Public Access to State Beaches

Re “Blocking the Way to the Beach,” Sept. 3: You deserve credit for bringing the issue of dedications of land for beach access to the public’s attention. However, defining the problem as a denial of public access rather than the acquisition of property rights leads to an unbalanced article.

Echoing the 5th Amendment to the Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that requiring dedications of land for the good of the public can only be done without just compensation where it is reasonable and proportional to the impacts created by real estate development. The article fails to mention that for decades state coastal planners have illegally extorted dedications for beach access and continue to do so.

If the government behaves as a scofflaw, how can it expect citizens to do otherwise? Moreover, if the public doesn’t want to pay to maintain the access easements, doesn’t this indicate the will of the people better than the anointed Coastal Commission?

WAYNE C. LUSVARDI

Pasadena

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* Hired thugs on orange all-terrain vehicles roaming the beach and harassing families exercising their right to public access! What a telling truth about the people who carefully cultivate their benevolent images through the machinery of public relations.

Their image is that of lawbreaker, as what they are doing is bathed in selective ignorance. They are denying the legal rights of the public and they show further arrogance each time we pay escalating insurance costs when one of their ill-placed homes gets wiped out by winter storms.

S. KANANI FONG

La Habra

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* This past summer I scouted a coastal trail--in San Luis Obispo County from Avila to Pismo Beach--for Coastwalk, a nonprofit organization for preservation of and access to the California coastline.

Your article gave a true picture of the problems. To find a way between those two beach cities I had to deal with Unocal’s pumping station (they said we would fall off the bluff or their plant might explode if they let us walk through their grounds), a locked access-path gate and nearly hidden trails on hotel property. In between, the beach and bluffs are glorious.

During the past 12 years Coastwalk leaders have led county-by-county hikes to increase awareness. Next summer they will add a 1,200-mile complete California coastline hike. I want to help unlock gates before then but don’t know what to do. Who do we call when we come up against that locked access gate to the viewpoint in residential Shell Beach?

BARBARA MARY JOHNSON

Chatsworth