All Fans on Deck

Residents of La Conchita say they feel cheated, discriminated against and forgotten.

And now, they say, the one thing that has brought their tiny beach-side community together after a mountain of mud swallowed part of their town last year may be ripped out by the state.

A fierce battle has erupted over a 20-by-20-foot deck built by locals to help them get to the beach. The struggle pits most of La Conchita’s residents against the state’s behemoth Department of Transportation.

When residents look at the deck, they see a place where neighbors gather to fish and watch sunsets, a makeshift town square to help them move on after a grueling year that saw a landslide devour homes and drive friends away.

“It’s a wonderful thing!” said Lisa Novy, who said her children used to get “gashed-in legs” from clambering down the boulders before there was a deck. “It’s something after the landslide that really raised community morale.”

But when Caltrans officials look at the deck, they see an accident waiting to happen.

“It’s our understanding that the deck and stairs were constructed on state property by La Conchita residents for use by other residents,” Caltrans spokeswoman Pat Reid said. “The state is concerned that someone using the deck and stairway will get hurt and the state could be liable for injuries.”

Caltrans already came with cranes to rip out the pier a few months ago, residents said. But townspeople assembled on the wood deck and refused to move.

When the state built that stretch of U.S. 101 in the 1950s, they put it right through La Conchita’s front yard, separating the town from the sea.

For the past four decades residents have either dodged speeding cars to cross four lanes of interstate highway to the beach or scrambled through a 100-foot-long, 4-foot-high drainage ditch that pops them out onto a mountain of riprap above the sand.

Either way, they had to navigate a pile of boulders to get to the sea.

In winter the summer sand is sucked from the beach, and residents say they have to climb down 12 to 15 feet. In summer, the tide can rise right up to the drainage ditch.

Until the locals built a deck.

Six years ago they built a simple platform with stairs. This past spring they expanded it, adding a sun deck, complete with a barbecue pit, table and umbrella, fishing pole holders, a several-hundred-pound anchor from the Bering Strait and a rock engraved with “La Conchita Landing.” The men who built it are local heroes.

Residents are indignant that the state government, which they say did nothing to help them when their town was engulfed in mud, has the time and energy to tear down their deck.

“There’s a foot and a half of mud in that culvert on my street every time it rains,” said Flora Razo, perched on the deck railing. “And they don’t have time to clean it, but they have time to deal with this?” she asked, gesturing at the deck.

Some, like Randy Stone, who helped erect the platform, are outraged.

“I know damn well no one will give us any money--not the state, the county, the federal government,” he said. “We haven’t gotten a cent, even when we were declared a federal disaster area. This didn’t cost anyone a cent. That they want to tear it down is a travesty!”

Practically everyone loves the deck. But it is the the young, the disabled and the elderly who appreciate it the most. They say they would not otherwise be able to navigate the mountain of boulders to the beach.

Pete Richardson, 71, who has lived in La Conchita since 1929, said the deck allows his wife to wheel him down to the surf on a padded wagon so that he can watch the sunset.

Amy DeFazio, a kindergarten teacher, said the deck means she can bring her classes down the beach for field trips. And Razo said that with the help of the deck her dog, who broke his hip, can get to the sand.

Town events are held on the deck. On Memorial Day weekend, the town held a Deck Appreciation Day. And after deceased resident Alice Ferguson’s ashes were sprinkled over the Pacific, friends held a margarita wake on the deck for the woman “who grew the best tomatoes in town.”

Reid, the Caltrans spokeswoman, said only one complaint has been filed about the deck, but she refused to say who did it.

At least one town resident wants the deck torn down.

“It’s a doggy door, if you ask me,” said Pat Roderick, who lives on the edge of town in a trailer home, past several “No Trespassing” signs.

Roderick wouldn’t say if he filed a complaint with Caltrans. But he said he is environmentally opposed to the deck and dislikes it because it invites crazies cruising down the highway to stop in La Conchita.

“They’re definitely doing the wrong thing having the deck down there,” Roderick said. “Dogs are down there attacking the wild birds.”

Reid said that a Caltrans representative has agreed to meet with La Conchita residents before any action is taken.

That meeting is still unscheduled, but residents hope to hold it on the deck. They fear, however, that they can only hold the state at bay for so long.

“I just worry that some obscure winter morning they are going to come out here with cranes and chain saws and tear it down,” said Randy Stone.