Bulldozing of Sculptures Rocks Beach-Goers

Upsetting beach goers who flocked to gravity-defying rock sculptures at Surfers Point, city employees knocked down most of a homeless man’s stone creations early Tuesday, including a 6-foot-tall Christmas tree decorated with seaweed, strings of colored lights and shiny bulbs.

City officials said the artworks, including a shrine and other minaret-like formations, were possible safety hazards to children and had the sculptures removed with a bulldozer.

But spectators and friends of artist Stuart Finch, who has been constructing the spires and towers for the past couple months, said the demolition was a great loss to the community and that the official explanation for their removal was an insult.

“What a pile of baloney,” said 77-year-old Alice Selzer, who said she walks near the rocks three times a week. “Parents would take their kids to the beach and they would help him make them. What kind of safety hazard is that?”

The Oxnard resident said when she arrived Tuesday morning all that was left on the beach north of the Ventura Pier “were these big bulldozer marks.”

Mike Montoya, parks manager for the city of Ventura, said work crews were removing only the “unsafe portions” of Finch’s work, so the rocks would not fall on children.

He said the city recently received calls from at least two residents concerned about children’s safety. “I think the artist intended them to be temporary anyway. It is an impromptu artwork, not supposed to be a permanent type thing.”

Montoya said the bulldozers clean the beach of debris and trash several times a month and it was only a “coincidence” that the art formations were knocked down in the process.

“If there is a lot of debris we can’t distinguish between structures and the parts of the beach that need to be cleaned up,” he said. “We remove rocks and trash when we groom.”

Councilman Ray Di Guilio said he was saddened by the destruction of the artwork and wondered why it needed to happen.

“Surely we have plenty of hazards in this city, and I don’t see that as a major hazard,” he said. “I can’t say it was unwarranted because I don’t know the details, but the bottom line is it came out of nowhere. We don’t normally micro-manage the city at that level, but I don’t know what motivated this.”

As the orange afternoon sun cast ribbons of light over the beach, there were several smaller balanced rock constructions strewn across the sand, but many of them had been built by spectators Tuesday and did not have the same grace as Finch’s sculptures.

“I was out here last night and it was like a little miniature Stonehenge,” said Nancy Oldenkamp, who had come from Portland, Ore., to visit her family for New Year’s and had seen the rock sculptures while walking on the beach.

“This feels like a violation,” she said, sweeping her hand toward the now-flattened rock Christmas tree that was once 6 feet tall and decorated with lights, bulbs, garlands and wrapped presents.

“We kept saying, ‘It can’t be, it can’t be,’ when we were driving up and we couldn’t see it.”

Oldenkamp said she made a special trip to the beach at sunset with her 77-year-old mother, Rosemary, a Santa Paula resident who was recovering from surgery. “This is a real loss for me, because I wanted to see it,” Rosemary said.

Finch, 37, has been in County Jail since Monday morning on charges of violating probation in an earlier case by allegedly defrauding an innkeeper of $400 and two counts of violating his promises to appear in court on charges of lodging without permission. He was arraigned early Tuesday and bail was set at $3,000. He was unavailable for comment.

His friends--other transients who frequent the beach near Surfers Point--had gathered up the colorful rocks, lights, empty Christmas tins and bulbs that had been scattered across the beach when Finch’s creations were bulldozed about 6:30 a.m.

“I think it’s chicken that [city officials] didn’t tell us so we could have taken the decorations down or even made it smaller to protect the kids,” said Mark Single, a friend of the artist.

Chuck Davis, another of Finch’s buddies, said the biggest loss was to the community. “This made a lot of people happy,” he said. “There were a lot of smiling faces.”

So how will Finch feel when he sees his sculptures have been knocked down by the city?

“He’ll feel happy because now he has a clean slate,” said Davis. “He doesn’t let anything bother him. He’ll just say, ‘We were going to take it down anyway.’ ”