by consensus.”

Michael Phillips, director of the Laguna Canyon Conservancy, a group launched by Lenney that is now involved in a lawsuit against the tollway, sided, not surprisingly, with the mayor.

“Who else represents the citizens?” Phillips asked. “I think what this means is the TCA has no respect for local elected officials that don’t agree with their opinion.”

Stockstill said the group examining the size of the interchange was dissolved altogether because “we didn’t think there was any further progress that could be made.”

However, he said, the board has created an “aesthetics committee” composed of county and agency representatives and council members from other cities to further study the interchange.