Vetoed Project Might Have Warded Off Seal Beach Flooding

Funds for construction projects to protect beachfront homes from flood damage, like that which occurred here last week, were vetoed two years ago by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Wilson blue-penciled a $285,000 beach-repair project from the 1995-’96 state budget, saying that the project hadn’t been adequately “reviewed or evaluated” and wasn’t part of the administration’s beach-erosion program.

But the move was widely seen as political payback against then-Assembly Speaker Doris Allen (R-Cypress), who had angered Wilson by becoming speaker with Democratic votes.

Allen, who fought for the Seal Beach funding, became the target of a successful recall by the local GOP that Wilson supported.

At the time, the Seal Beach City Council opposed the recall and supported Allen.

Seal Beach City Manager Keith Till said Wednesday that the vetoed project would have repaired a surf wall running alongside the beach, lessening the erosion that has eaten away at the shoreline.

A $1.1-million beach-protection project recently approved--and accelerated in the wake of last week’s storm--calls for transporting 115,000 tons of sand to replace the lost beach.

If the current project had been done two years ago, Till said, it would have protected homes from last week’s storm, which pumped surf across the Seal Way boardwalk and flooded three homes.

He said he couldn’t speculate whether the earlier project would have also prevented the flooding.

Mayor Marilyn Hastings said the city was disappointed when the funding evaporated two years ago, but officials are thankful for the current help.

“There’s no animosity,” she said Wednesday. “We’re a bedroom community and to keep the beach nourished has been a very, very difficult thing for us to achieve. We really need outside help.”

Of the current project’s $1.1-million price tag, $813,000 was included in the 1996-97 state budget by Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), who succeeded Allen in the recall. The city is paying for the rest.

The state Coastal Commission on Monday granted emergency approval for crews to bring sand from Palmdale, because it is much heavier than local or offshore sand and probably will stay put longer, Baugh said this week.

Getting it here represents 80% of the project cost.

Bulldozers will spread the sand and raise the beach about 10 feet above sea level, a project expected to take several months. The project will buttress the formerly straight shoreline, now shaped like a horseshoe by erosion.

Wilson spokesman H.D. Palmer repeated the governor’s veto message after the 1995-96 budget but said he couldn’t address other issues surrounding the veto.

But others, including former Seal Beach Councilman William J. Doane, accused Wilson in 1995 of playing political games with a project needed to protect beach-side houses.

Doane said Wednesday that he still believes the veto was punitive against Allen and that the project should have been funded.

But he said sand erosion is an ongoing problem in Seal Beach and conceded that he couldn’t say whether the project vetoed by Wilson would have prevented last week’s flooding.

Allen, who now lives in Sacramento, said there’s no question why Wilson cut the funding.

“The governor punished my district because I became speaker,” she said Wednesday. “He did it out of spite. He didn’t want me to look good.”