NEWS ANALYSIS : Laguna Disaster Raises Outcry Against Liberals

In Laguna Beach, where even the most mundane of issues can be the subject of rancorous public debate, the Fire of 1993 threatens to become a pitched battle cry for change on the City Council.

Easily the most liberal city in one of the state’s most conservative counties, Laguna Beach has maintained a left-leaning, pro-environment City Council majority for more than a decade.

Over the years, the council has championed a string of social causes, from declaring itself a nuclear-free zone to passing the county’s only law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.

However, the raging fire that destroyed 366 homes and caused $270 million worth of damage last week has also focused new attention on the council’s priorities and prompted talk of recall.

On Sunday, Mayor Lida Lenney was given a shove during a City Hall disaster-relief session by an angry homeowner who lost his home in the fire and blamed Lenney for not doing enough to ensure sufficient water to douse the flames.

Questions have surfaced as to why the council did not approve zoning for a 3-million-gallon reservoir that fire officials have said would have helped fight the blaze. Plans for the reservoir were developed in 1990, but a council majority said the project would harm an environmentally sensitive area.

Residents also wonder why the city still permits densely packed construction of homes, many of them still built with wooden roofs and siding despite the risk of fire.

At the same time, the council’s longtime showing of compassion--support for AIDS victims, shelters for the needy--seems to have lost its luster among some of the populace, who say more resources should be directed toward public safety.

“Our city services just seem to be declining,” said Darren Esslinger, head of United Laguna, which proposed the recall and is one of several pro-development groups in the city. “Our priorities are all screwed up.”

The fire is only the latest controversial topic involving city officials.

Just last week, the city lost an $11-million judgment on behalf of 38 homeowners who sued the city for not installing streets in an undeveloped section of town. One council member said the city would be bankrupt if forced to pay because the judgment represents half the city’s budget.

In July, the city was ordered to pay $650,000 in attorneys’ fees in another lawsuit involving property rights.

Even if no recall effort materializes, voters will have a chance to make their feelings known soon. A year from now, members of the council’s liberal majority, Lenney, Robert F. Gentry and Ann Christoph, are all up for reelection, and some activists say there could be a clean sweep.

Ann McDonald, a former member of the city’s design review board whose husband formed the Laguna Coalition, a pro-development group, said fed-up residents won’t even wait for the next election.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, McDonald said, they will demand that Lenney, Gentry and Christoph step down.

“We’re upset, to put it mildly,” she said. “I think (the fire) was one of the worst ways to wake up a lot of people, but they’re wide awake and ready to roar.”

Members of the council majority say the talk of recall and change in the midst of disaster is ugly and unwarranted because everyone was affected, even council members. Gentry, for example, one of the few openly gay officeholders in the state, who was elected in 1982, lost his home in the fire.

“I think it’s really sad,” said Lenney, a retired schoolteacher and a council member since 1986. “What is sad to me is that anybody would use a tragedy like this to promote a personal political agenda. . . . To begin a divisive thing like this is just incredible to me. Incredible and reprehensible.”

Christoph, elected in 1990, said some are “making this into a political issue for their own purposes.”

Many voters think the council majority is out of touch with the rest of the community. For example, voters in 1991 rejected rent control for the city’s mobile home parks. However, last January the council majority temporarily reimposed it, infuriating many residents who thought the democratic process had been thwarted.

The council majority is supported by a group known as Village Laguna, which has been the most powerful political group in the city for 20 years. The organization was assembled to keep high-rise development off the Laguna coast, which it has successfully done.

The president of Village Laguna said Sunday that her group and the council members it has supported are being unfairly tarnished.

“The vultures are circulating,” said Johanna Felder, head of the group. “It’s really a shame. To think that people would take other people’s tragedy and use them to advance their own political agenda. . . . I can’t believe there are people in town who are only thinking of what they can get out of it.”

Village Laguna, Felder said, is a community-based group reliant on small donations and $15 membership fees, in contrast to developers who have the wherewithal to support pro-building council candidates. For years, she said, the council has done its best to help the downtrodden.

Her group, which numbers more than 300, has attempted to preserve the village charm of Laguna Beach by lobbying for limits on building heights and trying to maintain the unique character of individual neighborhoods, she said.

“These are the things that brought people to Laguna and Laguna wouldn’t be like this if it weren’t for these things we championed,” Felder said. “And all of a sudden, they turned all this around to make us appear as the bad guys.”

A political action committee associated with the Laguna Coalition used its resources last year to help elect council members Wayne L. Peterson, a property manager, and Kathleen Blackburn, a shop owner. At the same time, it kept Norm Grossman, a slow-growth advocate and early front-runner in the race, from being elected.

Many residents say the council majority and Village Laguna have promoted an ultraliberal agenda in which environmental preservation and social causes have taken precedence over property rights and public safety. Some are rankled that the city banned leaf blowers last year, a move that aided the environment but cost the city more money in labor.

In September, a vocal group of residents turned out at a City Council meeting to oppose Gentry’s idea of erecting an AIDS memorial at the entrance to the city along Laguna Canyon Road.

But the debate over the reservoir--and the city’s inability to fight the fire--offers a prime example of favoring environmental protection over public safety, many residents say.

Peterson said residents believe Village Laguna and the candidates they endorsed “cared more about preserving the knoll (where the reservoir was to be located) than providing water to save homes.”

Bill McDonald, who formed the coalition after he and his wife fought a bitter court battle with the city over the height of their home, said the current council is finished and that any candidate with Village Laguna’s backing will be “tainted” from now on.

He said the political turning point was the battle over rent control at the mobile home parks, supported by the council majority and opposed by most of the voters.

“That certainly was the example of the coalescing of these groups together and certainly this fire is going to be the death knell of Village Laguna and this present council,” he said. “They will not be able to run again. If they do run, they have no chance of being elected.”

Elizabeth Benton, a Laguna Beach resident and store owner, said that blaming members of the council for the fire damage is ridiculous.

“In hindsight, everyone’s a genius,” she said. “I don’t think the council’s been remiss in its duties. It’s unfair to criticize them because nature has struck a critical blow like this. Those five people are as good as any other five people.”

Times staff writer Eric Lichtblau contributed to this report.