“This is the whole ballgame.” : Laguna Puts Up a Grand Canyon Fight

It is beautiful and serene, this rolling wilderness that has helped keep coastal Laguna Beach both physically and spiritually apart from the outside world.

Some residents are fond of saying that driving through winding, rustic Laguna Canyon at the end of the day is like sipping a martini.

Yet when speaking of the beloved canyon--one of only two routes into the community--much local sentiment is tinged with anger and pain.

That’s because for 25 years, many residents have fought doggedly to protect the canyon from development. And now, it seems, only the outcome of a hearing in federal appeals court today can block a six-lane toll road from being bulldozed through the canyon and the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park to link Newport Beach and San Juan Capistrano.

The so-called San Joaquin Hills project stirs uncommon passion in this city, a liberal bastion that boasts a noted artist colony and has conservative Orange County’s only ordinance banning discrimination against gays.

“This has been literally a fight for my way of life,” said Mark Chamberlain, an artist who has worked to save the canyon since 1969. “I feel strongly enough that if the (toll) road goes through, I’ll be looking to leave. . . . I’ll have done my best, given my best effort to it, and I’ll figure it’s time to move on. And I know a lot of people who are thinking of it like that.”

But there is another, more silent segment of the community.

Although not as outspoken as environmentalists, there are Laguna Beach residents who commute elsewhere to their jobs and believe the toll road is desperately needed to ease the area’s maddening and chronic traffic congestion.

“We are very vocal in our opinion . . . (that) there must be a group of people who feel like we do, desiring the San Joaquin Hills toll road,” said Laguna Beach Taxpayers Assn. President Robert R. Mosier. “It’s the only way the traffic in Laguna Beach on Coast Highway will be reduced.”

The question before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is this:

Did the Federal Highway Administration conduct a full and proper environmental review before approving the toll road in July, 1992?

The $1.1-billion project, which is overseen by the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency, will be 17 miles long from Newport Beach to San Juan Capistrano. The challenge by environmental groups, led by Laguna Greenbelt Inc., concerns a 4.7-mile link through the Laguna Canyon area. Work on other sections of the road has proceeded since September, 1993.

The court’s ruling will determine whether the project goes ahead through the canyon or whether there must be further environmental review that could change the toll road’s route.

“My sense is, everybody’s eyes are turned to (today) and holding out some hope we’ll get a favorable ruling from the appeals courts,” Laguna Canyon Conservancy director Mike Phillips said. “I think people know this is the whole ballgame, right now.”

So this may be the last big battle over the canyon.

Barbara Stuart, a wisp of a warrior at 5 feet, 2 inches and not quite 80 pounds, remembers the first campaign to preserve the canyon. It was in 1969, when a handful of residents led by local bookstore owner Jim Dilley agreed that a band of greenery should rim the city. The canyon would be the centerpiece.

Stuart, a 78-year-old former ballet dancer, joined Laguna Greenbelt Inc. six months after it was formed and served as the group’s treasurer for 18 years.

“People thought I’d taken up karate because they simply didn’t know anything about a ‘greenbelt’ in those days,” she said. “It took . . . a lot of time, a lot of work. But it always seemed worth it.”

Chamberlain was another early enlistee. Back then, development--a “mass of homogenization”--was creeping toward the city from the north and south, he said. The greenbelt, including the canyon, “was the only thing that kept Laguna separate from the Orange Empire.”

“The people who lived here at the time realized this was an oasis,” Chamberlain said. “And the only way to keep it that way was to have the buffer between us.”

In 1987, as the Irvine Co. prepared to build the Laguna Laurel housing development in the canyon, City Councilwoman Lida Lenney, an environmentalist, gathered a small group around her and formed the Laguna Canyon Conservancy to help continue the fight.

After seeking support from throughout the county, the group tasted a surprisingly sweet victory when, on Nov. 11, 1989, between 7,000 and 8,000 people converged on Laguna Beach for a “Save The Canyon” march.

Soon afterward, the city and the developer crafted an agreement allowing Laguna Beach to buy the land in patches and preserve it as open space.

But conservancy director Phillips admits this ceaseless struggle is taxing for the troops.

“I think the efforts to save the canyon become very wearing after a while--countless meetings to go to, we always have to be conscious of raising money and you’re always operating under a sense of being threatened,” he said. “Every time there’s a threat to the canyon, we have to win. The development interests and the road builders only have to win once.”

Even some who oppose the toll road say it is time to hoist the white flag.

“The reality is, the battle is over,” said Darren Esslinger, whose family owns a mobile home park in Laguna Beach. “I think a lot of people are confused in this city, (thinking) somehow they can affect some kind of change to the plan. But it is really out of their hands.”

Many in the community are fatigued, still reeling from a firestorm last Oct. 27 that damaged or destroyed more than 400 homes and scorched thousands of acres of open space.

Still, the protest against the toll road continues.

“It’s a very emotional issue,” said Kurt Topik, who has lived in Laguna Beach for three decades. After years of protesting, letter writing and giving money to the cause, Topik, 74, doesn’t fancy backing down now.

“We’ve got to make a stand someplace,” he said. “I’m a pretty old guy to be standing in front of a bulldozer, but I might still do that. I’m very angry. And if they want to lock me up, well, that’s OK, too.”

In what may have been a preview of a continuing drama, both bulldozers and protesters raced to the canyon June 14 after a judge ruled grading could begin. As the first row of tractors rolled over the hill that afternoon, protesters swore, wept and wailed.

The protest widened as the sun set and other city officials ended their work day and joined the ranks. The city clerk and a planning commissioner took turns carrying placards. The next day, a second court order halted the grading and set the crucial Sept. 13 hearing.

Since then, road opponents have worked steadily behind the scenes, staging intermittent protests, including one last weekend that drew more than 1,000 people into the canyon to hear music, poetry readings and pleas from speakers to preserve the land. Hundreds left carrying postcards to mail to elected officials opposing the toll road.

Laguna Beach Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. said that in his 26 years on the force he’s seen nothing rile locals like an issue felt to be a threat to the canyon.

“There are some people who think demonstrators will be out there a day or two, and they’ll get tired, hot, hungry, cold--whatever the case may be--but that they’ll be done in a couple days,” he said.

Purcell disagrees: “They will be out there opposing it, even on opening day of the toll road.”